Best price on Mac laptops?

"iSureWilll" (isurewilll)
12/29/2015 at 16:30 • Filed to: None

Where is the best place to get the lowest price on new Mac laptops? Specifically the model below. Not looking for a refurb or used - just new. E30 M3 for your time.

EDIT:Not an e30 M3. It is an e30 Mtech 1.

MD101LL/A

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/8718…

DISCUSSION (30)

Tripper > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 16:35

That is probably close to if not the best price you will find. In my experience, I have not seen too many deals on mac computers. Sometimes best buy will have them for 50-100 less than list. I order a lot of stuff from B&H their prices are pretty good.

Just got a macbook 12 for Christmas and I love it!

Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 16:37

b&h or best buy...and theyll probably only save you change. If you have a MicroCenter by you, try there

Tripper > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 16:40

Just noticed that one you linked to is a refurb, or at least I’m pretty sure that it is as its a 2012 model

Rico > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 16:43

Don’t buy a Macbook Pro from 2012.

Tripper > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras
12/29/2015 at 16:43

+1 Microcenter is the jam

iSureWilll > Rico
12/29/2015 at 16:45

Can you elaborate please? Just a “Don’t buy that” isn’t very helpful.

iSureWilll > Tripper
12/29/2015 at 16:47

Its a 2012 model. Its only going to be used for my girlfriend’s college “homework”. Word processing, printing papers, web browsing. Things like that. She won’t be doing any photoship, video editing, gaming, etc. Surely a 3 year old laptop can handle some Netflix and writing papers for school.

Conan > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 16:49

I don’t know if they still do wholesale prices but back in the 90s/early 2000s the best move was to find somebody who worked for them. A LOT of markup.

Tripper > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 16:55

Gotcha, from your OP I thought that you were only looking for new ones.

A macbook from this era is not a bad way to go. You can still upgrade the memory/hard drive in the older macs. (if you want)

I’ve got a MacMini from 2012. I’ve since added a solid state hard drive and 16gb of RAM. It’s every bit as fast as the macbook that I just received, but everything on this one is soldiered in.

iSureWilll > Conan
12/29/2015 at 17:05

I got an RFQ into B&H since my company has ordered from them before for resale. I'll see what they come back with.

iSureWilll > Tripper
12/29/2015 at 17:06

This one has a 500gb drive. Solid state would be nice though. I'll do some research on failure rates of the Mac hard drives before we buy.

TylerJ > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 17:18

cowboom.com

Best Buy owns it and uses it to sell returned/unsold/whatever products.

Rico > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 17:19

There’s no point in getting a MBP of that vintage when a similarly priced Macbook Air would be better specced with a better Processor, better battery, faster SSD, and lighter.

Also I know you might have some stigma about refurbished stuff but Apple Refurbished are GREAT. I’ve owned 2 items from Apple’s refurbished section and they are both going strong until this day years later. You get the same warranty a brand new machine gets and the machine you get won’t have a single scratch on it. And it’s still eligible for Apple Care extended warranty.

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/F…

This is a great machine on their site: $1,099 gets you 13.3-inch MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Intel i5 with Retina Display and 8 GB of RAM. Get this, it’s a great deal and you get a super high res screen. I own this machine but from January 2014 and with 256GB SSD and it’s been rock solid.

Nibby > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 17:21

ugh fuck those 13” macbooks... they’re old, heavy, slow and have tiny screen resolutions.

Rico > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 17:22

If you are spending that money I promise a new Macbook Air would be a better buy. As you know in the tech world 1 year is like 5 years, a newer Macbook Air would have a longer battery life, better processor and weigh much much less with the help of the SSD. It’s a better buy I promise and it’ll last forever.

Rico > Tripper
12/29/2015 at 17:24

But the limitation on those old macs are the presence of the now obsolete disc drive and the old motherboard/GPU set up. A new 13” Macbook Air can be had for the same price and be more than twice as capable with a longer battery life and SSD built in already.

Also those old Macbook can’t even be upgraded to newer OS updates like Mavericks or Yosemite, they don’t update them anymore and any SSD installed won’t support TRIM at the OS Level and end up costing as much as just getting the MBA from jump.

Rico > Nibby
12/29/2015 at 17:27

The worst of that era. That 1280x720 res UGH and slow ass HDDs.

bryan40oop > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 17:28

PC laptops. Macs are overpriced dudebro!

Tripper > iSureWilll
12/29/2015 at 17:28

More space is nice, but booting in under 10 seconds is also nice. 256 gb SSD’s can be had for around $80. That should be more than enough unless your carrying over some big files from another PC.

The one downside to SSD’s is that if they fail, they are almost always completely shot. Whereas a conventional hard drive generally fails slowly (your PC may not boot, but all of the files will be recoverable.)

If you keep your important stuff in a cloud backed folder (google drive, dropbox, etc) its not an issue.

Either way, if you buy it and decide you need more muscle, you can add more than you would ever need for less than $200.

Tripper > Rico
12/29/2015 at 17:37

You’re right about the Air for sure.

You can run the new operating systems though. I’ve got one of the same vintage running El Capitan w no problem. I think it’s another year or two older where your stuck.

Also to your point about how quickly technology changes, that is doubly true for apple products. I’ve got a Thinkpad from 2006 that runs win 10 like a champ. I’ve got a G3 iBook from the same era that runs nothing lol.

So if you’re reading this OP, you’re probably better off going with a brand new Macbook Air, at least at the $900-1000 price point.

Rico > Tripper
12/29/2015 at 17:45

I thought I read somewhere about the updating being limited on certain Macs but I just looked it up, you can update them from 2008 on but anything with 4GB of Ram or less will have issues with sluggish performance.

Nibby > Rico
12/29/2015 at 18:15

Fuck 5400RPM drives

Tripper > Rico
12/29/2015 at 18:30

Gotcha, I was thinking that it was only the pre-Intel macs that could not be updated. Either way, for the money your suggestion on the mac book Air is the way to go.

Rico > Tripper
12/29/2015 at 18:45

How’s the 12” treating you? What did you upgrade from?

Tripper > Rico
12/29/2015 at 19:18

I love it, the keyboard is great, as is the “force touch” trackpad. I really hate using trackpads as a rule, but I like this on so much that I’ve paired the MagicMouse that I received with the MacBook, to my MacMini instead. Other than that it’s super quick.

I’ve read a lot of complaints about the keyboard on the 12, as the keys don’t travel very far up and down but it works great for me.

I upgraded from not having my own laptop since my G3 iBook took a poop circa 2005. I work in IT, so I’ve always had a work laptop. I had been wanting a MacBook for a while, but my current employer lets me spend a lot on laptops for our people, so mine is pretty nice.(Latitude 14 - 7450, quad core i7, 16gb RAM, ssd). It’s a small form factor too, but not nearly as small as the MacBook. Anyway because of that, I had been holding off buying one for myself.

Rico > Tripper
12/29/2015 at 19:37

I’ve got a 13” MacBook Pro Retina from 2014, my first actual laptop and it’s been great all around. Super quick and battery life is amazing. I’ll probably sell this one at the end of next year and get whatever drops in 2017, these things hold their value surprisingly well.

I haven't had the chance to try the force touchpad I've got to make my way over to an Apple Store and test it out. I've got force touch on my 6S and it works well once you remember to use it.

Tripper > Rico
12/29/2015 at 20:10

Yea when I saw the price on the OP’s link, I thought “Damn, 3 years old and it will still fetch $1k.”

I didn’t know about force touch on the 6s, just got one of those as well. I held down an app to delete it today and I thought it looked weird when it made the transition to to the shaking icons. That must be why

iSureWilll > Rico
12/30/2015 at 22:24

Thanks for the info! Just ordered the MBP in your link. Seems like a good deal. Supposed to arrive Tuesday next week!

Rico > iSureWilll
12/31/2015 at 00:14

Nice man, seriously it's a really good deal. I have one and it's been beyond solid. She's going to be thrilled for sure. External HDDs are super cheap if you have any concerns later on about space. I offload my entire photo library monthly to an external HDD.

iSureWilll > Rico
12/31/2015 at 00:21

We are probably going to end up getting an external DVD drive too since this laptop doesn’t have one.