I am looking to buy a used Macbook from anywhere up to $400 or so, what would the best case be? Something for light duty work, browsing the internet, preferably on the lower end of the cost spectrum.
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Best used Macbook to buy?
- Thread starter CarnelianClout
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Yes be careful with Intel MacBooks as they are on their way out. you should look for M1 powered laptops. The M1 MBA is probably the better and cheaper choice
this. Problem solved. Hands down best price-performance mac under 600
At that budget..M1 is not going to happen. You should be able to easily find a 2020 Retina MacBook Air at that price. At less than $400, it's probably the newest vintage machine you'll be able to find, which means you'll have the most years of software and security support. The biggest issue I have with older machines is not being able to run the latest macOS without going the GitHub route and the iOS ecosystem doesn't play that nice when you have a legacy macOS device. Go with the 2020 MacBook Air.
Why? He should just get a 2015 rMBP! They are the best non-Apple-silicon MBPs, and best value, especially with the i7 and 16gb RAM. He can just run OCLP and run Ventura or Monterey on it, and since it is not that old, it should run just fine.
I don't disagree that the 2015 is a good machine. At the same time the OpenCore game isn't for everyone.
Wdym by 'game'? How is it a game? It gets all the latest security updates and is just like MacOS Monterey or Ventura on a supported mac!
OCLP is great, but not everyone on here can or wants to jump through the extra hoops to make it work or deal with the little quirks like patching after updates or random settings not working. For example - I used OCLP on my 6,1 Mac Pro and started having random kernel panics when upscaling to a 5K UltraFine. 95% of the time, no issues, but it got annoying enough that I decided just to go back to Monterey and no issues since. Someone who is looking for an entry level Mac recommendation probably isn't ready to jump into EFI patching.
Well, i know that he is not going to get better bang for buck under 400 in the Macbook world than the 2015 MBP. A 2020 Air is just stupid. He can just run Monterey just fine on it the 2015 MBP. Also, if he is smart, he could just run Linux on it. Will run great and it is a much more lightweight/secure OS. Much more fun and fresh OS IMO as well. Also, Linux is the base of MacOS, so the commands will be similar.
Yes indeed! And upgradeability is a huge advantage over newer MacBooks, and you dont appreciate it until you have to replace something...
Just bought a 12" MacBook 2017, 16gb RAM, 512gb ssd, i5 for $350. Battery is 92%, which is pretty good. Works like a charm and is much easier to carry around than any of the MBA's or MBP's. It's fantastic for doing basic things.
Save a bit more and buy a M1 MBA. The biggest issue outside pre M1 that I see, is the well known risk of the butterfly keyboards: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/07/23/apple-macbook-butterfly-keyboard-settlement/
The keyboard on the 2017 MacBook is pretty good, though it's a butterfly keyboard. It was improved from the earlier versions.