Worth buying used 2009 13" MacBook Pro?

Maybe by this time you aleady made a decision, just want to add that I have a MacBook Pro 17" from 2006. Running Snow Leopard, and still happy with it.

Hello, For $400 seems like a good buy to me, what have you got to lose. Buy it and see how it works for you. If you don't like it then sell it.If you do sell it, then conatct your friend first and tell them about why you are thinking of selling it. A friend who offers you a great deal, might not be your friend anymore if they think you are pulling a fast one.

No, that machine is likely worth more like $700, something is wrong with it.

Laptops don't last all that long, 4 maybe five years tops. They get all dust inside. the 13" is weaker machine.

2009, that's over 3 years, and then your going to add a expensive SSD, 16GB and Lion? just for another year of use? Why are they selling it so cheap? Why are they selling it?

You only have SATA 2, can't use all of that SSD.

IMO if your in the $400-$800 market, get a cheap PC Win 7 laptop, you'll get a warranty too.

Win 7 will last 10 years, you make System Restore disks right away and you can restore your machine yourself.

With Apple 10.8 is coming out, then more and more and it just add's up being in the elite club.

Really no longterm value with Apple gear anymore, especially laptops.

If you really want to strach your buck, a Windows 7 64 tower, you can upgrade all the parts.

My friend made a XP machine last 10 years for $1200 and six packs of beer for geeks to install the OS again. 🙂

What are you using now?

More then likely a Windows PC, whether notebook or desktop.

Honestly there is nothing special about any Mac computer. It is a computer just like any other. I use both types of systems so I have a semi unbiased opinion ( I am a long time Windows user).

The only thing Macs had going for them was there supposed immunity to viruses and malware. Which has now ended and will get worse in the future.

As far as the quality of the overall computer. From reading this and many other Mac forums they are no more or less reliable then any good Windows PC. Both are subject to hardware and software problems. But they cost a lot more money, for the exact same hardware.

The model your friend is selling wasn't a bad computer when it was new, 3 years ago, but now it is 3 years old. It is on the bottom of the list of Macs that can run Lion and more then likely will not be able to run Mountain Lion, the new OS X version coming out something later this year.

Not sure if that system can have 16GBs of RAM installed, I don't thing it can (8GBs tops). In any event 16GBs is way more expensive then 8GBs. 8GBs about $50, 16GBs about $200+.

With a 3 year old notebook computer anything can go wrong with it at any time and with an Apple Mac since there is no more warranty on it they are expensive to fix.

If you really need a notebook computer then I suggest you add about $600 to your current budget and look at getting a Win PC notebook. At least with a New computer, Apple or other, you will have at least the basic original included warranty with it.

If this was just to fool around with and get use to OS X as an OS then I think it's not a bad price. But for a working computer, used for actual work related tasks, you would be better off buying new.

This MBP is totally inappropriate for what you want to do. When you say you want to increase RAM to 16 GB (which this MBP will not accept) and add a SSD (an expensive storage medium), you are in effect trying to make a Corvette out of an Impala chassis. If this is to be used for vocational purposes, the 17" MBP option that you mention is the correct one.

Ciao.

Heck, I'd buy it for $400 then turn around & slap it on eBay for a "Buy it Now" price of $675 plus shipping 😎.

You're getting some bad advice here. There's nothing wrong with buying a 2009 machine, and as has been pointed out that's a good deal. Macs are not "time-limited" as ds store would seem to suggest. I've never had a Mac laptop wear out. I've still got a 10 year old PowerBook G3 in perfect working order in a cabinet, and an 8 year old PowerBook G4 in frequent use. Contrast this with every single Windows machine, from a variety of manufacturers, that my wife's small business has purchased... they have all, every single one of them, become unusable within 3-5 years. Perhaps it is possible for a Windows expert to purchase just the right hardware and fine-tune the system just right to keep it going longer, but a Mac requires no expertise to keep it running for a very, very long time.

The only question in my mind is, would the machine do what you need it to? That depends on what kind of web development you do. If you're heavily into the graphic design end of things, and need to run the current versions of demanding graphic design apps, it may not be. The graphics capabilities of the 13" are nowhere near the power of the 15" or 17" machines of the same generation. However, if you work more on the coding end of things, there's nothing particularly demanding about that. The only thing that might cause you a problem there is the 13" screen... there's nothing quite so nice as being able to have three different pages of code shown side-by-side on a nice big 17" screen! 🙂 And, of course, if the only thing you would need a mobile machine for is checking e-mail and previewing web sites for clients, it would be more than adequate as-is.

I have a 15 inch Macbook Pro and it needed a software repair and i was in the middle of a court case and didn't know that's all it needed and bought the macbook air to get me through the case...come to find out the macbook pro only needed a software repair 😟 Now i'm going to sell my macbook pro and don't know what i should sell it for? Here are the specs:

15.4"

2.4 GH2 Core i5

2 x2G Ram

320GB-5400 RPM

Glossy Display

Lion OSX

Ilife

Iphoto

garage band

imovie

Thanks for your answer. Very helpful!

Thanks maclife 74 for your thoughtful post.

Here’s my question, if you see this and have time to answer.

I have a 2009 13inch macbook pro.

A couple of years ago coffee was spilled on the machine. It appeared to be dead.

I did not want to spend $700 at the mac store to repair it.

So I had nothing to lose, following fixit instructions and opened the case and cleaned the top surface of the logic board with Q tip and alcohol.

This bright it back to life. (I have not yet gone back to remove the logic board to clean the other side.)

I have some whirling ball issues.

Do you think it is worth it to replace the hard drive with a SSD Samsung EVO 256GB? Should the back of the logic board be cleaned first?

Thanks.

Any liquid will usually corrode electronic parts - some more and quicker than others and do not mix well. Cleaning it two years later is most likely not going to help. Depending on which OS version you are running, you may not have enough RAM installed. That would help the spinning beachball issue.

Thanks, babowa!

the 13 inch 2009 macbook pro has 2GB ram.

The HD has 119 0f 159 GB free if that is relevant.

When I cleaned the top of the logic board - I wiped away the stained areas and that worked very well to make the computer workable.

What OS version? If it's Lion or later, a minimum of 4 GB is recommended, more is better.