Need advice for first time Mac purchase

Question

Need advice for first time Mac purchase

Hey guys!

So I'm purchasing my first Mac tomorrow. I'm buying a late 2013 Macbook Pro Retina with,

2.3 GHZ i7 4850HQ

512GB PCI-E Storage

16GB DDR3L

Intel Iris Pro 5200

Nvidia GT 750M 2GB

Seems like a good laptop to me. As for the price, I'm doing a trade. Trading a PS2, PS3, PS4, XBOX, XBOX 360 & XBOX ONE along with all games and accessories. No longer a gamer and am happy to get them out of my house.

It looks good to me and I have a lot of experience with Windows based PC's but have never used a Mac (except for one or two rare occasions) so I'm mainly curious if there's anything inparticular I should check on this laptop before doing the trade. Like I'm pretty sure it's near impossible to sell a fake Macbook, but if there's any red flags with Macbooks that I may be unaware of, let me know. 🙂

Only have these two photos.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Aug 2, 2016 9:51 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 3, 2016 12:00 AM in response to Guitar_RockHer

Here is a good list you should go through: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/tips-and-checks-for-buying-a-used-macbook/

One of the key issues would be checking if firmware password is set. If it is set you will need it to start your Mac from another drive (like bootable USB) or from Recovery mode. Basically if the password is set and you don't know it, Mac isn't yours.

More on the issue: Use a firmware password on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,058 points

Aug 3, 2016 12:51 AM in response to Guitar_RockHer

A few other items that the original owner should do, that may affect your ownership

are covered to some extent in this Support article...

• What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support

And the item mentioned about a firmware password that locks the computer is very

important because that is not an item in the hard drive, it won't go away unless the

owner removes it correctly. Also the computer should be re-set to the original OS X

it shipped with. {That could involve the original owner using OS X Recovery to erase

and reinstall the original OS X the unit shipped with; then quitting it early.} The next

person who starts it up, should be able to personalize it as a new owner.

• How to reinstall OS X - Apple Support

There should be no vestige of previous owner or any association with another's AppleID.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

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