My mm has just asked if this macbook is a good deal.

I don’t know much about these, but it seems a bit out of date.

Any feedback I can give to her?

Thanks for any help

It’s a 5/6 year old computer. I wouldn’t imagine she’ll be doing much to stretch it. so it’ll probably run fine. It’s not blazing fast though.

You’ll find that an equivalent pc laptop for £300, will be around twice as fast. But like I say, doesn’t sound like that that’s utterly crucial.

If she wan’t a cheap macbook it’ll probably do the job. But it’s not fast. And I’d shop around, might find it cheaper elsewhere.

plus knowing Apple they’ll stop supporting it soon enough if they haven’t already, so it’ll stop getting os updates most likely in the not too distant future.

It’s a bit out of date. Avoid

A quick Google suggests this model is 2009/2010. Things have moved on. Yosemite is not the latest OS for Mac and I’d be gobsmacked if this model supports the current El Capitan OS. I didn’t click through but even if this is the south side of £500 it’s still not a good deal. To be honest it may work fine but IMHO opinion you’re wasting your money buying 5/6 year old IT.

Thanks both, that’s what I thought. I’ll ask her what she needs it for.

It’s £299

Nope – leave that.

At £100 it may be worth a punt, but at £300 it’s not worth it.

As said above plenty of good PC laptops for that sort of money, and even as a Mac fan I don’t mind windows 10 at all.

I’m sitting typing on one just now – bought second hand a couple of years ago for £300 ish so its a fairly steep price for something that age now -although I’m comparing a private sale to a dealer. (EDIT – just checked back – paid £400 in 2011(!!!) and £240 for one in 2014)

They’re not making it particularly obvious its a 5 year old, second hand computer. This white UNIbody ones are little bit prone to cracking – not seriously enough to effect function but you can be pretty certain theres cracks around the screen hinges and the power socket. The rubber base is known to delaminate – with a bit of persistence apple will supply a free replacement even though strictly speaking the warrantee and recall/replacement scheme have both expired. The didn’t mind replacing mine even though I’m not the original owner. – with those things in mind I’m surprised they’re not making any statements about condition

4gb of memory is going to struggle a bit with current system software (or Yosimite), 8 would be better and you have the potential to put 16 gb in that model.

8-16gb and an SSD in ours (we’ve got two now) and they get on with everything very happily, but in the spec advertised its going to get a bit hot and bothered (with browsing as much as anything else, despite doing 3d work and video editing on mine its some of the ads on STW that cause the machine to labour)

No.

Please avoid as the known fault is no longer coverd by Apple.

The soft underside has a habbit of bubbling/sofening and coming off. Years ago Apple did eventully put there hands up to the problem (long list of flaming threads) but it is no longer coverd now. and the hinges have been known to crack as well. Please avoid.

https://www.apple.com/uk/support/macbook-bottomcase/

Did i mention ‘AVOID’

but it is no longer coverd now.

According that webpage the cover was time limited, but I just felt cheeky and phoned up and was sent one anyway. I’d expect any for sale now that aren’t delaminated have already had the replacement bases and the replacement ones seem to behave just fine

What mrsfry says.

Not worth it. It will run latest OSX but very slowly. Assuming she doesnt need a full computer she’d be much better off with an iPad.

The soft underside is a non-issue imho. You just glue it back on, mine fell off and thats just what I did. We don’t use ours anymore (it was from 2006 and not a Pro) but it actully still works despote being battered through 3 yeats of Uni by my daughter

As others say, I’d avoid. Looks like an A1161- they’re unsatisfyingly slow these days. I had one until recently and sold it (with Snow Leopard, which seemed to suit it quite well.)

FWIW, I paid £300 for my MBP mid-2010 13″. Same CPU (Core2Duo 2.4GHz), but I upgraded the RAM to 8GB and swapped the 250GB mechanical disk for SSD.

More than capable for what I use it for (Docker/Chef development)

Looks like an A1161

no its a A1342 unibody – two generations on from the A1161

no great shakes in standard form but much more upgradeable the previous models