expiredDr.W posted Aug 27, 2025 04:54 PM
Item 1 of 3
Item 1 of 3
expiredDr.W posted Aug 27, 2025 04:54 PM
Refurbished: 13" Apple MacBook Air: M1 Chip, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
+ Free Shipping$499
$1,599
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For many use case scenarios you won't be able to tell the difference between an M1, M2, M3 or M4. My M1 still feels very fast and I also have a few M2 and M4 Macs/Macbooks... Skipped M3. All have 16gb or more of RAM which is my most utilized resource. Again, I'm typically not doing a lot of tasks that require more/faster CPU cores.
For storage, the M1/M2/M3/M4 support Thunderbolt (40Gb/s) and with a good drive/enclosure they are excellent and viable options for adding storage. I have 4tb external NVME drives for my 3 Mx Macbooks and have had no issues other than the slight inconvenience of a drive hanging off the laptops. I have unobtrusive velcro attachments and short Thunderbolt cables and it's not all that cumbersome though... just a bit of an eyesore.
I've found that gen3/PCIe 3.0 NVME DRAMless drives run cooler than those with DRAM and gen3 NVME drives in general generate less heat than gen4/PCIe 4.0 drives. Given the 40Gb/s theoretical max for both the TB3 and TB4 there's no point in getting gen4 NVME drives anyhow.
Was thinking about switching my windows laptop to MacBook for use with Serato DJ pro. Wonder if this is future proof enough.
My guess is this tech will be good for another four years at the very least. Most heavy apps can be ran in the cloud which would further extend its lifetime. Battery might need to be replaced first.
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Good for a beginning college kid for basic use? Anyone have experience with the eBay seller?
The M1 is a good chip for basic uses, yes. However, based on what I have seen with other deals, you can pick up a brand new macbook air for around $600 with 16GB ram and 256GB SSD. It won't have 1TB of storage, but the new mac's will have better resale value and will update for many more years as this model is already 5 years old. According to your post as far as usage for a college student, it will be enough, but a college student also shouldn't need 1TB of storage. A new laptop for $100 more will last a lot longer is a better value overall
Battery, on the other hand, who knows.. depending on how heavy a use this has seen, battery may die before you start feeling how slow this is.
A brand new M4 air would be $300 more with less storage. If the storage isn't enough you would need to use a an external storage, or a home-based NAS or cloud (which you may already have, if you have office 365, etc). But that would be additional cost.
Brand new M3 Air would probably be $150-200 more. Same story with storage.
Your reference to the M1 outperforming old units like the intel Macs is irrelevant. Of course the M1 is a better laptop than an Intel Mac, it's newer. I'm not saying the M1 Macbook Air isn't capable of doing what they need it to do, I'm saying they can receive a better value for their dollar by going with something newer and that will last a lot longer as this unit is already 5 years old and used.
The previous generations are not much cheaper in used conditions for the 16GB Memory versions( memory is the important thing for you at the moment). Not sure what your kid is going to study but most software needs a lot of memory to operate and the older MacBooks base models come with only 8GB RAM. "Basic" college needs may include some specific software tool for an assignment that may not work or work properly on 8GB models.
Besides that, batteries tend to deteriorate after 2-3 years, so you'll be better off with a new laptop.
If the money is a really serious constraint, this deal is OK but you should know that 8GB memory is very outdated.
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Another ebay sellers Tek Deals sells 100% New Refurbished macbooks at no extra. I purchase macbook from them.
Tek Deals also sells 80% refurb used macbooks at same price for new refurb.
I personally Im only comfortable with buying new refurbished and new for over $500. Used refurb is extremely riskly after a yr if parts and repairs are expensive (macbook parts are expensive, a pain to fix)
$200 used Dell refurb with cheap parts and easy repairs is fine.
Be very careful with refurbished laptop. Desktop reburb is less concerning.
Buy new refurbished eBay, or costco new for $500 mac windows
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