Great experience here. Got a great deal on a Mac mini i7 and it has been a beast.
Update: My MacAir laptop July 2019 model with 16GB Ram and 1TB hard drive arrived on Wednesday. It was late when it got here so I didnāt get to do too much with it until yesterday. Iāve been slowly downloading and installing software. I decided not to migrate anything over from any other machine for this one so itās totally clean. First thing I did was upgrade it to Catalina, it came with Mojave installed.
Initial thoughts: some good, some unexpected & verification of the one I thing I thought Iād hate
I was very surprised that the touch id even works for me. I spin every night (wool) and Iāve worn off my fingerprints. When Iāve needed to be fingerprinted for work itās very difficult and I usually have to send in multiple copies to get good prints on all fingers. It did take a LONG time to get it trained but so far itās working. Some concerns though, what if the finger I trained it on is not available or gets damaged or scarred? I didnāt easily see how to retrain it to another fingerprint. I also couldnāt see how to handle multiple fingerprints but Iāll admit I havenāt explored much. I only set up touch id on things where there is always the option to type in a password.
I knew Iād only have 2 USB-C ports but I didnāt realize how limiting that would actually be in practice when Iām using it on my desk. So now Iām looking for a bluetooth mouse and a USB-C to standard USB hub to handle the other devices. I also need a USB to external display adapter too so I can add my large external monitor.
Screen is nice. Itās my first retina display device.
On the bad side I didnāt expect that there wouldnāt be a keyboard cover available for that machine that shows the Dvorak key caps. Granted I didnāt think to check first but I thought kbcovers would have one since they cover just about every other keyboard. There may be a workaround that will leave some keys unprotected. Iām waiting to hear back from them.
And I have yet again verified that I HATE trackpads! Iāve played with the preferences and they are still a PITA to use and painfully slow and miss gestures etc. Using it also torques my wrist and after even just a few hours trying to work with it I had to borrow a USB-C to USB connector from hubby and plug in my USB mouse. That slowed the conversion down as I have stuff on both of my other machines and I was looking at each one to copy the preferences and other details of the installs once I had the software installed. Moving the mouse from laptop to laptop was too slow. In spite of all the hardware in the house mice are in short supply, at least USB computer mice. Weāve had several wear out lately so weāre down to just enough for our current working computers. On the list is to go to Best Buy or Target and see if we can find a few spare small mice either USB or bluetooth. I actually find good ones at Target in the kids sections. I have tiny hands and most mice are too big for me to work comfortably.
With the refurbished pricing savings I decided to go ahead and get Apple care + given the potential for keyboard issues. This will be the first machine Iāve ever gotten the extended service on.
On the software side I find the nag screen to allow downloads for every single web site tedious to use. I guess itās ok from a security standpoint but I wish I could turn it off and say yes, I know what I want and will allow downloads. I may have missed some preference that would allow that but I sure canāt find it.
So far the only package that will not work at all is my trusty old FTP client, Fetch. I may go ahead and sign up for the beta as there is still some development work going on to support catalina. I rarely need to use Fetch but when I do itās the best thing out there that Iāve found.
The other glitch so far is the Dropbox limits on devices that got implemented a while ago. Initially Iām just not working with Dropbox on this machine until I can decommission my older laptop.
Up today, continuing software installs and testing.
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You may well end up hating it, but most people have taken to them. Iād suggest that you give it a few daysā time of constant use and see if it grows on you. I went from many years of using a top of the line Logitech MX mouse, festooned with buttons and wheels, to a Magic Mouse 2 (albeit placed to the side of my keyboard) and I ended up convert, especially after customized presses/finger-touches with BetterTouchTool. I could not see myself returning to a mouse or other pointing device. Some people donāt get along with it but give it some time.
Anyway, congrats on the new-old machine!
Managed to find a fantastically specād referb MacBook Pro for Ā£1000 less than I was about to spend a brand new 2016 MacBook Pro (at the end of 2016).
Very glad I found it. Had all the ports, and all the reliability.
It was an official Apple referb, but sold online by John Lewis, an up-market chain in UK. But they didnāt have the same level of detail on their website as the Apple site.
It arrived and was a mid-2014 model.
I didnāt mind because it had and i7 with the high-end graphics card, 16GB RAM and 512 SSD.
Allowed me to get into video editing with that extra graphics power, that a 2016 13" may not have done. All for Ā£1000 less!
I recently bought a Macbook Pro 13" from the refurb store. It came quicker, had more memory and SSD and was the same model that I would have received if I had bought new but reduced by $300. It also comes with the same warranty. I did as well with the MacBook Air (2013) that really still worked well. I traded it in (didnāt get a lot, but still) and reduced the cost.
Iāve been happy with every refurb purchase from Apple and from authorized third party shops. Whether to buy refurb just depends on the deviceās capabilities vs. its next best alternative and my need/want. Sometimes the price savings is equivalent to the lost utility from waiting to buy. The quality/reliability has always been fine, though.