Looking at new computer (mac) & wondering why

[Dano3467]

There are so many refurbished Mac's out there, pages & pages of them, what's up ?

I google why, but found nothing on the subject, just lots & lots of them for sale.

I'm considering a mac, & thinking why ? I should even consider a used one over new, or are they really just junk, because so many are used (refurbished units) out in the market.

I type in New I-Mac but get mostly listings for refurbished/used units.

What say CG's ?

[71MUSTY]

I think they lease units to schools for a year, then refurbish them and sell them. Don't know for sure but that is what I heard.

Great way to create lifetime customers.

[Casual_Shooter]

If you're interested in buying a refurb mac, get it from directly from Apple. Decent savings and warranty. That's all we've bought personally and for business. Never had an issue.

[Futurecollector]

I type this on a fully loaded 27inch I mac.

Mac's hold value like no other. I would imagine, like 71musty said, they are all leased or trade in's. There is more value in re-furbing them and re-selling them than all other brands.

[ExtremeX]

For many years I bought new because I needed more current processor, ssd, and ram for some of my tasks but I would have no problem buying refurb direct from Apple if its enough machine for what you need.

It is nice having current generation hardware... these things have a life cycle for some people so sometimes you end up wanting to change sooner than later when buying previous gen gear. It all depends on your needs, but if CG forum stuff is all you do then I dont think it really matters one way or another.

[Dragunov]

There are so many refurbished Mac's out there, pages & pages of them, what's up ?

I google why, but found nothing on the subject, just lots & lots of them for sale.

I'm considering a mac, & thinking why ? I should even consider a used one over new, or are they really just junk, because so many are used (refurbished units) out in the market.

I type in New I-Mac but get mostly listings for refurbished/used units.

What say CG's ?

They're over priced junk. Many parts are glued, instead of screwed in, or snap in. Apple guards its technical data jealously. You can't find too much on them (as for REALLY technical stuff). They have gotten lazy in support of their users. They DON'T want you working on them! Real BS.

A MacBook Pro (most of them) STILL run on PC3-1333. Good memory, but with i7 3rd gen and up? Not!

You're better off, and will have less trouble with a PC, or a PC-Laptop (Unless you want to spend $7000).

Been working on computers since 1978. Apple II/IIe, LC, etc, were all excellent computers (Albeit, proprietary). Down hill ever since the iMac.

The only competition they had in their niche at the time, was Commodore Business Machines (WAAAY ahead of their time!). Not too long after CBM went belly up, Apple flipped the bird at its users.

Shame.

Want to get a much better computer? Spend about a third of the Ducketts? Get yourself a Lenovo Y410/510p, A used MSI, Asus ROG, or Alienware. These are higher end machines, and the build quality, Especially the Lenovo, and MSI, are superb. They can be had from between $500, and $1000 in decent shape.

Even a used Toshiba Tecra r940 with the Ivy bridge (About $250 on Ebay) would be better, as would a Lenovo W500 series (Around $350).

My apologies to the Mac "fanboys" here.

[Hoop]

Every company sells refurbs. Dell and lenovo sell tons of them.

[Dano3467]

Thank you all for the input.

And thank Dargunov:

You sound like you know something about these, so thank you for you honesty on the matter.

I will look deeper into these units. Lenovo Y410/520p or used ? MSI & Alienware, this last one will probably not be for me, as I don't game, & understand this to be a gamer's dream machine. Nephew has one lol.

[NYT]

macs hold their value because their customer base is largely ignorant of technology. its easier selling hardware to customers who dont have an understanding of the hardware theyre purchasing.

of course there is another side to that coin. some buy mac because of its efficient OS and then runs VMs with VMWare Fusion. i buy macbook pros but i get a new one every other year. i do this because my company pays for it. if it were my money, i would buy a new lenovo x1 carbon and call it a day.

[DaveInOroValley]

Neighbor recently bought a "used"/"reconditioned" Mac Book, it ended up it was a display unit at some store. Was in perfect condition and has been a great performer for her.

[DaveInOroValley]

They're over priced junk. Many parts are glued, instead of screwed in, or snap in. Apple guards its technical data jealously. You can't find too much on them (as for REALLY technical stuff). They have gotten lazy in support of their users. They DON'T want you working on them! Real BS.

A MacBook Pro (most of them) STILL run on PC3-1333. Good memory, but with i7 3rd gen and up? Not!

You're better off, and will have less trouble with a PC, or a PC-Laptop (Unless you want to spend $7000).

Been working on computers since 1978. Apple II/IIe, LC, etc, were all excellent computers (Albeit, proprietary). Down hill ever since the iMac.

The only competition they had in their niche at the time, was Commodore Business Machines (WAAAY ahead of their time!). Not too long after CBM went belly up, Apple flipped the bird at its users.

Shame.

Want to get a much better computer? Spend about a third of the Ducketts? Get yourself a Lenovo Y410/510p, A used MSI, Asus ROG, or Alienware. These are higher end machines, and the build quality, Especially the Lenovo, and MSI, are superb. They can be had from between $500, and $1000 in decent shape.

Even a used Toshiba Tecra r940 with the Ivy bridge (About $250 on Ebay) would be better, as would a Lenovo W500 series (Around $350).

That's interesting since reliability has been constantly the highest out of any other manufacturer for years. Worked for them for 11 years and have seen many systems run long term with no issues.

The Mac Mini as just one example had less the a 1% failure rate over it's lifetime by the way. I still have a 9 year old portable that works perfectly to this day as well.

[ocabj]

I still prefer Macs for regular use because of Mac OS. OS 10.1 is why I jumped over and stayed.

I will admit that I am looking to build a Windows PC specifically for 4K video editing. It is simply cheaper to optimize for this type of use vs Apple hardware.

If I didn't use Adobe LR+PS and Premiere, I would simply use commodity hardware and run CentOS.

[Flyliner]

"...and will have less trouble with a PC..."

LOL

[therealnickb]

Thank you all for the input.

And thank Dargunov:

You sound like you know something about these, so thank you for you honesty on the matter.

I will look deeper into these units. Lenovo Y410/520p or used ? MSI & Alienware, this last one will probably not be for me, as I don't game, & understand this to be a gamer's dream machine. Nephew has one lol.

As I type this on an original iPad....... I wonder why there is always so much hate for apple.

But first to your op. I suspect a very large percentage of the "refurbished" units had nothing wrong with them. They just got scrubbed.

Second, our household has enjoyed 3 iPads, 3 iMacs, 1 mini Mac, 1 air book, 1 Mac book and at least 5 iPhones.

Only 2 of those units actually died. My son used to take his Mac book camping and events like burning man. I'm sure it was full of dirt and abused when it quit. One iPhone quit charging because my wife used to play music while showering. The charging port corroded from being in a steam filled environment every day.

Every other unit we have still works 100% with one exception. The 2005ish iMac has some streaking in the monitor.

Funny because all the pcs (which have been many at my office) I've owned worked fine too. Very few actual failures.

Maybe some people just beat their machines?

[stilly]

There are so many refurbished Mac's out there, pages & pages of them, what's up ?

I google why, but found nothing on the subject, just lots & lots of them for sale.

I'm considering a mac, & thinking why ? I should even consider a used one over new, or are they really just junk, because so many are used (refurbished units) out in the market.

I type in New I-Mac but get mostly listings for refurbished/used units.

What say CG's ?

The answer lies within my joke that I made a long time ago about MACs.

Q: How do you upgrade a MAC?
A: Buy a new one.

The same tends to follow MAC vs PC people. Now that I think about it though, It might not be because PC are more technical. Let me explain.

MAC people are thought (by PC people) to be simpletons. Hippies with no brains and always borrowing money or poor. They have ONE good thing in their house and it is their MAC which they mostly rave about to everyone. Until they need to upgrade or or do something technical or troubleshoot.

How do you troubleshoot a MAC as a MAC user? It seems that MANY folks take their MACs to certain places called GENIUS Bars where (self proclaimed/appointed) "geniuses" work and the "geniuses" will magically fix the MAC. For some MACS, well, many MACS actually, there was no upgrade available. Once you buy it- that is IT done. You can not upgrade them. But many/ MOST PCs are upgradable in more ways than one.

SO, the average MAC user has probably gotten into the habit of buying a MAC for $2k+ and then turning around and selling it or dumping it off because it needed more RAM or the graphics card went out or the PSU needed replacing or took a hit.

Meanwhile, many technical MAC users probably have the know-how to take apart a MAC, upgrade/replace parts and resell it for a few dollars more.

Personally speaking, most everyone in my circle is a PC user and they all know how to take apart their computers and upgrade them and replace parts. It is just PC 101. Things WILL break/ wear out/ need to be upgraded, so you need to learn how to fix it.

But even for a busted computer, when we take them to a computer store, it is not called a GENIUS BAR and it is not staffed with self proclaimed Geniuses. They are tech support guys. Some folks call them Geeks or Nerds. I find those terms derogatory and usually tend to ignore people that talk about PC people like that. Pet Peeve...

Now for PCs, you can most ALWAYS replace the parts and they are most ALWAYS serviceable by the users. I say MOST always because sometimes Dell or HP or E-Machines sell models for super cheap ($300 or less) at some stores and those are not usually able to be upgraded, well, they CAN be upgraded, but it is like upgrading a LAP TOP. Most laptops are NOT meant to be upgraded.

BUT, you can go to just about ANY place that sells computer equipment and you can build your own computer (PC) from scratch. You can NOT do that with a MAC. That is the MAIN factor right there. Because of that, most PCs can be serviced with only a screw driver and a set of hands.

Bottom line is that you will not typically find WHOLE PCs for sale because they are not for sale because they have been upgraded, but what you WILL find is their parts after being used.

Does that make sense?

I do not mean to sound biased, but I am heavily biased. I HATE the MAC mentality and I wish many people with MACs would just shut up about not being able to get a virus and all of the other BS they like to spout off. It is WRONG and they CAN catch a virus or malware, but since they have a computer that only owns like 5%-15% of the market, nobody really cares to mess with them. Except the kind folks that released that Adobe Flash virus onto a lot of MAC users. LoL...

But with a PC, if you catch a virus, it just takes a few gyrations to break the cycle and stomp it out of existence- USUALLY.

I grew up and my friend was given a MAC and his step-dad that gave him that MAC had performed his own Memory upgrade on it. It had 24MB of RAM installed and it had the hard shell on top CUT OFF with a Dremel because it was NOT meant to be upgraded. But his step dad was a classified engineer at General Dynamics of Lockheed so he cut it off and performed his own RAM upgrade. I hated that computer too. I told him he needed to get a (okay folks, get ready for a blast from the past here...) 14.4 modem so he could connect to the Chicken Ranch Adult BBS in Fontana so we could play Tradewars 2002 (MBBS Version). My modem only cost about $24.00 but HIS had to be External (cause you could not upgrade it with an internal modem) modem and it was $76 from the same store.

And that is why I hate MACS. His goddamn MAC kept him from getting online and playing games with me. You should not do that to friends.

Now, I DO realize that there are more Technical PC people because there are WAY more PCs sold, so naturally there will be more, but I am standing by my statements. It is not my fault that MAC has made a product that does not play well with others.

Anyways, what was the question again? Oh yeah. I have built MANY computers, and I have worked on MANY computers, but even after all that I have done, I do NOT have the arrogance to consider myself a genius of any sort. AND, if you have a G2 MAC with a bootup password that will NOT let you boot up, all you need to do is take out a stick of RAM or change the RAM configuration and turn it back on to bypass the boot-up password... You can NOT do that on a PC. ****ing STUPIDEST geniuses I ever saw... What an ingenious design... Idiots.

In regards to MACs holding their value, well, I kinds disagree, I think though that when you drop $4k for a complete computer setup, you tend to hold on to it for a long time. I have an iMAC from 2000 sitting in a box. It came with EVERYTHING, printer, drawing tablet, mouse, speakers, keyboard, you name it, and it looks REALLY neato. It is like a Dalek in that it is small and round with an arm sticking out of the top that is connected to the monitor. I REALLY wish I could upgrade it, but I do not know that I care to attempt that. I saw the receipt though, $4k+ they spent on it in 2000 or so. I think the printout was even dot matrix. So anyways, they did not have a PC. I sure as **** would NOT pay more than hmm, well, I did not pay for it but I was going to sell it on ebay at this point. The only thing left is the clear mouse, clear keyboard, monitor and body. Everything else was old and was tossed. The computer works fine though. Yeah, PCs from 2000 still working? Prolly not, but my dad has a MMX 133 computer he still fires up from time to time.

So anyways.