Members jorhay1 Posted August 31, 2017 Members Share Posted August 31, 2017 Should I be concerned about glued in drives, irreplaceable RAM, and buy a refurbed 2010 to 2012 Mac Book Pro instead?Any reason to not buy a new one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I've got a late 2011 MBP with a 2.2 GHz quad-core i7 - it is the last model before they started soldering everything in. I bought this as a certified refurb from Apple just as the new soldered-component models were being released. It came with 4GB, but it's now running 16GB of RAM. I pulled the optical drive out and put it into an external USB case, pulled the HDD out and put a SSD in its place, and installed the HDD in a new caddy and installed that where the optical drive used to be. I've had a couple of problems with it over the years (which Apple took care of - their refurbs come with their full warranty and qualify for Apple Care if you want it) but by and large, it's been a good machine... and it's still pretty darn capable. I'd definitely consider buying a refurbished computer from Apple again... although with the updates I've done to this one, I'd be less inclined to look favorably on a computer with soldered-in components. If you get one of those, I'd definitely make sure it's maxed out with RAM and that it has the biggest drives they offer, because there will be no upgrading it later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 31, 2017 CMS Author Share Posted August 31, 2017 Should I be concerned about glued in drives, irreplaceable RAM, Any reason to not buy a new one? Those are good reasons not to buy one. But you might want to get the newest one you can with replaceable parts rather than one that's 5-7 years old. I've been looking for a new smart phone and am finding more with non-replaceable batteries and some with no slot for a memory card. GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I've been looking for a new smart phone and am finding more with non-replaceable batteries and some with no slot for a memory card. GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! That's really frustrating. Why they'd make a phone and not make the battery replaceable is beyond me. Actually, it isn't - they're doing it so you have to get a new phone in a couple of years when the battery dies. And that alone is reason for me to look for something else instead. I replaced the battery in my iPhone 5 a few months ago... which beats the heck out of having to pay $600+ for a new phone. Sure the new phone would be newer and faster, but this one still runs the current iOS and most apps and with the new battery, it still works fine, so I really see no reason not to wring a couple more years of service out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 Did you do it yourself? And how much did it cost? Yes, I did. I bought a kit from Amazon with the new battery and various tools - it was about $20-25 for the whole thing, and the job itself was pretty easy to do - the instructions were actually pretty clear and easy to understand, and there are videos online showing you how to do it too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 31, 2017 CMS Author Share Posted August 31, 2017 (iPhone battery replacement) Yes, I did. I bought a kit from Amazon with the new battery and various tools - it was about $20-25 for the whole thing, and the job itself was pretty easy to do - the instructions were actually pretty clear and easy to understand, and there are videos online showing you how to do it too. I looked at one of those kits for my Samsung Tab 10.1 tablet. It wasn't too expensive, and I'm sure I could follow the instructions if I put my mind to it. But since I only use that tablet now to check e-mail before I get out of bed or, on rare occasions, out in the field where I have power, I just plug it into the charger about every other day and it keeps going. And, yes, I'm sure the life of the battery is approximately the life of the operating system on the phone, so they want to encourage you to buy a new phone every couple of years and leave the battery and dealing with an obsolete OS that won't get updated to the refurbishers. Life of the operating system is a serious consideration with phones. I'm still running computers with WinXP and other than web browsing, everything that used to work on it still works. And the only problem with web browsing is that they want you to upgrade the OS, so when they see you're using an old version (or an old version of the web browser) they'll just refuse to load the site contents even though most of it will work just fine. I guess they assume that everyone wants to watch high resolution video and text-based forums like this are passé. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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