Buying a Refurb Macbook Pro vs. Student Discount New

I read online that refurbished Macbooks are as good as new, and sometimes you get upgraded parts to the mac, like an extra gig of ram or more HDD space.

Now, I've been wanting a 13.3 inch Macbook Pro for a while now, and I had a few questions.

For everyday use, is the lower end or higher end 13.3 inch Pro worth it? As in, word documents, internet, and other software for school?

Student Dsicount new: $1099
Refurb: $999

What is the difference between the two? Is it worth getting the refurb? Will battery life be affected?

 

I think refurb=new for all intensive purposes.
Returned laptops cannot be sold as new in a lot of places so that is why the price is better.

One thing would be that you could get a free ipod during promotions with student discount

 

Yeah, but I think they only offer that when the semester just starts. I think Spring of next year they will have that promotion again.

if refurb is like new, nothing CON about it, I might go for refurb. The one thing that is holding me back from a Mac, is that I've never owned a Mac before. Different OS, etc. It will feel like a new language to me. haha. My desktop at home is fine, but a laptop for college will make my life much easier

 

unfortunately, they only offer it when the school year starts (not the semesters). it's been a once a year thing for a long time.

you can get the same model for $100 less refurbished. it is basically new, but the packaging is not as nice. do you prefer $100 or a nicer unboxing experience? totally your call.

 

They do it right before the new iPod refresh for a reason. Out with the old, in with the new. They had to figure out a way to get rid of them.

 

Do you guys recommend the Macbook?

I'm going into IT, and I know a PC is a smarter idea for my major, but since I can dual boot XP or Vista, will it affect performance?

 

i for one just ordered my very first macbook pro base version refurbished (might upgrade the RAM myself after some time).
Hope i will be happy as certainly at this point the Mac is more of a luxury than a need.

 

No, Boot Camp doesn't have OS X running above it. It is like using Windows on a PC. There are no limitations.

Have you ever dual or tri-booted a PC before? It's just like that.

Macs don't have radically different hardware components; they are generally the same with the exception of EFI.

 

The Macbook Pro is a GREAT laptop.

 

One thing to consider if you do go down the Educational discount route is that you also get the opportunity to purchase AppleCare for a heavily discounted price. And without going into too much detail, from personal experience, I'd never buy a MacBook without AppleCare.