To make a long story short, I bought 3 2010 MacBooks for the kids as presents for the upcoming holiday (Christmas for us). It was the hardest thing to date so far.
Okay, maybe that wasn't much of a description, so I'll elaborate.
I've worked in the fire protection industry for almost a decade, up until last year just before thanksgiving when my employer took on a new co-owner. At this point, everyone either quit from stress or, those of us that hung on, were fired for something. Me, I was fired for... no reason given. I'm getting off track, so I digress.
Since then I had bad luck trying to find a decent job in the fire protection industry, I even worked for a company known to be a hack locally by others in the industry. I couldn't believe what they were doing to customers, who were mostly state contracts. Things like charging for hydrostatic tests, but not even doing them. It gets much worse, but whatever, I'm off topic again.
Basically, after their busy season, they told me to either quit or work in the shop part time. I have no problem getting my hands dirty, but I didn't spend almost a decade in the industry to end up where I started from, so I eventually left and I now work in manufacturing. I hold a certificate from a trade school... from like way long ago. I was able to find a small shop willing to take on the task of re-teaching me while I help them with growing their business, organizing their shop, and just other odds and ends.
So, we end up here, just before the holidays. I am working part time, and even though I am putting in some decent hours, I obviously don't have a ton of cash, so I wanted to do something nice for the three kids this Christmas. We decided we would get a computer each for them, so my girlfriend hops on the web and starts searching for deals on Chromebooks or similar computers.
After some searching, she comes up with a few decent Chromebooks, but nothing to write home about. I told her we are looking at this the wrong way. I said Chromebooks are okay, but storage in minimal, specs are... sometimes dismal. I said for the same price we could grab some older MacBooks and they can have a full fledged computer, still with cloud storage. I hop on the eBay, and purchase 3 mid 2010 unibody MacBooks. The idea is that I'll receive these in go through them, clean them, apply new TIM, upgrade the ram, and replace the HDD with an SSD. The first 3 came in, and I got one 2010, and the 2 others were 2009's with the 9400m GPU. I happen to know that this GPU, even though it is a solid GPU, it's still not good enough for these kids as Roblox can't be played on it well. The 320m in the 2010 is quite a jump in performance on these machines and plays Roblox pretty smoothly, there is also a slightly faster CPU which will help a little given the age, and the RAM can be upgraded to 16gb rather than the 8gb cap on the 2009 unibody. I send the other 2 back the next day and wait for the seller to ship the new ones.
One week later I get the next two in... Same thing, but this time they are in a little rougher shape. I complain to the seller and he claims he drop shipped them from someone else because he didn't have them. So again, I only go through one computer and send off the other, except this time I held onto it because I was busy all week and didn't have time to run to the post office. At this point, I hop on the eBay and search for these intently looking for the best candidates. I find 5 and message the seller of each with a quick "please help me rant" stating that I'm in a time crunch and need this asap, and to confirm the specifications and condition of the machine. Of the 5 messages I sent, I received 2 back and went with the first response. He claimed this was in good overall condition.
So I guess his opinion of good overall condition differs greatly from mine. This machine was in the worst condition yet. It was clean and white, but it looked as if someone cleaned the machine with a solvent that almost melted the plastic. I remembered I still had the 2009, and it was a little rough, and had the fractures on the lid, but it was still in better shape than this one. So I did my magic, completely disassembled both, and took the best from both an put them into one with the 2010 logic board.
End Result; 3 clean 2010 unibody MacBooks with 2.4ghz C2D CPU's, 128gb SSD, 8gb RAM, and the Nvidia 320m graphics. These are decent little machines. I spent about 3-4 hours on each one breaking it down, cleaning it up, upgrading it, replacing the TIM, and installing High Sierra on it.
Here's my issue though; If I am paying $150 US for these machines and they are claimed to be seller refurbished, why the hell did I get them in and have to do all that work? And why do people selling them feel that a machine with those specs and clean is worth $300 US? I mean for $300 you can get a pretty decent Windows laptop. I chose Mac, well, because I like Mac and they all have iPhones anyways. They range in age from 8 to 13, so they don't need super good machines, and I feel these are pretty decent machines for them anyways.
Anyways, my point, and it's something you all already know... Watch out for scummy eBay sellers. I will never buy used Macs from eBay as gifts again. Close to 10 hours went into these machines between searching listings, cleaning them up into presentable condition, replacing the TIM, upgrading them, and reinstalling MacOS. These sellers should be embarrassed for selling these machines in the condition they did after presenting them as Grade B. Only one was a good grade B, the other was teetering on the grade C side of things, and the other should have been listed as parts due to the damage of the exterior of the case. I mean heck, one even had an H where the U was supposed to be. Thankfully, in the end everything worked out and all Macs were restored completely, but it's just unbelievable what some of these shady sellers do.
The supplied photos are of the end result. I wrote in Sharpie on the bottom with the first letter of their name, as well as putting a dot on the keyboard on the letter of their name. This should help them figure out which one is which. I'm sure they will sticker them up anyway.
Okay, maybe that wasn't much of a description, so I'll elaborate.
I've worked in the fire protection industry for almost a decade, up until last year just before thanksgiving when my employer took on a new co-owner. At this point, everyone either quit from stress or, those of us that hung on, were fired for something. Me, I was fired for... no reason given. I'm getting off track, so I digress.
Since then I had bad luck trying to find a decent job in the fire protection industry, I even worked for a company known to be a hack locally by others in the industry. I couldn't believe what they were doing to customers, who were mostly state contracts. Things like charging for hydrostatic tests, but not even doing them. It gets much worse, but whatever, I'm off topic again.
Basically, after their busy season, they told me to either quit or work in the shop part time. I have no problem getting my hands dirty, but I didn't spend almost a decade in the industry to end up where I started from, so I eventually left and I now work in manufacturing. I hold a certificate from a trade school... from like way long ago. I was able to find a small shop willing to take on the task of re-teaching me while I help them with growing their business, organizing their shop, and just other odds and ends.
So, we end up here, just before the holidays. I am working part time, and even though I am putting in some decent hours, I obviously don't have a ton of cash, so I wanted to do something nice for the three kids this Christmas. We decided we would get a computer each for them, so my girlfriend hops on the web and starts searching for deals on Chromebooks or similar computers.
After some searching, she comes up with a few decent Chromebooks, but nothing to write home about. I told her we are looking at this the wrong way. I said Chromebooks are okay, but storage in minimal, specs are... sometimes dismal. I said for the same price we could grab some older MacBooks and they can have a full fledged computer, still with cloud storage. I hop on the eBay, and purchase 3 mid 2010 unibody MacBooks. The idea is that I'll receive these in go through them, clean them, apply new TIM, upgrade the ram, and replace the HDD with an SSD. The first 3 came in, and I got one 2010, and the 2 others were 2009's with the 9400m GPU. I happen to know that this GPU, even though it is a solid GPU, it's still not good enough for these kids as Roblox can't be played on it well. The 320m in the 2010 is quite a jump in performance on these machines and plays Roblox pretty smoothly, there is also a slightly faster CPU which will help a little given the age, and the RAM can be upgraded to 16gb rather than the 8gb cap on the 2009 unibody. I send the other 2 back the next day and wait for the seller to ship the new ones.
One week later I get the next two in... Same thing, but this time they are in a little rougher shape. I complain to the seller and he claims he drop shipped them from someone else because he didn't have them. So again, I only go through one computer and send off the other, except this time I held onto it because I was busy all week and didn't have time to run to the post office. At this point, I hop on the eBay and search for these intently looking for the best candidates. I find 5 and message the seller of each with a quick "please help me rant" stating that I'm in a time crunch and need this asap, and to confirm the specifications and condition of the machine. Of the 5 messages I sent, I received 2 back and went with the first response. He claimed this was in good overall condition.
So I guess his opinion of good overall condition differs greatly from mine. This machine was in the worst condition yet. It was clean and white, but it looked as if someone cleaned the machine with a solvent that almost melted the plastic. I remembered I still had the 2009, and it was a little rough, and had the fractures on the lid, but it was still in better shape than this one. So I did my magic, completely disassembled both, and took the best from both an put them into one with the 2010 logic board.
End Result; 3 clean 2010 unibody MacBooks with 2.4ghz C2D CPU's, 128gb SSD, 8gb RAM, and the Nvidia 320m graphics. These are decent little machines. I spent about 3-4 hours on each one breaking it down, cleaning it up, upgrading it, replacing the TIM, and installing High Sierra on it.
Here's my issue though; If I am paying $150 US for these machines and they are claimed to be seller refurbished, why the hell did I get them in and have to do all that work? And why do people selling them feel that a machine with those specs and clean is worth $300 US? I mean for $300 you can get a pretty decent Windows laptop. I chose Mac, well, because I like Mac and they all have iPhones anyways. They range in age from 8 to 13, so they don't need super good machines, and I feel these are pretty decent machines for them anyways.
Anyways, my point, and it's something you all already know... Watch out for scummy eBay sellers. I will never buy used Macs from eBay as gifts again. Close to 10 hours went into these machines between searching listings, cleaning them up into presentable condition, replacing the TIM, upgrading them, and reinstalling MacOS. These sellers should be embarrassed for selling these machines in the condition they did after presenting them as Grade B. Only one was a good grade B, the other was teetering on the grade C side of things, and the other should have been listed as parts due to the damage of the exterior of the case. I mean heck, one even had an H where the U was supposed to be. Thankfully, in the end everything worked out and all Macs were restored completely, but it's just unbelievable what some of these shady sellers do.
The supplied photos are of the end result. I wrote in Sharpie on the bottom with the first letter of their name, as well as putting a dot on the keyboard on the letter of their name. This should help them figure out which one is which. I'm sure they will sticker them up anyway.
