Buying Refurbished Just isn't the Same for the M1 Pro

Over the last 11 Years, I’ve gone from PC die hard to owning 4 different Macs for development. There’s one place I’ve bought them all over this time and that’s through the Apple Certified Refurbished store (US, UK). If you’re not familiar with it, this is where Apple resells returned hardware which has undergone a thorough certification process at a discount to customers. Best of all, it comes with the same 1 year warranty as if you bought it brand new from Apple. This is over all of their products, including Macs, iPhones, iPads and the Apple watch.

As a rule Apple refurbished versions of their new counterparts tend to start appearing in the store 6 months after their original launch date. Do you remember which product launched 6 months ago? That’s right - the M1 Pro and Max version of the MacBook Pro!

Both models have started appearing in the refurb store last week, only they aren’t quite the deal as other MacBook models there - at only 10% off of their retail price vs 15% of other models. This means the 512GB base model costs $1799/£1709 with a $200/£180 discount, with the 1TB version being $2249/£2159 with a $250/£240 discount at the US and UK stores respectively. This is an especially bitter pill to swallow when retailers such as Amazon have dropped the 1TB base model to currently 11% off at £2155 here in the UK - so you can get it cheaper new from Amazon than refurbished from Apple. Good old Apple! The 16” 1TB is even available at £2234 from Amazon here in the UK today so a massive £365 or 14% off the retail price.

Back in October, I mused that I probably didn’t need to upgrade to the M1 Pro at the time over on YouTube instead opting for them to be discounted in the refurb store. Even with the smaller discount, now that Apple have revealed their hand - I’ve gone ahead and upgraded my 2015 model to a custom 2021 14” 8 core, 1TB version. This remains the cheapest way to get a 1TB version of this model at £269 less than the 10 core, 1TB version from Amazon. I have no need for the bump in cores and based on my previous experience I think that the M1 Pro is going to be as good as I’ve come to expect from any other product from the refurb store.

If you’re interested - it’s just turned up and I’ve just published an unboxing to my YouTube channel.