Which Used MacBooks Are The Best Deals In 2025?

Apple is not a brand normally associated with affordability, and this can be seen clearly with its MacBook line of laptops. This cost comes from a number of factors including design, performance, reliability, and more. These are laptops designed to last far longer than many of their Windows contemporaries, and while we wait for the rumored low-cost MacBook, paying the dreaded Apple Tax is still the norm.

This means that in many cases purchasing a MacBook Pro can be considered an investment in the future. The premium pricing comes alongside a very strong warranty and support from Apple for five to seven years, giving you a long time to get your money's worth. The higher standard set by Apple can be seen with the all-metal unibody design and the direct oversight of all internal components.

Knowing this, many people want to jump into the Apple ecosystem but might not want to, or might not be able to pay the premium price of current MacBooks. Because of this, the used and refurbished market for MacBooks has thrived over the years. This allows consumers to purchase older MacBooks at a steep discount, while still getting top of the line performance. With the upcoming M5 MacBook Pro being only a minor upgrade, buying an older MacBook might just be the best bang for your buck right now.

If you are looking for a great all-around MacBook, it's really hard to beat the 2020 MacBook Air for the price, performance, and slim design. The MacBook Air has seen three generations release since 2020, but this specific Air is currently one of the most popular choices and one of the best values you'll find on any MacBook on the market.

For less than $400, you are getting a lot of bang for your buck. The M1 chip changed the game for Apple, forgoing the previous Intel produced chips. The M1 is an in-house designed chip that outpaced its contemporaries, even holding up half a decade later. This MacBook Air is incredibly portable, features a long battery life, and is still getting support for the next few years, making this a hard laptop to beat.

The MacBook Air 2020 (M1) is easily capable of photo and video editing, with the M1 chip even allowing for decent gaming. This machine can also easily handle any sort of educational, or business need that you may have. There are some drawbacks, most notably with the limited built-in storage, only two USB-C ports, and the 8GBs of RAM and SSD that you shouldn't upgrade.

Let's say you're a professional and need the kind of power that a base level MacBook or MacBook Air can't offer, but you can't justify paying over $1,500 for a newer MacBook. One of the best options that you have is picking up a refurbished MacBook Pro 2023 (M3) that comes with all the bells and whistles of a modern-day powerhouse.

Featuring the last generation M3 chip from Apple, this MacBook Pro is designed for power users that demand every bit of performance they can get from a machine. And while we wait for the rumored OLED MacBook display, the Liquid Retina XDR display used on the 2023 MacBook Pro is fantastic. Gaming is also now a real option with ray tracing support, and the ability to handle many of the latest and most demanding titles.

Apple also learned from outings like the 2020 MacBook Air, and it saddled up the 2023 M3 MacBook Pro with a plethora of ports for devices and storage cards. Starting at around $900 on the second hand market, you'll save a lot of money by going the used route on a MacBook Pro, and it should keep you covered to at least 2030 with support from Apple.

The first truly next generation MacBook, the M1 MAX-powered 2021 MacBook Pro provided the modern refresh that the lineup needed after moving away from Intel-based chips. This groundbreaking MacBook Pro was aimed at professionals, and it can easily handle editing 8K video and even more serious gaming.

The ProMotion display is still stunning thanks to Apple moving to mini LEDs, which provide an incredible contrast ratio. Under the hood, the M1 MAX is a 10-core CPU with a 16-core Neural Engine making it blazingly fast, even in 2025. Apple set a new industry standard with the MacBook Pro 2021 (M1 MAX) with 1TB of storage and 64GB of RAM, not to mention a whooping 24-core GPU.

With so much power and strong support for several more years, you might expect to pay and arm and a leg for this MacBook Pro. That's why it's shocking that you can pick one up starting at $1,000 fully refurbished. It's an impressive deal for the power, almost 75% off of its original MSRP. The only real downside is the lack of hardware-level support for Apple Intelligence features.

This choice might seem odd because of its age, but you need to ask yourself: What are you actually using your laptop for? Running a 2.7 GHz Core i7 Intel chip alongside an Nvidia GeForce GT 650M GPU, this machine isn't the fastest, but it comes with enough ports that would make most modern MacBook users jealous.

What makes the 2012 generation of MacBooks so special is how repairable and easy they are to upgrade and modify. You can quickly open up this laptop to add an SSD, upgrade the RAM, replace the battery, swap the DVD drive for an extra SSD and more. When you consider that you can pick one of these MacBooks up for around $100, they are hard to ignore.

This machine can handle modern tasks without issue. YouTube videos play smoothly, and basic video editing is possible. Sadly, with support for Catalina no longer available and new software being unsupported, it's not perfect without tweaking. Still, it's a great machine for those looking for a basic laptop and for those that love to tinker. I wrote this entire article on this very MacBook, and I still use it as my own daily driver for writing, research, and consuming content.