A couple weeks ago, I was nosing around Craigslist and found an offer for a “newer used” current-model Retina MacBook Pro 13” with a Broadwell 2.9GHz i5, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 3 years of AppleCare (expires 14 August 2018) and $99 (total waste of money) one-on-one Apple service add-on. I jumped on it. Its existing owner, Raj, said he was getting into photography and decided to get an iMac for not much more money than the MacBook Pro. For $1250 cash, I now have myself a beautiful new upgrade for my 2010-release MacBook Air, about three years earlier than planned.
As configured (Raj said this was not a refurb), this was a $2,048 model (not including the one-on-one service). I’m very happy.
I’d have preferred a quad-core i7, but the only way to get that is with a 15” model and I’m not certain I want that size. It would be okay, but it seems a bit big for me. Anyway, this was a deal I felt I could not pass up.
20 June 2016 Update: I still consider this a stupendous deal. The machine runs perfectly and I have zero complaints.