I bought a FILTHY MacBook for just $50, let's restore it!

Can you buy a perfectly good MacBook Pro for just $50? Today we're going to find out. With an extra $50 in parts can we transform this filthy discarded 13 inch MacBook Pro into a usable and modern feeling device? I bought this MacBook sight unseen for just $50 not really knowing much about it. Its condition, battery, and specs were all a mystery. But with some elbow grease and patience we can make some significant improvements in under 24 hours!

time stamps
0:00 unboxing
2:25 this thing is gross!
4:32 restoration plan
5:19 A LOT of cleaning
8:46 upgrades
10:19 was it a good deal?

#righttorepair #apple #laifen #laifenwave
@laifentech

Gear:
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[CooperJackToys]

Luke restoring an old Mac is like watching vintage Miani! Love these vids!

[KevinGamin]

“dirt cheap”

In this case, both literally and figuratively.

[clebbington]

4GB and soldered, oof. Maybe you can do another Dosdude collab and have him upgrade it to 8GB 😂

[ultraviolettp]

Vintage Luke Miani video. This is why I like you best from all of the Fruit Fly videographers - you don't just hyperventilate about what is coming (and then end up eating crow for being wrong), you repurpose and resurrect older macs and make them viable again. Kudos to you.

[Joanne_Mahlmeister]

I am doing the same thing right now. My old early 2013 15" Retina Macbook Pro has seen better days, so I am replacing the battery, replacing the missing feet, replacing the thermal past and giving it a good (and long overdue) cleaning. I previously upgraded the SSD to 1TB, so storage is already covered. This is my daily driver and since it has a 2.8ghz i7 cpu and 16GB ram and I patched it up to Ventura, it still performs very well for my needs.

[jpecorel]

Yes, I would recommend living with it and making a video about your experience. There are a lot of average people out there with older machines that are still usable for document writing, Zooming, presentation making, light audio and video editing, etc. And thanks to OLP and lightweight Linux distros, they can remain solid daily drivers for years to come, even with paltry specs. Show the limits and capabilities of a machine like this, which is perfectly usable and obtainable for the average computing person working on a budget, someone who can't afford (and frankly doesn't need) the i9s, the M1/2/3s, the 32-64GBs of RAM, etc.

[osvaldosafares]

I like how you always promote using an older laptop

[tomluptowski]

I recently purchased a clean new looking 2015 13in retina MacBook Pro 8g 128 ssd for $150, put an $80 WD black 1tb ssd in it and it's more than I or most consumers would need for basic web browsing, email, media playing, and light gaming. These are still great laptops

[zachbrands]

97.6% sure that MacBook definitely lived in a smokers home! A very dirty, never washed their hands or wiped down that poor laptop a day of its life lol

Great vid! These tear down / restore videos are like therapy lol

[jsax]

Love these restoring older mac videos, they're what got me into doing it a bit myself. Currently watching on my 13" 2015 which is still going strong. Thanks for inspiring me to take apart and restore older macs to give them a new life and save usable electronics from the landfill :)

[Alvin-eqrc]

This 4gb ram got be through college and it was my first ever Mac. Still can’t believe it was only 4gb.

[randycrenshaw]

I loved this Luke! I hope that people watch this and realize how good of a laptop can be made of these older, wonderfully built Apple computers. The biggest limitation is the RAM. However, smart use and being organized with what apps are open at any one time can overcome much of that challenge. I would love to see what you could come up with as far as using this for most everyday tasks. I am sure it work out great.

[RowdyGeronimo]

These are always my favorite Luke videos. Classic Luke.

[dennisud]

Nice to see you post again! Let's see more soon! Adding the upgrades and fixes puts it over $100 bucks!
It's too bad you couldn't upgrade the ram! But for the price you still got a good deal for the money!
It's a good backup for your main MacBook!

[Iboo]

I am still using my late 2012 macbook pro that I bought for uni back then. It´s still in good shape because I take care of my stuff, even the battery still holds about 4 hours... Already did an SSD and RAM upgrade a while back and thinking about upgrading the software with OCLP as I´m still running macOS Catalina. Speed wise it´s still decent and even runs FreeCAD and the slicer of my 3D printer. So depending on what you´re doing with it you can still absolutely use this kind of machine today.

[graemequinn]

Nice job Luke! What products did you use for cleaning the screen and the top/bottom case?

[connorisleib]

brother... what you were scraping off was the antireflective coating 6:32

[theEDMdragon]

Love to see Mac restoration videos make a comeback! Judging from the stickers on the lid, I’d say this was a laptop once belonged to a kid/teen, and the gunk on the keyboard could be something like oily fingers or food residue

[josemedeiros]

Good find and video Luke. I use a late 2013 13 inch Retina Mac Book Pro with 8Gb of RAM, and a 256 GB SSD as my daily driver, it is fast enough for my needs, and even though I run Windows 10 x64 on a 60 GB partition, I still have about 100GB of free space.

[Itsraminstech]

these are the best videos you make bro