Apple Apple - MacBook Pro 16" Certified Refurbished - Intel Core i7 2.6GHz - Touch Bar/ID - 16GB Memory - 512GB SSD (2019) - Space Gray Review

A refurbished 2019 Intel MacBook Pro for about $520. You get a great big screen and lots of ports on a classic Mac body, but dated performance and poor battery life. Only worth it if your budget is rock-solid and you just need a big Mac for basic tasks.

This is a refurbished 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, built around Intel's 9th-gen Core i7 and an AMD Radeon Pro 5300M GPU. It's a classic workhorse design from the pre-Apple Silicon era, and at around $520, it's priced like a tempting deal for anyone wanting a big-screen Mac on a tight budget.

You're getting that iconic 16-inch Retina display, a solid keyboard, and a ton of ports—including four USB-A ports, which feels like a luxury today. But you're also buying into older tech: an Intel chip that runs hot, Wi-Fi 5, and a design that's been completely overhauled by Apple's own M-series chips.

The performance story here is a mixed bag. Our database shows the 6-core i7 and Radeon Pro 5300M both land in the 66th percentile for their categories. That means they're decent, but firmly mid-pack by today's standards. It'll handle general productivity, photo editing, and even some light video work, but don't expect miracles. The dual-fan cooling system works, but it will spin up under load because that Intel chip likes to get warm. The 512GB SSD is fast, but its capacity puts it in the bottom third of laptops we track.

At roughly $520, the value proposition hinges entirely on your needs. If your budget is absolutely capped here and you must have a large-screen Mac for basic tasks, it's arguably the only game in town. But you're trading a lot for that low price: future performance, battery life, and efficiency. For most people, saving up a bit more for a used M1 MacBook Air would be a smarter long-term investment.

This 2019 Intel MacBook Pro is in a weird spot. It can't compete with its own successors: an M1 MacBook Air will run circles around it in speed and battery life, and a refurbished M1 Pro 14-inch MacBook Pro, while more expensive, is a generational leap. Compared to Windows rivals at this price, like a Lenovo Legion or MSI Vector, it gets demolished in raw CPU and GPU power for creative or gaming tasks. Its only real advantage over those is macOS and that premium build.

Skip this if you need performance, battery life, or a portable machine. Creators, students, or professionals should look at used M1 Macs. Gamers or power users needing raw speed should look at Windows laptops at this price. If you plan to use it away from a desk for more than a few hours, this isn't the one.

Buy this only if you are on an extremely strict budget, need a big Mac screen right now for very light work (web, documents, streaming), and don't care about battery life or future-proofing. It's a capable enough machine for those basics, and the port selection is actually better than newer Macs. For literally anyone else—students, creators, professionals, or people who need to work unplugged—there are far better options, even in the used market.