 This video is sponsored by PDFElement. You know what, I'm going to move this lighting bag, it's just a little bit too harsh. Just give me a sec, I think that's a little bit better. So yeah, I purchased this excellent conditioned MacBook Pro in space gray, 13 inch, 256 gigabytes of storage, 8 gigabytes of RAM from MicroCenter. I actually didn't go through Apple's refurbished program or Apple's refurbished site to purchase a laptop, but I did strongly consider it. The reason why I went with MicroCenter is because MicroCenter has a lot of really amazing deals. I actually just purchased some AirPods not too long ago for like $50, $60 off. They're basically $10 more than the non-wireless charging AirPods, and those were on sale too, to put it in perspective. So first, obviously, affordability. I mentioned earlier in my last video that I wasn't sure what laptop I wanted to purchase. I wasn't sold on the XPS. I didn't want to pay a lot of money for the 15 inch MacBook Pro because I knew the 16 inch was coming out. Video editing became a pain with the MacBook Air, so I needed to replace my MacBook Air with another laptop. Luckily, I was able to sell that for a good amount of money, and I was able to put that towards my next laptop. Anyways, I digress. I went the refurbished route because I figured that's a nice way to play it safe. I could take the cash that I made from my MacBook Air and I could put it towards a refurbished MacBook Pro at MicroCenter, and I have 5% off, so I didn't actually pay too much out of pocket for the 2017 MacBook Pro that I have right now. So I played it safe because I figured, hey, if I want to upgrade within the next 6 months or a year, my pockets won't hurt too much. One of the main reasons why I decided to go ahead and purchase a refurbished laptop from Apple is because I trust that it's just going to work out of the box, whether it's refurbished or brand new. Apple products just work, and that's one of the main reasons why I continuously purchase Apple products and why they're so popular among so many people. Another reason is because I purchased it from MicroCenter, which is an authorized Apple reseller, so I feel really comfortable getting my refurbished laptop from them because, one, they're an amazing tech store. Two, some of their laptops come with 90-day warranties. Some of their laptops come with a year warranty. You also can pay an additional fee to get a MicroCenter warranty. They have a warranty where, let's say you drop your laptop and it shatters and it just can't be fixed, then they'll just give you a gift card for however much money you spent on that laptop to purchase a new laptop. So that's another reason why I feel comfortable is because of the warranty options. Since this video is focused on the Apple refurbished experience and specifically my refurbished MacBook Pro experience, I thought that it will be the perfect time to talk about a great productivity application that is on my MacBook Pro and happens to be the sponsor of this video, PDF Element. If I could describe this app in four words, it would be PDF Editing Made Simple. When searching for a job, especially in the tech industry, you sometimes need to make adjustments to your resume so your skill sets and experience correlate well with the job that you're applying for. Applying to 50 to 100 jobs can be exhausting, so the last thing you need to do is jump through hurdles to edit your resume. PDF Element solves this problem by making the editing experience simple and easy to use. You can create a PDF on your Mac by selecting images or text files from your local storage or even by simply dragging and dropping an image or text file into the application. From there, your PDF will be ready to be edited. Editing is as simple as selecting the edit option in the left navigation bar, then double clicking the section you would like to edit. I find this easy approach to editing beneficial, especially when in a time crunch or creating a resume from scratch, like this example. To learn more about PDF Element, be sure to check out their redesign website where you can learn about scanning images into a working PDF that are fully editable and searchable in over 25 languages, encrypt highly sensitive files that you are sending over the network, use industry standard encrypted digital signatures or you can even create your own handwritten signatures through DigiSign and so much more. The link is down below. I know I talked about the money factor a little bit, but I want to go back and touch on that point a little bit because one of the main reasons why I wanted to make this video is to shed light to those who want to invest in Apple products, but maybe you don't have the cash to spend 2 grand on that 15 inch or 2 grand on that higher spec 13 inch MacBook Pro. I know I'm someone who doesn't want to spend that amount of money for a laptop, especially if you're not necessarily in love with the laptop, but you're more so purchasing it because you know it's going to be reliable and maybe it's a little bit more powerful than the previous laptop that you've had or the current one that you have. Pretty much what my case was and for those of you who are college students who want to rely on a laptop and you don't want to spend a ton of money, I think refurbished is a great route because you can get a less expensive laptop so you can actually find a really nice MacBook Pro refurbished 13 inch for you know $7, $800 less than what it typically would be and then you can get the warranty so you feel really comfortable. If anything happens, let's say you buy it from Micro Center, if anything happens, they'll fix it. If it can't be fixed, I'll get a gift card to get a new laptop. Maybe I'll have more money in my pocket then and I can actually get a brand new laptop. Also for those of you all who want to buy the iPad Pro which is really expensive iPad, really I'm just saying if you want to get an Apple product and you don't have 100% of the money that you need, maybe you have 80% of what you would need to get an iPad Pro or a MacBook Pro, those higher end devices that Apple sells. You can take that 80% and that'll be 100% of what it would cost for a refurbished model because I know it can be frustrating sometimes looking at how expensive some of these Apple products are especially the laptops and they are really expensive a lot of times overpriced but you can get a refurbished model and that's okay. Also if you're purchasing a refurbished laptop from let's say Apple.com or you know in store I don't know if they're they usually never have anything refurbished in store but from what I've seen it usually doesn't take too long to ship a refurbished Apple product to the store that you want to pick it up from. Apple also guarantees that your device that you're purchasing refurbished is going to go through a rigorous refurbished testing process which basically means it goes through full testing and make sure that it meets all the functional requirements that a brand new laptop would. So the laptop is thoroughly clean and inspected it's basically like new with you know 15 maybe even 30% off and if you purchase your refurbished laptop from the Apple store or your refurbished product through Apple it does get a guaranteed one-year warranty and there's also Apple care that's available which is another thing to keep in mind so if you don't get it from Micro Center obviously Apple will give you Apple care I'm pretty sure Micro Center offers it as well so just to talk a little bit more about my experience with my refurbished laptop if I'm being honest with you I can be really cheap and my next laptop I'm not gonna do this but my laptop doesn't have a warranty I haven't had any problems thank God I'm gonna knock on wood with that one okay um yeah haven't had any problems and it didn't it doesn't have a warranty I don't I can't remember how long I've had this laptop for I'm looking down because I'm my laptop's right here but I think I've had it for I'd say close to a year now and haven't had any problems and I've used some competitors laptops that were not even refurbished just open box which basically means they returned their laptop within you know 15 or 30 days and you know they just didn't like it didn't have any problems they just didn't like it and it was real finicky Apple says that their refurbished products are as good as new products and from my experience I don't see any difference between my refurbished MacBook Pro and the brand new MacBook Pro and air that I've purchased in the past and I know there's a stigma that people don't really like to buy refurbished items because you're worried that you're gonna have problems but Apple you know I mentioned this earlier they do rigorously test their products just think about Apple's history their products are always reliable and remember that if you are purchasing from a third party vendor that they may not have the same benefits that Apple would have so my recommendation is to you know when you go to the store ask them what benefits they have for refurbished products and then you know compare and contrast to what Apple would give you as benefits if you were to purchase the item through them your stock does fluctuate because it all depends on what items that people are returning or have had replaced so if you see something that you really like and you have the cash to purchase it my recommendation is to do that that even happened to me at Micro Center there was like a 15 inch MacBook Pro that I was interested in someone purchased it and you never know when the next time you know there's a third party vendor or Apple is gonna get that same device back in stock another thing that I appreciate Apple did or does for their refurbished products is the unboxing experience brand new or refurbished products are basically indistinguishable so I know Apple says that their products are like new and I love how they say hey all the way down to the unboxing experience is going to be very similar if not the same as if you were purchasing a brand new laptop that concludes this video thanks for sticking around if you're still here give this video a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if you haven't already hit the notification bell so you can know soon as I release a video share this video with someone who you think might benefit from it you know someone who's maybe in the market for an iPad or you know Apple Watch or even a MacBook Pro iMac all that good stuff and as always have a blessed rest of your week I'll see you all soon peace