Apple MacBook Pro 13.3" A2338 Space Gray 2020

The pre-owned Apple MacBook Pro A2338 is a compact and reliable 13-inch laptop that's still great for students and writers on a tight budget. Its M1 chip handles everyday tasks smoothly, but the 8GB of RAM and weak GPU make it a poor choice for heavy multitasking or creative work. At a price under $650, it's a steal; at over $900, you should buy a newer MacBook Air instead.

Let's be real about the M1 in 2025. It's not a speed demon anymore. Our benchmarks place the 8-core CPU at the 47th percentile, which is firmly average. For browsing, document editing, and streaming, you won't feel a hiccup. Apps open instantly, and the system stays cool and silent because the fan barely ever kicks on. It's a night-and-day difference from the Intel MacBook Pros this model replaced. But push it into something like Lightroom with a big catalog or try to compile a large codebase, and that 8GB of RAM at the 14th percentile becomes a very real wall. You'll see the beach ball more than you'd like.

The integrated 8-core GPU is the real weak spot for anything beyond casual use, landing at the 19th percentile. You can forget about modern AAA gaming or GPU-accelerated 3D rendering. It can handle some light photo editing and older titles, but this is not a creator's primary machine. The 512GB SSD at the 40th percentile is fast, as Apple SSDs always are, but the capacity is tight if you keep a lot of media locally. The standout performance metric is actually reliability, where this machine sits at the 97th percentile. These M1 MacBook Pros have proven to be tanks, which is why buying a pre-owned one isn't a crazy idea.

Stacked against the MSI Prestige 13 Evo, the MacBook Pro A2338 has a much nicer screen and better build quality, but the MSI will run circles around it in multi-core CPU tasks and has a more modern port selection. The Lenovo ThinkPad X9-14 Gen 1 is a direct competitor for the business crowd, offering a better keyboard and more RAM out of the box, though you'll sacrifice the macOS ecosystem and that gorgeous Retina display. The HP OmniBook X Flip 14 and Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro are both newer, flashier Windows options with OLED screens and better GPU performance, but they'll cost you more and don't have the same track record for long-term reliability. If you're already in the Apple ecosystem and just need a reliable laptop for writing and browsing, this M1 Pro is a better value than any of them, provided you get it at the right price.

Value is tricky here because this is a pre-owned product with a wide price swing from $480 to $1100. At the top end, you're flirting with the cost of a brand-new M2 or even M3 MacBook Air, which would be a much smarter buy with better performance and a modern design. At the lower end, around $500 to $600 for a clean unit, it's a different conversation. You're getting a premium metal laptop with a fantastic screen and keyboard for Chromebook money. Just make sure you're buying from a reputable seller. Best Buy's pre-owned program includes a 90-day warranty, which is a nice safety net, but some third-party sellers offer a full year. Check the fine print before you swipe your card.

The Apple MacBook Pro A2338, better known as the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro from 2020, is still kicking around in 2025, mostly on the pre-owned market. You can snag one for anywhere between $480 and $1100 depending on condition, which puts it in a weird spot. It's an older machine competing against newer Windows laptops and even Apple's own M2 and M3 MacBook Airs. But if you find a clean unit at the lower end of that price spread, it's a compelling little workhorse for students, writers, and anyone who lives in a browser. The 13.3-inch Retina display with P3 wide color and 500 nits of brightness is still a standout, and the overall build quality is what you'd expect from a MacBook Pro, even a pre-owned one with a few cosmetic blemishes.

This model is powered by the original Apple M1 chip with an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, paired with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. It's not a spec monster by today's standards. Our database puts the CPU at a middling 47th percentile and the GPU down at a disappointing 19th percentile compared to all laptops. The 8GB of RAM sits at just the 14th percentile, which is the real bottleneck here. But raw benchmarks don't tell the whole story with Apple Silicon. The M1's efficiency cores and unified memory architecture let it punch above its weight class for everyday tasks, even if it'll choke on serious creative work or local AI models, where it scores a brutal 19.7 out of 100.

For a compact laptop, though, this thing is near the top of the charts at the 92nd percentile. At just 1.36kg and 0.61 inches thin, it disappears into a backpack. The scissor-switch Magic Keyboard is a welcome relief from the butterfly-switch disasters of older MacBooks, and the Touch Bar, while divisive, is there if you want it. Battery life from the 58Wh cell is still solid for a full day of light work. Just don't expect to run a bunch of virtual machines or edit 4K video without hitting the limits of that 8GB RAM ceiling pretty quickly.

Skip this laptop if you're a developer who needs to run virtual machines or Docker containers, a video editor working with 4K footage, or anyone who keeps dozens of browser tabs and apps open at once. That 8GB of RAM will have you pulling your hair out. Gamers should also look elsewhere, as the integrated GPU is one of the weakest on the market right now. If you need more power, a pre-owned 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM is a massive step up, or just grab a new M2 MacBook Air if your budget allows.

Should you buy a pre-owned M1 MacBook Pro in 2025? If you can find one in good shape for under $650, and your workload is mostly web browsing, writing, and media consumption, then yes, absolutely. It's a beautifully built machine with a screen and keyboard that still embarrass some brand-new Windows laptops. The silent operation and all-day battery life are genuinely freeing. But you have to go in with your eyes open about that 8GB of RAM. This is not a machine for multitasking power users, developers running Docker, or anyone who wants to keep 50 Chrome tabs open while editing photos.

If your budget stretches closer to that $1100 mark, do not buy this laptop. You're in M2 MacBook Air territory, which gives you a better chip, a bigger and better screen, MagSafe charging, and a modern design. This M1 Pro is a fantastic budget Mac, but it's a terrible expensive Mac. Know the difference before you buy.