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The Other Day I Found Out About Strictly Apple

I recently came across information about Strictly Apple, and I had to take a closer look. Look at this.

This mom did some early school shopping, and it's definitely worth sharing. She went to our website and shopped the clearance section for two MacBook Airs - MacBooks, classic. And she got both of these MacBook Airs for less than $500 combined.

And because... Okay, so less than 500. That actually is reasonable because those are older school MacBook Airs. You can find those things for two, three hundred bucks all day long.

So if this mom is treating her kids, she's treating herself to a new laptop too.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- The other day, I foundout about Strictly Apple.Look at this.- This mom is doingsome early school shopping.- New computers, cool.- So she went to our websiteand shop the clearance sectionfor these two MacBook Airs,- MacBooks, classic.- And she gotboth of these MacBook Airsfor less than $500 combined.And because-- Okay, so less than 500.That actually is reasonable'cause those are theolder school MacBook Airs.You can find those things fortwo, 300 bucks all day long.- And she saidif she's treating her kids,she's treating herself to a new-- What do you mean, "She said"?You got an order, andyou're fulfilling it.This person, this mom who ordered stufffrom your site alsogave you her life story?- And the best partabout it is she used our financing option-- Whoa, whoa, whoa!If she financed, okay, hold on, hold on.So let me make sure I'mwrapping my head around this.So this is a Short thatStrictly Apple made.372,000 likes on a storyabout how a mom bought twoMacBooks for her childrenand pair of AirPods Max,which probably cost morethan both laptops combined,and then told the whole storyabout how she financed it too.That sounds sus.Let's actually go andcheck out Strictly Apple,and see exactly how legitthey are 'cause honestly,you make a Short likethis, I'm coming for you.(keyboard clacking)Why does Plug Tech show up when I type in,oh, it's an ad.Oh, my god.So Plug Tech has maybespent the last monthhaving a great time with my videoand trying to use thatas further marketing.Fair play.But the fact that theyare stealing the SEOfrom Strictly Apple is kind of hilarious.Okay, so we have Mac, iPad, iPhone,Watch, Accessories,Bundles, Sell your device.So I will tell you,they're very much only anApple company, it looks like.Let's look at MacBook Air.That's what they did in the Short.Let's see what we've got.So 2015 MacBook Air for 179 bucks.That's actually a pretty decent deal.Now they do give me alittle bit of informationabout what the condition of the device is.So Clearance is themost affordable option."The condition of thedevice may have bumps,scratches, and partsmay have been replaced,but it's still operationalwith one year warranty."Used is normal wear and tear,Open Box is pretty much brand new,and Brand New Sealed isactually brand new sealed.Oh, oh, here we go."We do accept returns for in-store creditwithin 30 days of purchasing.Please see our returnpolicy from our info."I would love to see this."We do not accept return," wait.Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,wait, wait. Hold on, hold on.Dude, it says, "We do not accept returnsor refunds on devices," butif I scroll down a little bit,it says, "We'll notifyyou when we've returnedand inspect your return."I want to give these guys the benefitof the doubt, but the factthat their refund policysays three different thingsin two different places doesnot fill me with any confidencethat they are trustworthy.Hold on a second.iPhone 15 Pro Max in Usedcondition for $1,149?You mean it's in Used condition,and it's $50 less than a brand new one?Huh? What?While I can do Open Boxfor $10 less? (laughs)How about bundles? Youknow what, I need a bundle.I need some bundles. Bundle me up.The iPhone bundle is two fast chargers.Sorry, Plug Tech flashbacks intensified.- You okay?(cast members laughing)- Oh, my god.(chargers thud)So with that, my friends,I'm going to place a substantialorder with Strictly Appleto see if I can, in fact,outfit my children withsome crappy old MacBooksand buy myself some sweet headphones,or whether or not I get scammed.Well, we'll see how that goes.We already cut the camerasand I was just gonnacheck out with my cart.They have the option to tip.I can show my support for the teamby giving them a 5, 10, or15% tip, which would be $267.I don't think I've evergotten a tip screenfor refurbished tech. (laughs)- Gone too far.- Strictly Apple is really the giftthat keeps on giving, man.I'm having a great time here.That's all, I'll see you in a couple weekswhen all this stuff shows up.And so our Strictly Apple deals are here.Now it was a little bitof a process to arrive.So first and foremost,I wanted to outsmart them.I don't want to order itemsfrom a potentially shady company,potentially shady companyunder the name Austin Evans,just in case they're onto my numberand they seed me some high-quality items.So instead, I purchased theseunder the pseudonym Pierre Luigi.So all these boxes say Pierre Luigi.I did not use my official email addressand nothing like that.You see this packagealso says Pierre Luigi.When the UPS person came upto the door, they're like,"Hey, I have packages for Mr. Luigi."And I tried not to laugh.Now it took about a weekto arrive, that's fine.But I never got an email confirmation.And while I used a different emailthat was associated with Mr. Luigi,that email never got the confirmation.And in fact, up untilthese boxes showed up,I wasn't sure that anythinghad even be shipped.I didn't have like myprice, my receipt, nothing.I'll give them a smallbenefit of the doubt,but maybe I just mistypedmy email or Luigi's email.But not a great start for ourStrictly Apple experience.Okay, first item is...(steady music)- Happy Easter! (laughs)- And a little sticker.Woo, this is delightful.Oh my god, it's a HI-CHEWand Toxic Waste Hazardously Sour Candy.You know what?- Do you trust that?- Who would poison Pierre Luigi?He's done nothing wrong toanyone besides the style police.I'm not gonna lie, I couldbe swayed by some candy.If everyone just gave mesome candy in the box,I'd probably say nicer things.Thank you, Strictly Apple.A good start, a good start.All right, let's see what we got here.So first of all, what I assume is an iPad.It's nicely padded, I will say.A little loose in here,but they've done a lot ofbubble wrap, so that's fine.(steady music continues)(bubble wrap crinkling)A lot of bubble wrap, all right.This is our iPad ninth gen.Okay, so ninth gen, 10.2 inch,Wifi, 64 gigs, Space Gray, Open Box SL.What are they calling open box here?Is that the actual conditionof it or is that justwhat they call the label?- That is the condition of it.So they have like different levels,and that is the Open Box SL.- What's SL?Do we know what SL standsfor? Slightly lost.So on the back, I mean thatlooks pretty brand new to me.On the front, you know what?That actually lookslike it may be essentiallylike new in box,like maybe it literally wasin an actual open box sortof thing and they justwrapped it in this plastic'cause that physically looks perfect.How much did I pay for this iPad?- You paid $310.- Oh, right.So $20 less than this isbrand new directly from Apple.Okay, I'll set this up,we'll play around with it.But at first glance, it seems to be,they seem to have given meexactly what I had asked forplus some candy, whichalways is a win in my book.So I have spent some time with this iPadand I have a few thoughts.I actually have not used thebase model ninth gen iPadin quite a while.This originally came out back in 2021.And if you are gonna go intoit with low expectations,you know, using it as a basic iPadand "Cocomelon" deliverydevice, it's totally fine.But here's the thing, thisiPad is old and feels old,but the bigger issue is thatthis iPad is regularly on sale.Right now, I found iton Best Buy for $250.So I could get a brandnew iPad from Best Buyfor $60 less than I gotthis open box one for.So this is not necessarily agreat start for Strictly Apple.Next up, we have what Iassume is our MacBook.Again, very well-padded,and that I'm gonna haveto unwrap it for a minute.2015 MacBook Air 11-inch.It is an eight gig, 121,I assume they mean 128gig of storage, Core i5.It's Sliver, so it's myfavorite color, and it's Used.Now if I remember right, theycall this Clearance, right?- Yes, Clearance condition.- Clearance condition.- And as areminder, this is their lowest.They claim it's theirmost affordable option.The condition of thisdevice may have bumps,scratches, and parts may havebeen replaced. (chuckles)- Well, it's certainlyin clearance condition.We've got a number of scratches,which definitely you cankind of feel to the touch.So we've got some around theApple logo, over on this side,and on this side as well.Oh, it's bumpy. Oh my god, it's bumpy.Look, someone dropped it. It'sactually bumpy on the corner.Yes, I was hoping I wouldget my bumpy MacBook.They delivered!- (laughs) Oh, my god.They were pretty clear that Iwas getting a bumpy MacBook,so I'm not too upset.Let's see, this is the real test,what the inside looks like.Well, the hinge is, what'swrong with the hinge?These MacBooks had onetouch open, didn't they,one finger open, no?- It's probably'cause it's bumpy on the corners.It's holding on.- Oh, it's like stuck.Wait, it's like sticky.Oh, ew. Okay.Oh. Well, that actually looks fine.You know what? That screenactually looks pretty good.There's one scratch here,so there's a scratch.It's kinda hard to tell based on light,but there's a relatively okayscratch on the bottom left.But that's not terrible.(Austin sniffing)Smells clean, I actually thinkthat Strictly Apple did a pretty good jobof cleaning this up.I feel okay about this MacBook.Now how much did I payfor this bumpy clearance-qualityMacBook Air 11-inch?- This costs $180.- So I guess the questionhere is not only just how goodof condition this is,but how usable is a MacBook Air 2015in the year of 2024?'Cause it still feels nice,I still like this design.Well, I mean I thinkthe 11-inch form factorwas really nice, but howusable is this really?So I'm trying toconfigure our MacBook Air,and I've immediately run into a problem."Pasco County Schools can automaticallyconfigure your computer."It is set up with remote management.Did some kid like not returnhis MacBook and sell it on,and Strictly Apple boughtit without checkingif it was locked to a school system?Can I even like fix this?I actually legitimatelydon't think I can fix this.I think it's actuallygonna just be locked downto some school IT system somewhere.This is not going well. (laughs)So let's try this again, shall we?So after I had theproblem with the MacBook,I hit up StrictlyApple's customer service,and I said, "Hey, I would like to returnor exchange or whatever."And so they said, "No problem."We had to go back andforth on email a few times,but eventually, theygave me a return label.I shipped the MacBook back to them,and now I have theoreticallymy MacBook that has been fixed.That was what the email made it seemlike they were going to do.So let's see. You know, it's sealed.I can definitely just pullthe MacBook right out.In fact, I'm not gonna cut the tape.I'm just gonna pull the MacBook out.Now just in case thereare shenanigans afoot,I took a photo of the serial numberso we can double check that it isin fact the same MacBook or not.The number's almost the same.This one ends in GFWM,but mine ended in GFWK.So they actually gaveme a different MacBook.Yeah, the screen's a littledirty, a couple scratches.It's not, I would say it'sroughly in the same condition.Oh, I think it's working. Yeah,it's letting me go through.Okay, so getting into macOS here,we do have it running Monterey,which I think is the mostrecent version of macOSthat this could run.Shows it's a 2015 model, Core i5,but it does have the eight gigs of ram.If I check storage, it is, yep, 128 gigs.So this is the correct devicethat I should have gottenfrom the beginning.Considering that this isin Clearance condition,I think I'm okay with it.It's definitely beat up,It's definitely not perfect,and the process to gethere was less than ideal,but I guess I'll begrudgingly give a,eh, that's all you get though.All right, next up,we have an iPhone.Oh, this looks very different.Okay, so we've got theiPhone nicely padded,as well as USB-A to Lightning...A USB-A to USB-C cable.(Alex laughs)Just a reminder, thisis an iPhone 12, right?Like, you know, the one with Lightning.So it shows the battery health is 94%.It doesn't say anythingabout the condition.It just says C. What conditionis this supposed to be in?- It is supposedto be in Used condition,which is their second to lowest thing.It's normal wear and tear.Nothing that you wouldn't expectfrom a device that is used.- Let's see our used iPhone 12, shall we?Okay, that's a screen protector, right?Look at how (quack) upthat is. Can you see that?Oh my god, that is oneof the most scratchedscreens I have ever seen.That's normal wear and tear?Yeah, if you drag this behinda truck on the freeway.This, I am not exaggerating what I say,this is the most scratchediPhone I've ever receivedon any of our refurbished videos.That's a really deep, no, that's a crack.There's actually a crackin the glass there.Good lord.How much did I pay for my used iPhone 12?- You paid $360.- Nope, nope.(tense music)- Just when you're feelingall right about a video.Just when you're feeling,like you know what?They bribed me with candy,Pierre Luigi's real happy,then they spit on my mother's face.Sorry, Mom. I'll defend your honor.While aesthetically, it'sin pretty rough shape,but as far as I can tell,it is fully functional.And with 94% battery life,it actually isn't too bad.Typically, phones at this ageare easily into the 80% range.So I will give them props there.So this is a little sample ofthe video on the iPhone 12.As you can see, it looks pretty decent.Now the iPhone 12 was a good generationbecause not only did itintroduce the flat sides,but also has 5G, pretty decentcameras, great OLED display.Like these phones arestill very usable in 2024.But the problem is,is that Back Market sell theexact same phone for $100 less.So you could get thisfor 260 instead of $360.Look, I'm starting tofeel a little bit badfor Strictly Apple, I'm not gonna lie.I don't mean to punch on them so badly,but I'm struggling to stay positive herebecause (sighs) I just,I don't have anything good to say.I'm afraid of what's next. (laughs)Okay, so this item is in a UPS mailer.So that's an interestingway of packaging it.I expect this if I'mbuying something from eBay.Buying something froma reputable retailer,and just like a UPS envelopeis maybe not the greatest look.But inside, we have AirPods Pro.- You calledthis the AirPods Pro.- Wait, that's becausethey did say AirPods Pro.It says AirPod Pro on it, I just read it.I just Ron Burgundy'd it,I just Ron Burgundy'd it.Oh no, the AirPods Max.- I thought you'rehaving a stroke.(Austin laughs)- I'm a little afraid thoughbecause based on the conditionof the iPhone in Used shape,these are things that are not only goingto go directly on my ears,but also very expensive.So if these are gross andscratched and disgusting,I'm gonna be real grumpy.Let's take a look, I'll say though,I've actually never seen thegreen AirPods Max in person.They're very green.- I like the color.- I do too. Oh, it smells bad.- Oh, my god.- Oh!Ew!It just smells directly likesomeone's stinky-ass head.There's no other way to describe it.Oh dude, you can see lookhow dark the earcups are.Do you see this?Look, it's maybe a littlehard to see on camera,but like you can seehow like they're dirty.Oh, no! There's the earwax on the inside.Oh, god.- Ew.- How much did I pay forthese used Stink Pros 9000?- They were $460.- Oh!- for Used condition.- Oh, so bad.- On eBay, I'm seeing AirPods Max, used,but obviously these are in Usedcondition, for 250 to $300.And we paid $460 for these.I bet the eBay ones don'tsmell as bad as these do.So I'm gonna have to,and I really hate that Ihave to say this, scrub,deep clean, and find some wayof making these not disgusting.And then I'll evaluatehow bad of a deal I got.So before I try toevaluate my AirPods Pros,I'm going to bring in a proto help me sanitize them.Ken, you've cleaned some AirPodsMaxes in your day, right?- Yes, I actually have thewhite version of these,and they stain like crazy.No matter how clean you are,they will just yellow at some point.- Well, take a look at these.- Were they originally green or?- (laughs) They were originally green.- Oh. (chuckles)(Austin laughs)- You moved it, and it literallylike wafted my direction.- Oh, those look crusty, woo.Bro.- Take 'em off, look inside.(Ken coughs)(Austin laughs)- Is that mold?- I think it's earwax, I'm not sure.It's not good, whatever it is.(relaxing music)- So this might be the mostaggressive way of doing this,but I wanna make surethese are clean.- This is a casefor aggressive measures.So after giving the headphones24 hours to dry out,they still smell bad.So we're gonna do a Tide Pod this time.Ken said that the TidePod works really well for-- Yeah, they taste way better.- We're gonna cleanheadphones for a while.So we'll see you again tomorrowonce they have been washedand dried a second time.It has been two days of washing, drying,washing and drying these.Matt, you're an unbiased nose.- So I have not seenwhen they were dirty.- Oh my god, it was so bad.Why don't we start outwith the simple one.Evaluate the actual earcups.(Matt sniffing)- You smell,you sniff like a dog. (laughs)- Trying to get the full effect.Unoffensive.- Lovely, okay.- Great.- Like actuallyalmost pleasant.- Next up, the headband.This smelled like, well,just tell us what you think about it now.- Very Tide. I like it.- Yes, it is.- Mm, again, not bad cleaning.- The earcups were the dirtiest.- 'Kay, they're the smell is gone.- No, actually it's gone.- Are we good?- Is it really gone?- It's gone, yeah,it's gone, it's gone.- It's actually gone. Okay.- Yeah.- So let's put this all togetherand see if it actually wants to work.How do I pair these AirPods?- You just-- Oh, they're blinking.- Do I just pull out a phone?- Yeah, you pull your phone and...- Okay.- Connect Pauly D's-- You are the worsttech YouTuber ever.- Well, no, I don't knowif these have been reset or whatever,if they're trying to bepaired or what do I do to get-- Did you not try these outbefore you did all this?- No, they were stillactually terrible-- Why, what?(Ken laughs)Wait, wait, wait.So you didn't even testto see if they worked?- No, no, no.- You put in two days of work.- Yes.Dude, when we opened thebag. It was so disgusting.No one wanted to put thisremotely near their faces.- Then you, oh my god.- Joanna used glovesto touch them for the B-roll.- We actually could notuse them without beinglike a mile away.- Joanna uses glovesto high five you two.That's not saying much.(Ken laughs)- Connect.- Cool, that's been spoofablefor a while.- Okay. Oh, no!"The owner of this item willbe able to see its location.You are connecting toan item that's pairedto someone else's Apple ID, R,blank, blank, blank, @gmail."(phone thuds)Goddamn it!We did all that work, it's still been, oh!- So it wasn't Pauly D, it was Ronnie.- He just definitely gota notification sayingthat Austin has paired his AirPods Max.Goddamn it.- Now he knowswhere our office is.- He actually 100%has our current location.- Oh. (laughs)- I'll get the storm shutters.- He fished himself.- He's gonna come backfor his damn AirPods.- Yeah!You just did all the wrongthings all back to back to back.- I do think I just did a crime.I'm pretty sure I just did a crime.- Yeah, you are now.We are accessories becausewe watched you do it.- Okay, well, time totake these back apartand throw them in the riverand we will move on.- No, what we do is we put 'emon a bus going southbound.(Ken laughs)Let them track it.I feel like they're bleedingmore than other Maxes.- No, he justlisten to 'em really loud.- He does listento headphones really loud.- Well, it surely can't getany worse than this, right?Now I definitely know what this item is,and it's something that I havea very close attachment to.This, my friends, is theone and only trash can..."Daredevil" edit 10from Showtime Networks.- (laughs) Asset tag.- They didn't even take it off.- Did this Mac Pro edit "Daredevil"?So I think what happened here isthat someone pulled thisstraight outta the edit bay,and shipped it off to somewholesale or whatever,and eventually, StrictlyApple got their hands on it.But this tape and this packaginghas definitely been on herefor a like a number of years.You only see super oldtape literally like peelup like this.So we've got ourselves the Mac Pro,and if we come around to the side,they've added a sticker to it.2013 Mac Pro, 64 gigs ofRAM, one terabyte SSD,i5, which clearly not Core i5, 12 core,2.7 gigahertz processor, and D700 GPUs.So I'm gonna crack it open.The nice thing with MacPros is they're very easy to(Mac Pro rattling)open, they're really easy to open.- This wasin Clearance condition,their lowest condition item.- Great, Clearance condition,AKA it doesn't come up,which is fine-ish 'cause Imean I technically don't haveto open it, I just wannasee it, but good lord.I don't know what thiswould've cost brand new.I would not be surprisedif it was close to $10,000.It's probably like atleast eight or nine grandto essentially max out theMac Pro, short of the SSD,which I think, I mean the oneterabyte was still huge for,you know, over a decade ago.Since I can't open this one,let me show you my Mac Pro.This is my original 2013 Mac Pro.As you can see, this oneopens up very nicely,and what you'll see is avery unique internal design.So we actually had twoindividual graphics cards,and this side right herewas where the CPU went.It was a cool design because essentially,it used a single fan tosort of push all the airthrough a thermal core.How much do we pay forour Clearance condition,Daredevil-spec Mac Pro?- $450.- Less than the AirPods Maxfor a multiple thousandsof dollar Pro system straightout of the edit bay of Netflixor wherever this came from.So I'm gonna fire up thisStrictly Apple Mac Pro,and we'll see exactlywhat I can do with itand if there's any Netflixproprietary information on it.And if there is, youknow where to find me.My name is Pierre Luigiand my address is...So we have been puttingthis Mac Pro to work.Rio, is this 10-year-oldMac Pro just filling youwith delight as youedit this 4K 2024 footage?- Oh, it really is.- Is it really good?Yep, it's just great.(Rio chuckles)- Sweet as butter?- No. (laughs)- Okay.So the setup here is thatwe've got the Mac Pro.Now I did use OpenCore patcher to updateto the latest version macOS.Technically, this Mac Pro islike one year out of date.They just dropped support for it.So I did do that, andwe are using our server.So we've got a Thunderbolt 2to 10-gig ethernet adapter,so we are running off of the network.So you're working through the videothat you're watching right now.How are we feeling?- Well, I can almost noteven watch it fully throughwithout it just lagging.- Is it that bad?- And then it starteddoing a weird glitch too,which is just great.- So this is not a usable setup.At least it would be usableif we were like gonna do a proxy workflowor using like older cameras'cause we shoot to like H.265,which is a very compressed codec.(sighs) I really wanted this to work.- I also wanted it towork. It looks so cool.- It's so cool, right?So the Mac Pro, I'm notgonna give it a pass.I mean, if you really need asystem with like 64 gigs of RAMand blah, blah, blah, like, okay.But like it's no longer supported.I love OpenCore patcher,but especially with something like this,which already had graphicsissues right outta the box,the fact that we are using old,old drivers is not gonna help anything.Look, I wanna like it,I wanna say nice thingsabout Strictly Apple.Considering how much money I spenton the items in this video,the fact that I stillfeel bad about being meanto Strictly Apple reallyshould say somethingabout the quality and the prices.I don't think there is oneitem from this entire videothat was actually good and worth it.Like literally outta everything,nothing was a good item.This might be the worst refurbishedstore we've ever shoppedon and that's saying something.All right, do you wanna go backto like using a good systemand finish editing thisvideo so people can watch it?- Yes, please.- And I'll take the Mac Proand build a shrine to get the lost.- Okay, with Oscar the Grouch?- Yeah, he can stay in there.He lives in the trash can where he belongsand where almost all the itemsfrom this video belong. (laughs)