Unboxing and Review: Apple Certified Refurbished 16-Inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max Processor

As I unwrapped my brand new, but not entirely new, MacBook Pro, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement. The laptop arrived in plain white packaging, which is different from the usual retail boxes you'd expect to see on new products. However, it's clear that this machine has been thoroughly inspected and certified by Apple as refurbished. A quick glance at the box reveals the words "Certified Refurbished" printed at the bottom, which gives me confidence in the quality of the product.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that all the cables were neatly bundled together, including a charging brick, which suggests that these accessories are indeed brand new and not just standard issue. The laptop itself looks stunning, with its space gray finish and sleek design. It's clear that this machine has been handled carefully and is in pristine condition. A quick glance at the keyboard reveals no signs of wear or tear, and the keys appear to be brand new.

As I continued to inspect the laptop, I couldn't help but think about how it compares to my current M1 Max-powered Mac Studio. While the Studio has been a reliable workhorse for me, this 16-inch MacBook Pro is a beast in its own right, boasting an M2 Max processor with 12 core CPU and 38 core GPU, 32 gigs of RAM, and a one terabyte SSD. It's clear that Apple has made some significant upgrades to the hardware in this machine.

But before I could dive deeper into the specifications, I had to consider the elephant in the room: my son Ben, who's been doing most of the editing and shooting for my videos. He was excitedly waiting behind the camera, eager to get his hands on this new machine. However, I had to break the news to him that this particular laptop is not for our web development business – it's actually for him! He'll be using it as a new editing computer, which should make his workflow much more efficient.

As we say goodbye to my trusty Mac Studio, I'm looking forward to putting these two machines through their paces and comparing the performance of the M1 Max versus the M2 Max. It's going to be a fun experiment, and I'm excited to share the results with all of you. In the meantime, Ben gets to enjoy his new laptop, and we get to upgrade our workflow.

One thing that's worth noting is that buying from Apple's certified refurbished program can be a great way to save money on high-end products like this MacBook Pro. The discounts are significant, and you still get the same level of quality and support as with brand new products. Plus, you might even have enough change left over to pick up some accessories or insurance. Of course, it's always important to keep an eye on sales and discounts elsewhere, but for those looking to save a bit of cash, Apple's refurbished program is definitely worth considering.

If you're in the market for a new Mac, I'd still recommend checking out Amazon for discounts on brand new products. The selection is vast, and you can often find significant savings on high-end items. However, if you're willing to take the risk, Apple's certified refurbished program can be a great option. As always, I'll have links to the store in the description below, so be sure to check them out.

For those interested in purchasing from Apple's certified refurbished program, head over to the Apple website and scroll down to the bottom for more information. You can also ring the bell above my channel title to ensure you don't miss any future tech-related content. Don't forget to let me know in the comments section if your experience with buying a refurbished product has been good or bad – I'm always looking for feedback!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enApple computers are pricey particularly if you live in the UK when the pound nose dived against the dollar last year Apple whacked up the prices of all of their computers iPads and iPhones and this coincided with the launch of the M2 Pro and Max machines so we are men too Keen to buy them particularly as the M1 Pro and Max are so good and could be found cheaper at places like Amazon I say could because Amazon don't have any stock of those machines anymore so there aren't any cheap deals to be had and of course the pound has bounced back pretty quick against the dollar and return to the pre-price hike levels but Tim Cook seems to have forgotten to put the prices back down I'm sure it's on his radar is a busy man after all but in the meantime what about buying certified refurbished machines from Apple they're certainly cheaper but would you want a refurbished machine as it happens I have a few here so let's take a look Apple's certified refurbished products are available at up to 15 off the retail price and that's the discount that we got with these models the device itself is inspected and thoroughly cleaned so that it looks like new in fact in the case of iOS devices you'll get a new battery and a new outer shell and you get all of the accessories and cables that you would have got if you bought it new it's just that you get a plain white box that says refurbished on it the refurbished devices from Apple get a full one year warranty and then you can add Apple Care insurance onto that so that you're fully covered and of course Apple's usual return policy applies so you can return the device if you're not happy so let's crack One open and take a look at it so the outer packaging looks exactly like uh you get with the full retail versions I do think Apple do the best packaging they really do even the outer cards singer Beauty and there we go there's our our box for our MacBook Pro as you can see it's just a plain white box it doesn't have an image of the laptop on it like a retail box would and it does say a certified refurbished at the bottom here and there is our certified refurbished MacBook it's in all of the same packaging that you would expect to find a new one in so there's all our cables we should have a charging brick in there somewhere as well which will be uh yeah Underneath It All looks brand new there's no marks on anything I suspect these accessories are in fact brand new so let's unwrap the laptop itself can you tell the difference that's the question so it's a nice space gray this is an M2 Max 16 inch MacBook Pro and let me make sure the overhead camera can see it there's not a mark on it which is exactly what I would expect the usual bit of paper and something else that you'll notice is the keyboard looks absolutely brand new box fresh there's no shiny keys or anything like that there's no marks on the machine anywhere no residue or anything like that it looks exactly like a brand new machine and the unboxing experience apart from the difference in the Box is exactly the same now we've bought a few of these refurbished machines now and we haven't had any problems with them in fact in most cases it would seem that these machines are actually returns that have been barely used but if it is a machine that's had a hardware issue then the faulty Hardware will have been replaced so to all intents and purposes it's like a new machine and I'm looking forward to actually finally reviewing an M2 Max on the channel and it has been a while since I did any Mac content now something else that you might not know is that my son Ben who's sat behind the camera does the vast majority of editing and shooting of b-roll for my videos because I don't have the time and what Ben doesn't know is that this particular machine is not for our web development business this is his new editing computer yay now we've been toting my Mac Studio to and from home and work which is not particularly convenient so I'm going to sell the Mac Studio and we're upgrading then to this 16 inch laptop which should be a decent step up and this particular machine is a bit of a beast it's the M2 Max with 12 core CPU 38 core GPU there's 32 gigs of RAM and a one terabyte SSD before the Mac Studio goes we will do some tests between the two machines because I'm interested to see how the M1 Max and M2 Max compare for our specific workflow and I'll bring that to the channel in a video soon personally I'm still going to be using my 14 inch M1 Max laptop it's the one that my main business provides me but I do use it for video editing when I'm not at home at my workstation and it handles everything I throw at it so I'm very confident that this 16 inch M2 Max will do an even better job now even though it's a discounted refurbished machine it's still a big outlay so before Ben gets too excited and before I get castigated in the comments section this is a business asset that Ben gets to use it's not a personal gift sorry Ben and of course the usual economics of buying for a business apply so I get it even cheaper because we get the sales tax back which is 20 in the UK and of course I can write down the value of the machine against future profit so I save even more now true when you consider it in this context 15 may not seem like a huge difference but what you're getting here is basically the same as buying new the machine looks brand new it's got a warranty like a new machine and with the money you save you can add Apple Care insurance which I definitely recommend on a computer like this and you might even have enough change left over for a protective sleeve or a nice bag to go with it so if you're in the market for a new Mac iPad or iPhone and you want to save money well I'd still suggest checking Amazon out because they often have discounts on brand new products and there are some links in the description if you want to support the channel but otherwise I wouldn't be nervous about trying out Apple's certified refurbished products to find the link to the store you go to the Apple website scroll down to the bottom and you can see the link here so I hope this has been useful Please Subscribe for more Tech and apple content and don't forget to ring the bell because otherwise YouTube simply won't surface my future content for you refurbished before was it a good experience let me know in the comments section and I'll see you again soon for some more geekery foreignApple computers are pricey particularly if you live in the UK when the pound nose dived against the dollar last year Apple whacked up the prices of all of their computers iPads and iPhones and this coincided with the launch of the M2 Pro and Max machines so we are men too Keen to buy them particularly as the M1 Pro and Max are so good and could be found cheaper at places like Amazon I say could because Amazon don't have any stock of those machines anymore so there aren't any cheap deals to be had and of course the pound has bounced back pretty quick against the dollar and return to the pre-price hike levels but Tim Cook seems to have forgotten to put the prices back down I'm sure it's on his radar is a busy man after all but in the meantime what about buying certified refurbished machines from Apple they're certainly cheaper but would you want a refurbished machine as it happens I have a few here so let's take a look Apple's certified refurbished products are available at up to 15 off the retail price and that's the discount that we got with these models the device itself is inspected and thoroughly cleaned so that it looks like new in fact in the case of iOS devices you'll get a new battery and a new outer shell and you get all of the accessories and cables that you would have got if you bought it new it's just that you get a plain white box that says refurbished on it the refurbished devices from Apple get a full one year warranty and then you can add Apple Care insurance onto that so that you're fully covered and of course Apple's usual return policy applies so you can return the device if you're not happy so let's crack One open and take a look at it so the outer packaging looks exactly like uh you get with the full retail versions I do think Apple do the best packaging they really do even the outer cards singer Beauty and there we go there's our our box for our MacBook Pro as you can see it's just a plain white box it doesn't have an image of the laptop on it like a retail box would and it does say a certified refurbished at the bottom here and there is our certified refurbished MacBook it's in all of the same packaging that you would expect to find a new one in so there's all our cables we should have a charging brick in there somewhere as well which will be uh yeah Underneath It All looks brand new there's no marks on anything I suspect these accessories are in fact brand new so let's unwrap the laptop itself can you tell the difference that's the question so it's a nice space gray this is an M2 Max 16 inch MacBook Pro and let me make sure the overhead camera can see it there's not a mark on it which is exactly what I would expect the usual bit of paper and something else that you'll notice is the keyboard looks absolutely brand new box fresh there's no shiny keys or anything like that there's no marks on the machine anywhere no residue or anything like that it looks exactly like a brand new machine and the unboxing experience apart from the difference in the Box is exactly the same now we've bought a few of these refurbished machines now and we haven't had any problems with them in fact in most cases it would seem that these machines are actually returns that have been barely used but if it is a machine that's had a hardware issue then the faulty Hardware will have been replaced so to all intents and purposes it's like a new machine and I'm looking forward to actually finally reviewing an M2 Max on the channel and it has been a while since I did any Mac content now something else that you might not know is that my son Ben who's sat behind the camera does the vast majority of editing and shooting of b-roll for my videos because I don't have the time and what Ben doesn't know is that this particular machine is not for our web development business this is his new editing computer yay now we've been toting my Mac Studio to and from home and work which is not particularly convenient so I'm going to sell the Mac Studio and we're upgrading then to this 16 inch laptop which should be a decent step up and this particular machine is a bit of a beast it's the M2 Max with 12 core CPU 38 core GPU there's 32 gigs of RAM and a one terabyte SSD before the Mac Studio goes we will do some tests between the two machines because I'm interested to see how the M1 Max and M2 Max compare for our specific workflow and I'll bring that to the channel in a video soon personally I'm still going to be using my 14 inch M1 Max laptop it's the one that my main business provides me but I do use it for video editing when I'm not at home at my workstation and it handles everything I throw at it so I'm very confident that this 16 inch M2 Max will do an even better job now even though it's a discounted refurbished machine it's still a big outlay so before Ben gets too excited and before I get castigated in the comments section this is a business asset that Ben gets to use it's not a personal gift sorry Ben and of course the usual economics of buying for a business apply so I get it even cheaper because we get the sales tax back which is 20 in the UK and of course I can write down the value of the machine against future profit so I save even more now true when you consider it in this context 15 may not seem like a huge difference but what you're getting here is basically the same as buying new the machine looks brand new it's got a warranty like a new machine and with the money you save you can add Apple Care insurance which I definitely recommend on a computer like this and you might even have enough change left over for a protective sleeve or a nice bag to go with it so if you're in the market for a new Mac iPad or iPhone and you want to save money well I'd still suggest checking Amazon out because they often have discounts on brand new products and there are some links in the description if you want to support the channel but otherwise I wouldn't be nervous about trying out Apple's certified refurbished products to find the link to the store you go to the Apple website scroll down to the bottom and you can see the link here so I hope this has been useful Please Subscribe for more Tech and apple content and don't forget to ring the bell because otherwise YouTube simply won't surface my future content for you refurbished before was it a good experience let me know in the comments section and I'll see you again soon for some more geekery foreign\n"