WARNING!!! If you buy a refurbished unit, it MUST be a factory-refurbished unit, or you can not get Applecare for it--and, as mentioned above, you should not buy any Mac computer, especially a laptop, unless you have Applecare--

Mac laptops, particularly, in recent years have been plagued by something called "Random Shutdown Syndrome", a truly terrible, soul problem that is pretends to be solved and then re-occurs just as you start to believe that it has been taken care of. Without Applecare, you are up salt creek...

I know about this because I've had two, count them, two, Macbooks that had this problem. One was purchased new, with Applecare, and the other was purchased refurb'd from someone who seemed to be a factory authorized reseller.

I bought and registered the Applecare, and about three and a half months later, my MacBook Pro shut down, I did all the suggested fixes..finally contacted apple to get authorization for repairs, only to have them tell me that my my applecare did not apply because my computer' manufacture date had reverted to 1978 because it had been refurb'd by an outside vendor.

The thing was that the computer (and many like it) had been returned to apple for repair/replacement, and apple simply sold them off to independent techs who refurb'd them and sold them, probably without realizing that the Random Shutdown Syndrome often cannot be fixed.

Apple ultimately replaced the unit with a new one, which, by the time all was said and done, was the next generation, I came out OK--but from now on, if I buy a refurb at all, it will be from the Apple Store.