Given that budget, if I were you I'd surf to store.apple.com, find the "Refurbished" section, buy the cheapest Macbook you can find and add the Applecare warran

Given that budget, if I were you I'd surf to store.apple.com, find the "Refurbished" section, buy the cheapest Macbook you can find and add the Applecare warranty. Now you have a machine, good as new, which Apple promises to fix for you for the next three years, and you're probably even within your budget. I love Macs, and my white Macbook is still chugging along after five years (though I have passed it on to someone else), but I did have to replace a hard drive and a battery and get the backlight looked at. Applecare paid for it all. I'd rather spend the whole $1k and get a machine with a warranty than spend half that on a used machine that's going to have, say, the backlight crap out halfway through my degree program. Laptops are not built to last, even Macs. The market has spoken. It wants cheap, not reliable. The other hint to remember, as always, is that RAM is cheaper from someone else than it is from Apple. Lots cheaper.