I don't need a new one, but my wife does as her one is the Macbook Pro from 2009 and is now extremely slow, and the battery lasts about 20 minutes. So I was going to buy a new one for me, and give her my current one.

As you say, the 2014 is a great model - I'm using it right now, and it's plenty sufficient for everything I do.

Ah the hand-me-down train, I know it well. Brothers and nieces supply the demand for a generation or two old iDevices and gives me a bit of a way to cut into the purchase price of the new shiny.

You could get your wife a refurbished MacBook. They're pretty cheap.

I did look at this, and I found that they weren't cheap at all. The Macbook Pro 13 2012 model is around £800.

I'm wondering this too. I'm using a 2010 version with a new battery and SSD installed, and besides that everything is working fine. I would like a Retina on that but I don't see the huge problem

I looked at this option, but started to think it was good money after bad. The repair shop I got a quote from said around £400 for the upgrade, and it just doesn't seem worth it.