I ended up getting my hands on what I think was a pretty good deal as Best Buy had a MacBook Pro rated Open Box - Excellent Certified for $200 off. (If you want to look for deals like this, consider checking any variant. This one was specifically under the Silver color.) They also had a MacBook Air marked down a bit, but it was only $70 off for the same condition. The only thing that I don't really know is how that affects the warranty? Does Apple just give me one year from the original buyer's purchase date as long as they fully initialized/setup the system? (I know you can check your warranty state from within iOS on an iPhone/iPad.)
There is one thing that I was curious about. When I entered the WiFi credentials, it seemed to take a somewhat long time to actually connect and get past the screen. What I don't know is if Apple is doing more behind the scenes (and not telling you) as it took about 20-30 seconds when connecting to WiFi normally takes about 5-10 seconds at worst. With a returned item, I'm a bit hesitant to just write something off as I want to make sure something isn't wrong... especially if the controllers are embedded.
As for why, I had always wanted to get into iOS development, but I hesitated on spending money on something without a real plan. At best, I would maybe consider getting a cheaper Mac Mini as the cost is far less excessive for just wanting to dabble. It wasn't until I thought of an interesting app idea, which I'm sure has already been done, to actually get into it. Then, after considering what sort of "simple app" to start off with to get my feet wet, I thought of another interesting idea... which I'm sure has also already been done.
