I’m curious about how long do you use your laptops for general usage before you upgrade to new hardware? I know everybody’s requirements will be different but I wanted to exclude usage that requires the latest and greatest.
I have a 2014 MBP (Mojave) that is starting to feel its age with battery life and sluggishness. I’m tempted to keep it for another year before upgrading to an M1. I was talking to a friend who is still using his 8 year old MBP and his wife just retired her 10 year old MBA.
Still using a 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. If I used a laptop more often I’d probably upgrade to one of the new M1 MacBook Airs, but with the pandemic I’m not doing much work outside my apartment in the immediate future, so it’s kind of hard to justify.
Yea that makes sense. This was my first Mac. I remember when I had a windows laptop that I upgraded much more often. It seems that hardware has progressed enough or maybe MacOS handles better than Windows
My 15" MacBook Pro is a late 2014 and it still functions fine for my use. It is an I7 with 16 GB of memory and a 512 GB SSD. To compare, my work just purchased some new PC laptops to help people with remote work. They are Lenovo’s with 8 GB of memory and 256 GB SSD drives. The MacBook Pros are traditionally well specked, quality products. The sub $1000 laptops in the PC world will require much sooner replacement. Where I’ve work in the past, PC laptops are look at as 3 year devices. I think we’ll see a lot of the butterfly keyboard Macbooks being replaced sooner now that Apple is shipping dependable keyboards again.
On average, it has been about 3-4 years, but the machine usually remains in service for someone else in the family for another 4-5 years. We are getting close to a time when passing it down will not be an option since the children are going to need a better machine themselves. I am anticipating the time when I will no longer have the best tech in the family.
I used my 2008 MBP until it died in 2015. I’ve been using my 2015 MBP since. I really don’t need to replace it, but those M1s are super shiny. I could also get ~$500 trade in value. As others have mentioned, most 5 year old pc laptops go to thrift stores or land fills.
My MBP is almost 9 years old but I’ve been able to upgrade it over the years with more memory, SSD, and new battery. More recent models will likely not have as long a life due to upgrade and repair limitations.
It’s pretty cool to hear these stories especially since I’ve only been part of the Mac community since 2014. I do wish that I could upgrade the components. I want a little more speed.
I think it overheated. I had it in a vertical Hinge dock, closed, and using an external monitor. I started loading whatever the MacOS X update was at the time, and went home. Came back to school the next day and it was dead as a hammer.
My first Mac was a polycarbonate white MacBook, late 2007. Retired that in October 2013 when I got a Mid-2012 15" MBP high-res (non-Retina). My M1 Air arrives sometime in the next 2 weeks.
So right now I’m averaging just over 6.5 years per Apple laptop.
Ask me how many Windows computers have passed through these doors in that same amount of time
I use my computers until they don’t work anymore. E.g. I have a 2008 Unibody Macbook (not Pro) that I use as the media server for the Apple TVs because it cannot keep up with what my kids need anymore. I flirt with the idea of using a Mac Mini, but I already have this laptop. Still in active use every day is a 2011 11" MacBook Air. It is a bit slow for some of the games my daughters like to play, so I will replace it soon. My other machines are a 2015 13" MacBook Pro and a 2018 13" MacBook Pro. They are both fine for everything we do.
It’s still working fine from what I understand. My daughter has it in Bahrain where she has been for about 2 years now. I don’t know the OS version. I replaced the battery when she visited here a year ago and replace the hard drive a year before.
I still have a MacBook Pro from 2012. I just fitted a new battery and have upgraded to a SSD and it is usable and responsive, although stuck on Catalina. It’ll make a great starting computer for my daughter. I never trade in laptops, but normally run them for 10-12 years, or until they stop working.
I upgraded last year and intend on keeping the 16" I bought for a similar amount of time.
I purchased a Mac mini and I am planning to do some testing. Basically, I am trying to see if I can replace my iMac, and MacBook with Mac mini + iPad. I hope this turns to be successful, because it means I will be running with 1 device less (the MacBook).
