I have a lot of Apple gadgets that range widely I age. Apple products have been part of most of my adult life. My first Apple was an Apple II+ (yes, just aged myself). Yesterday I spent the afternoon updating all the Mac laptops and desktops in my lab (I am a biologist) and realized that I am still using machines that are more than 10 years old. While some have slowed in their old age (don’t we all), most are used for data acquisition and perform well. Not even sure how old my oldest machine is, but one of the laptops I updated yesterday was a mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro that is capped at El Capitan. I also still do analysis on a dual core cheese grater. Starting to go through and replace hard drives in some of the machines as I have found that to be the #1 “upgrade” that I can make to boost performance (already have maxed RAM in everything). Stuck a new 1TB SSD in my mid-2013 27" iMac and it screams. I am rambling a bit here, but was impressed by how functional all these machines continue to be even after many years. By contrast, I have a 3-year old Lenovo laptop that I use to drive a couple of instruments (no choice) whose performance has declined so much I hate to even turn it on.
That has been my experience too. I still have discussions with scientists especially who disdain Mac as being ‘for artists’. I have found the machines last long enough to more than justify their initial price. I am amazed that point isn’t made more often. Guess Apple are on a kind of dilema here regarding sales? I will replace my 2014 MacBook Pro which is causing me no problems at all with a Desktop which I expect to last a decade. I will use the lap top as long as I can too. Just to see in a way.
Nodding in complete agreement as I reply to this using my late 2011 MBP. I dropped an SSD and extra RAM in it about 5-6 years ago, and it’s been great. I did get a 2016 MBP when they came out, but had problems with the keyboard, a battery replacement (which required an complete replacement of the upper case) and finally a screen issue. That MBP is now attached to a widescreen TV at home for media storage, and is barely used.