Upgrade 2007 MBP or Buy Refurbished MBP?

Hello All!

I currently have a early 2007 MBP 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo with 3GB RAM (4 installed, only 3 recognizable) and a 5400 RPM HD.

I am trying to decide between the following:

1. Spend ~$140 for a low end 240GB SSD (nothing super fast because the MBP data speed is only 3Gbit), and install that to get a performance boost and see me through the next couple years. My RAM is currently maxed.

2. Buy a current low end refurbished Non-retina MBP and spend on better parts to swap into it so it's got a top of the line RAIDed SSD pair (double data speed) and maxed RAM.

3. Wait until the next product refresh of the MBP, then buy the same model as in option #2 at an even lower price because it's even more outdated at that point.

Obviously from this, you can tell my overall goals is maximizing the amount of technology bang for my buck. Without having to suffer with my increasingly slow and burdened 2007 MBP and longer.

I would love to hear all thoughts and suggestions!

steiney

I agree generally speaking, but I suspect that I might be able to milk this one a little longer if I put an SSD in it. I just don't know exactly what the performance increase will be like. And I don't know how much of the lag is due to lack of RAM and how much is due to the slow HD. And maybe if I popped in an SSD, when the RAM ran out and went to the HD, it would be faster since it's an SSD.

I guess I should do a little Googling on the subject.

Thanks for the input! I'm thinking that's the best solution. The current MBP cost me about $3k six years ago. That's $500/year. If I spent another $150 on it and got another two years of happy/content use out of it, then I'm down to $393.75/year, which really doesn't seem like enough of a drop to be worth it.

Thanks for the kudos. I'm pretty thrilled myself, the penny pincher that I am. It occurred to me recently that it I could buy the bottom end refurbished MBP, upgrade it myself and have near cutting edge tech with a four year refresh cycle versus a six or eight year cycle for basically the same amount of money over a given amount of time.

The only problem with selling my current MBP to offset the cost of a new one is that I am highly emotionally attached to it, as it is my first Mac, and it was such a savior from the Windows hell. Also, I would like to have it as a backup computer if my next one is ever down for the count or gets stolen/lost/etc. Currently, I have a super old HP laptop as my backup, but thanks to the awesomeness of Macs, I've only had to use it a couple times, and I think they were both my fault.