Acquiring new (to me) MBP

[bzeguy]

I am hoping that someone or several someones who work on MPB's can steer me straight. My impression of Apple is that in order to rush stuff to market they use the public to test products and just send them to the Apple store and weed out glitches cheaper and faster than a devoted team of far less people would. I would not have an issue with this if they would kindly put one Apple store in the entire country of Belize. When a Mac goes bad here you just buy another because shipping it back and forth with the wait is not reasonable. I have been through 10-11mbp's in 19 years. I have bought them new and used, my last new one worked great for3 years, a record until gf spilled a drink on the keyboard. Catalina OS best ever. Since then I have had 2 cheap older one because I take the hard drives out of them when they fail, they plug right into my Seagate External. But that one had the hard drive fused to motherboard, lost 3 years of photos. So can any of you techs tell me which way to jump? There must be an ideal everything, the best components and try to find them in one used unit with SSD removable. Before you tell me about I cloud they managed to lose some files, I use my own externals except for the Catalina. So in a nutshell kindly tell me what to look for and features like memory that are important. Are new solid state boards, 2024-25 worth the extra money? Thank you kindly from Belize

 

[BrianBaughn]

Well…first…backup frequently to more than one destination.

You're going to have to tell us what you're doing or planning to do on a new Mac to get some decent advice.

 

[bzeguy]

Well…first…backup frequently to more than one destination.

You're going to have to tell us what you're doing or planning to do on a new Mac to get some decent advice.

Basically a lot of photography and records kept of my business which is uncomplicated here and takes minimal space. I back it up in hotmail drafts, almost 2 decades of info stored for free. I am not a penny-pincher it is just very difficult to do business and transactions from here, no one recognizes this tiny (400,000 ppl) country. My 23 Billion bank for example will not send a security OTP here, so I cannot access my US account from phone. Apple is another shining example, you cannot rid yourself of their frequent glitches at an Apple store or send it. You get one shot at a working Mac here.

 

[raythompsontn]

I have been through 10-11mbp's in 19 years

Less than two years average for each computer. The problem is not Apple, it is the way that you are treating the systems. I have had several Macs without issue and I know other people that have had the same Mac for 7+ years without any issues. My upgrades were not because of problems with the Mac, I just wanted a newer system.

My experience is that Apple products are well made, probably some of the best in the industry. Apple support after the sale is unmatched based on my experience with Microsoft, Dell, HP and Apple.

 

[gigatoaster]

Hello gorgeous

I think you’re taking the problem wrongly: it’s not about Mac but securing and backing up your work. I don’t know if they have fast internet in Belize but have you considered cloud backup or other solutions?

 

[kschendel]

I got my first Mac laptop in I think 1998 and I've had 5 since, with one dying due to a glass of wine in the keyboard, and one (the predecessor to my current MBA) meeting a fatal accident just short of its 10th birthday. If you are going through a laptop every 2 years there's something wrong. Is the environment particularly salty and/or humid? If so, is there any way you can mitigate, eg dehumidifying, protective sleeve in storage, or ???

(Amusingly enough, that first bronze keyboard Powerbook still works. I powered it up a few months ago to attempt to extract some info from a very old hard drive out of someone else's dead late-90's machine.)

 

[ChrisA]

I am hoping that someone or several someones who work on MPB's can steer me straight. My impression of Apple is that in order to rush stuff to market they use the public to test products and just send them to the Apple store and weed out glitches cheaper and faster than a devoted team of far less people would. I would not have an issue with this if they would kindly put one Apple store in the entire country of Belize. When a Mac goes bad here you just buy another because shipping it back and forth with the wait is not reasonable. I have been through 10-11mbp's in 19 years. I have bought them new and used, my last new one worked great for3 years, a record until gf spilled a drink on the keyboard. Catalina OS best ever. Since then I have had 2 cheap older one because I take the hard drives out of them when they fail, they plug right into my Seagate External. But that one had the hard drive fused to motherboard, lost 3 years of photos. So can any of you techs tell me which way to jump? There must be an ideal everything, the best components and try to find them in one used unit with SSD removable. Before you tell me about I cloud they managed to lose some files, I use my own externals except for the Catalina. So in a nutshell kindly tell me what to look for and features like memory that are important. Are new solid state boards, 2024-25 worth the extra money? Thank you kindly from Belize

Something is wrong. Typically Apple Macs last at leat 10 years or longer and you replace it because you jj want the newer technology. As for backup, The very best practice is to use Time Machine. If you have a notebook then you are going to have to set up TM so it works over WiFi. The next thing is to have more then one TM disk.

Email as backup? That is pretty much nuts if you have a photo business that can generate terabytes of data. Almost all photo and video people use a NAS to store their data and backup to a second or third NAS that is at some remote location

Is SSD better then hard drives. Yes. Far better but also expensive if you have tens of terrabytes of data. SSD cot is not about $100 per terabyte which makes it very affordable for the data you need quick access to. But for backup and acrchiove people still use the cheaper spinning disks. You need about three backup copies for business critical data so you'd be using lower cost disks for you backups and an archives.

Finally do you really need the Mac to be portable. A desktop system like the Mac Mini will be more reliable because it lives in a fixed place and you don't move it around.