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Buying a older Macbook Pro

golfnut1982

golfnut1982

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 12, 2014
566
1,406
Chicago, IL
Looking for personal experience here...I almost pulled the trigger on a BRAND NEW Mid 2015 MacBook Pro 15" with 1 tb and 2.8 GHz laptop. Mind you, brand new, and the last one before all the ports went poof. What stopped me was the thought of battery degradation due to the chemistry of storage and not being used ever 15 minutes before the auction ended on ebay. I just had no idea what the battery capacity would be when I fire it up, plug it in and let it charge. I read losses of 4% per year, but this again, an estimate. Was I over thinking this? OR did I make the right move buy not buying this and possibly haveing to replace the battery. To put this in perspective, I have a 2103 MBP, with 266 cycles and 95-96% health. So I was worried the new MBP would have less battery life than my current one. Any advise or knowledgeable comment I'd appreciate.
 
I would say it depends on the price. If you in the most bad case had to replace the battery at your own expense would you still be happy with that purchase?

I bought a 2015 used machine similar to yours, but 256GB SSD and 2.5GHz. Machine was manufactured jan/2016 but received a new battery due to the replacement program. Battery is from Oct/2019 and with 10 cycles it has more mAh than design capacity. I get more than 7 hours with it.

I really love the machine coming from a 2018 15". 16" would been a great machine if Apple did the same as in 2015 and provided a iGPU-only option. I still hope that by the end of the current year Intel gets the Iris Pro on 45W CPUs for Apple to use.
 
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There will be others, OR I just get the 16 later this year or maybe the 14 when it arrives.
[automerge]1580577006[/automerge]
But does the battery chemistry degrade that much???
 
My 2015 MBP sat for about 2 years with almost no use. My battery is still doing fine.

Screen Shot 2020-02-01 at 12.13.20 PM.png
 
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Not sure what the pricing was, but I wouldn’t hesitate.

The 2015 15” MBP’s are “all timer” great machines.
Honestly, they are perhaps the most refined laptops they’ve ever made.

It is one of those products that really shines from the countless small refinements and iterations over the years leading up to it.
 
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Depending on when it was made it also might be eligible for Apple’s 15" 2015 battery replacement program.

https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall
You can type in the serial number at the Apple website to check eligibility.

If so then you can get it replaced and not have to worry about any degradation as it will be new.

I just recently took in a 2015 15” (2.5/512/m370x) MBP that was close to 4 years old. Battery only had like 130 cycles and was still at close to 90% health I believe. I got the screen replaced (coating issue) and the system was part the battery recall program so they replaced the battery as well.
 
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MacBook Pro mid 2012 (non-retina) 2.5 GHz dual core (upgrades - 1 TB SSD, 8 GB RAM) running great.
< $300 acquisition.
Very fast after switching out the "slow as molasses" 500 GB HDD and upgrading from 4 to 8 GB RAM.
I'm not a power user who needs a MBP for demanding professional level applications (eg. the Adobe suite).
 
I'm also wondering about dipping my toe into Mac ownership, are there any sites I can go and research specs of older Mac Pros, ie CPUs, max memory, if user upgradeable, GPUs etc etc??
 
kitenski said:
I'm also wondering about dipping my toe into Mac ownership, are there any sites I can go and research specs of older Mac Pros, ie CPUs, max memory, if user upgradeable, GPUs etc etc??
Click to expand...

iFixit for how to upgrade - they might give you the max upgradeble too. You can go to Crucial.com to get max RAM and SSD where applicable.
 
I would probably say you dodged a bullet. Not for the battery, but I'm sure that laptop was going for A LOT of money. I've seen them sell for around 2k in change and sometimes a bit more if from a retailer (and honestly, you're in 16 inch MBP territory at that point). Aside from that, for the last year or so of production, those models were produced without dedicated graphic cards. I bought a 2015 15 inch model 2.8 i7, 16gb RAM 1TB SSD and dual graphics for $1000. Computer was in mint condition, just had the battery replaced and was essentially brand new aside from the charger.

They're harder to find (like new condition and such) but if you browse everyday for a week or two, you'll find something that pops up that can save you a lot of money.
 
Nbd1790 said:
I bought a 2015 15 inch model 2.8 i7, 16gb RAM 1TB SSD and dual graphics for $1000. Computer was in mint condition, just had the battery replaced and was essentially brand new aside from the charger.
Click to expand...

What graphics card was in that 2015 model? Assume you are in the US getting it for $1000? Wonder what a UK one would go for??
 
I ended up getting a new 16" MBP. I'm giving by daughter my trusty steed for college. She is thrilled. Gotta tell ya, everything they are saying about the new MBP is legit. WOW.
 
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kitenski said:
I'm also wondering about dipping my toe into Mac ownership, are there any sites I can go and research specs of older Mac Pros, ie CPUs, max memory, if user upgradeable, GPUs etc etc??
Click to expand...

Lots of stuff on internet & Youtube.
Let Google be your tour guide.
I then went to Ebay and made a purchase ... lucked out ... I got a mid 2012 (non-retina) MBP that was in immaculate shape for ~$300 tax inc.
 
MacDuggy said:
Lots of stuff on internet & Youtube.
Let Google be your tour guide.
I then went to Ebay and made a purchase ... lucked out ... I got a mid 2012 (non-retina) MBP that was in immaculate shape for ~$300 tax inc.
Click to expand...

Basically same. I ordered a batch of Mid 2012 Unibody MBP 13 in for $200 and put all of the best parts in one computer, making it a near-mint 2.9 i7. I then added a 250 GB Samsung SSD for like $40 (on sale at Best Buy) and some RAM for $57 (looked up the ram on Crucial and ordered it for less on amazon). It's been a great machine with excellent read and write speeds and with low latency. The bandwidth of the RAM is far better than the cheap 2GB sticks that came in the lot (no 4GB sticks).

Battery Cycle count is 268 so it's not TOO bad for a near-8-yr old machine. Though I might replace the optical drive for a stock 7200RPM 1TB drive I have lying around and reapplying some thermal paste on the CPU.

I'm also looking into a modded airport card to have AC wi-fi and BT 4.2, which is on another thread somewhere.
 
Alexis Noel said:
Basically same. I ordered a batch of Mid 2012 Unibody MBP 13 in for $200 and put all of the best parts in one computer, making it a near-mint 2.9 i7. I then added a 250 GB Samsung SSD for like $40 (on sale at Best Buy) and some RAM for $57 (looked up the ram on Crucial and ordered it for less on amazon). It's been a great machine with excellent read and write speeds and with low latency. The bandwidth of the RAM is far better than the cheap 2GB sticks that came in the lot (no 4GB sticks).

Battery Cycle count is 268 so it's not TOO bad for a near-8-yr old machine. Though I might replace the optical drive for a stock 7200RPM 1TB drive I have lying around and reapplying some thermal paste on the CPU.

I'm also looking into a modded airport card to have AC wi-fi and BT 4.2, which is on another thread somewhere.
Click to expand...
same here, 16gb ram, SSD/data doubler use for RAID0 , only missing upgrade AC/BT4.2 wifi card which out of stock right now.
 
Alexis Noel said:
Basically same. I ordered a batch of Mid 2012 Unibody MBP 13 in for $200 and put all of the best parts in one computer, making it a near-mint 2.9 i7. I then added a 250 GB Samsung SSD for like $40 (on sale at Best Buy) and some RAM for $57 (looked up the ram on Crucial and ordered it for less on amazon). It's been a great machine with excellent read and write speeds and with low latency. The bandwidth of the RAM is far better than the cheap 2GB sticks that came in the lot (no 4GB sticks).

Battery Cycle count is 268 so it's not TOO bad for a near-8-yr old machine. Though I might replace the optical drive for a stock 7200RPM 1TB drive I have lying around and reapplying some thermal paste on the CPU.

I'm also looking into a modded airport card to have AC wi-fi and BT 4.2, which is on another thread somewhere.
Click to expand...

I beefed my RAM up to 8GB and switched out the old slug of a HDD for a brand new Crucial 1 TB SSD. The optical drive is staying put ... I have many uses for it. I keep videos, pics and other big real estate files on separate USB drives.
 
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