Wife has a 13" MBP 2012 model (build date is 2015) that's getting long-in-the-tooth now. Today I thought about how to find a replacement for it, and that there is no immediate "no brainer" choice. Going back 3-5 years and they're all butterfly keyboard+cooling fan (ie suck dust into the keyboard frame) except the MacBook Retina 12", that's nice (I did like mine), but No. (Simply way too fragile.) My guess is the 2020 MacBook Air with i3 processor. Is there anything else that is even a contender?
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Buying Suggestion
- Thread starter julianps
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I wouldn't go with the i3, I'd go with the M1 Air
Me too, but cost is a factor. Most of her use is email, browsing and streaming. My issue with my early 2020 model with intel processors was the (so called) passive cooling + placebo fan. Even on my i3 I needed an intel widget and turbo boost pro to cut processes when it got too hot (and it did get hot, especially whenever read/write was a factor). And her laptop lives on a quilt. [Kudos to Apple that the m/y 2012 MBP was so robust.]
The problem with the intel ones are that they got so overpowered by the M1 architecture that they are really bad choices nowadays and will get depreciated quickly after the full transition, specially the low end intel ones like the air, even more the i3 one you mentioned: REALLY poor performance and pretty bad thermals, the i3 version early 2020 macbook air has the same performance as my old 2014 mac mini, a pretty underpowered chip that will still thermal throttle like crazy. and even the expensive i7 model still has half the performance of an M1 when it's on a good day.
So if possible, and if it NEEDs to be an Macbook try to go for the M1: powerfull, no fans, and low maintenance long term, otherwise, if you don't need portability go for a mini, you can find good deals for like 500-600USD and for 899 for the 16gb version you will have a machine that will last you a decade.
So if possible, and if it NEEDs to be an Macbook try to go for the M1: powerfull, no fans, and low maintenance long term, otherwise, if you don't need portability go for a mini, you can find good deals for like 500-600USD and for 899 for the 16gb version you will have a machine that will last you a decade.
Ever thought about an iPad, perhaps from the Apple Refurbished Store? If the uses are email, browsing, and streaming on a quilt, then I would recommend the iPad as being nearly ideal in terms of long battery life, light weight, great screen, little heat, ease of typing on touch screen, possibility of external bluetooth keyboard, etc.
@Kaikidan - all good points well made. In fact I have a late intel Mac mini with i3 (not strictly like for like, I know) that serves me well and is ideally suited to my intel-specific tasks (ScanSnap+Abbyy, etc). So i3 is not the issue per-se, its the MBA chassis. There's a clear consensus forming towards M1, I can see that.
@solouki - Her use case involves sorting though back catalogues of email and whilst macOS Mail handles that well, iOS Mail presents a learning curve + limited functional parity, especially to someone who doesn't use/like a smartphone!! My mum, who is in her 90s, is more tech-savvy than my wife
@solouki - Her use case involves sorting though back catalogues of email and whilst macOS Mail handles that well, iOS Mail presents a learning curve + limited functional parity, especially to someone who doesn't use/like a smartphone!! My mum, who is in her 90s, is more tech-savvy than my wife
@Kaikidan - all good points well made. In fact I have a late intel Mac mini with i3 (not strictly like for like, I know) that serves me well and is ideally suited to my intel-specific tasks (ScanSnap+Abbyy, etc). So i3 is not the issue per-se, its the MBA chassis. There's a clear consensus forming towards M1, I can see that.
@solouki - Her use case involves sorting though back catalogues of email and whilst macOS Mail handles that well, iOS Mail presents a learning curve + limited functional parity, especially to someone who doesn't use/like a smartphone!! My mum, who is in her 90s, is more tech-savvy than my wife
Yeah, but Mac min i3 =/= air i3, Mac Mini performs better because of the housing and not having to work on batery, Mac minis till 2014 used notebook intel chips but without a notebook thermal/performance constraints, 2018 models used desktop class chips (the space gray ones), Intel Macbook airs are really constrained in performance because of the thin chassi which provides bad thermal dissipation, causing the need to make the already slower notebook chips (compared to desktop equivalents or old mini notebook processors on a desktop enclosure) be slowed further down to prevent thermal problens, I remember that the early 2020 air was know to ran with the cooler at full speed almost all the time, because of the bad thermal design.
Have you replaced the hard drive with an SSD (a model MX500c] Crucial 500gb SSD is around $60? It will make a tremendous difference and is pretty darn easy to change.
And check whether the RAM is upgradeable on her model, if you went say from 4GB to 8GB that would be huge.
And a clean install of the operating system after formatting the drive (the new SSD!) might also help depending on how much software cruft the machine has accumulated.
Speaking of which, when you open up to install the SSD (and ideally RAM) you should carefully clean out all the dust, in particular from the fans.
Speaking of which, when you open up to install the SSD (and ideally RAM) you should carefully clean out all the dust, in particular from the fans.
I wouldn't touch any intel macs at this point, especially the recent designs where they were actually designed more for more efficient chip that intel couldn't deliver. Not worth it. Better save the money until you can get the M1 Air.
State your budget concerns.
Looking to buy old to save money probably isn't such a good idea now that the entire Mac lineup is essential ARM now.
Your option is to stay stuck in the past by upgrading internals in what you have now, buying an old INTEL model or getting a new ARM Mac.
Long-in-the-tooth means you're already operating in the past and have done so for quite some time. So not buying an ARM Mac is still certainly viable if you wish to continue in that state.
However, if your itch to replace what you have now is to allow you to take advantage of what Apple has to offer in 2022 going forward, then ARM is the only way to go. Eventually, you either end up weening yourself off the computer entirely (which many in retirement years tend to do), or you find yourself wanting to do more to do with it... which means you have to at least have a new computer to position yourself going forward.
Apple computers are certainly not cheap. They never have been cheap. The reality is you are at a major transition point. If you have used Macs for any length of time, you would have gone through two major transition points thus far... the switch from OS9 and the switch from PPC. ARM is yet another major transition point. The question is, which side of that transition do you want to be on? There are plenty of folks who continue to use older Macs, but they have no desire to buy a new Mac either.
The one absolute here, that I can see, is you are not in an immediate need to replace anything. Take your time and figure out where you see yourself in say 10 years from now in terms of computer usage. It's funny, but I spent my entire working life on a computer and now that I am heading for retirement, I have less and less desire to use the computer at all. On the flip side, my mother never spent a day on a computer until she was retired. After her stroke, she never could use a computer again. So life does factor into the equation.
Most purchases are impulse buys with little consideration for down the road in all reality. They say things like "future proof" and all, but in the end it's more of an immediate warm fuzzy that they are truly after. They're not likely to hold onto a computer for 10 years or more... thus "future proof" is moot.
Like the 8gb vs 16gb discussion on the M1, I lived 6 years with an 8gb 2014 mini and it did everything I needed no problem, Now I'm with a 8gb M1 and it still does everything I need it to do with my current needs, 16gb was crazy expensive and a 1st gen tech, the money I save "future proofing" the machine can be used to upgrade for a M2/3 down the road which probably will solve all the issues discovered on the first gen hardware (bluetooth, thunderbolt speeds, monitor support, etc, usb accessories...) , making them more ideal for a "future proof device" than the M1 Gen.
I would seriously consider staying 'rooted in the past' with that MacBook Pro if the past has worked well for you – if it can be upgraded, and I think it can, bringing you far more up to date without having to get a whole new machine and any associated challenges.
I did just that with my wife's mid-2012 MacBook Pro. (Lots of info on the internet as to how to do it. Very straightforward.) A replacement SSD for the spinning hard drive and upping the memory from 4GB to 16GB and now her MacBook Pro continues to work just as required – reliably. It's used for e-mail, word processing and streaming in the main and can totally handle that.
We're both running Mojave right now on our laptops but that MacBook Pro can go all the way up to Catalina, I believe (though such upgrades can come with a software 'price' so be very careful about rushing into that: just make sure the important software you currently use and need will actually run on a later OS to the one currently being used).
When you describe the MacBook Pro as getting long in the tooth, maybe that's merely down to it simply having a hard drive (rather than speedier SSD), its existing memory limitations, and maybe the OS too. Sorting these first two especially and maybe the OS, after seeking more info about that, could give the laptop a whole new lease of life.
That MacBook Pro is a great machine and there's no need to retire it yet.
I did just that with my wife's mid-2012 MacBook Pro. (Lots of info on the internet as to how to do it. Very straightforward.) A replacement SSD for the spinning hard drive and upping the memory from 4GB to 16GB and now her MacBook Pro continues to work just as required – reliably. It's used for e-mail, word processing and streaming in the main and can totally handle that.
We're both running Mojave right now on our laptops but that MacBook Pro can go all the way up to Catalina, I believe (though such upgrades can come with a software 'price' so be very careful about rushing into that: just make sure the important software you currently use and need will actually run on a later OS to the one currently being used).
When you describe the MacBook Pro as getting long in the tooth, maybe that's merely down to it simply having a hard drive (rather than speedier SSD), its existing memory limitations, and maybe the OS too. Sorting these first two especially and maybe the OS, after seeking more info about that, could give the laptop a whole new lease of life.
That MacBook Pro is a great machine and there's no need to retire it yet.
I would bite the financial bullet and grab a base model M1 Air refurb from the Apple store. For her particular uses, it would last her for some time. And it comes with the same one-year warranty as a new unit. Also, Amazon lately has been selling base models on special for $849, which is a good deal too.
For Christmas, My family bought me a M1 Air base model at Costco for $799. I love it. I only use it for music, YouTube, YouTube TV and web browsing. It is super fast. If you need more memory get the 16g ram upgrade.