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Can a MacBook last for 10 years?
- Thread starter Hieveryone
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This bears mention. I buy Macs because they're pleasant to use, fast to get what i want done, etc.
If you're trying to push ANY machine out to 10 years, after 5-6 its going to be a basket-case, i don't care what spec you buy. Your CPU/GPU won't have support for newer video codecs, your storage will be slow, your RAM capacity will be tiny by the standards of the day at that point. The user experience will be trash.
Replace after 3-5 years. If you can't afford to do that with the Apple hardware you think you want (trying to think you can push it beyond 3-5 years), do it with lower spec apple hardware, or cheaper PC hardware. On balance you'll get a better user experience than trying to push hardware way beyond its design life.
People running most if not all 10 year old macs (or PCs) today won't be able to play HD video, especially not using h.265 (less bandwidth). They'll be on crappy old 802.11G wifi, a spinning hard disk, slow USB2 ports and most likely have 2 GB of RAM (or less). The battery (if a macbook) will be dead, and even if it was new, the battery life will be 1/3-1/2 of a currrent machine. To put it bluntly, the user experience will be crap. And you don't buy Apple hardware to have a bad user experience.
edit:
When i say "replace after 3-5 years", what I mean is this:
- bank on the machine being good to use (and under applecare, so if it breaks, free replacement) for 3 years. after 3 years your applecare runs out and IF it dies you need to have the money to replace it. so be saving for it and ready to buy after 3 years.
- in reality, if the machine doesn't die after 3 years (most don't) then it will still most likely be "fast enough" and have hardware support for most of the stuff you want to do for 4-5 years. keep saving your money through year 4 and 5 for a nicer machine to replace it with, or use the extra money you saved for something else.
- by year 6, your machine is 2 full life-cycles old. it will be long in the tooth and quite slow, doesn't support current standards, etc.
After 6 years your hardware spec is not going to be targeted by most developers (this is why MS drops support for Windows after 7 years, and why Apple also drop support for older macs at this sort of age). So they will be assuming that machines have more ram, updated CPU instructions, etc. than your machine has - and using those resources to do more things.
AS others have mentioned above if you're willing to just run old software you can maybe stretch it, but again... security issues, lack of compatibility with other users, new internet sites, etc.... just gets painful.
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I had never an MacBook longer as 2 years. iPhones only for 1 year. iPads of a new device comes out.
Sell your MacBook every 2-3 years. You will get great money and with a little bit of extra you get a new one. I have a few poor friends. They gets my old stuff.
Greetings,
Laura
throAU wrote:
"after 5-6 its going to be a basket-case, i don't care what spec you buy."
Not so.
My mid-2010 MacBook Pro 13" boots (from appearance of Apple to finder) in about 7 seconds (still using 10.6.8). Faster than more recent MBPros.
I've installed an SSD and it's reasonably snappy and still as usable for browsing, email, etc. as it was when new.
After 7 years it does have limitations vis-a-vis more recent MacBooks, of course. Technology moves on, of course.
But it's still very usable.
Hardly "a basket case" after even 7 years.
Having said that, I'll probably "move up" in the near future (and keep it handy as a spare).
However, I WON'T be buying Apple's "latest and greatest" -- instead, I'll pick up a 2015 MBPro at significantly reduced pricing.
One gets more for their money that way, without ending up "that far behind".
I'll leave the "cutting edge" to the kids (I'm nearing 70), thank you very much.
"after 5-6 its going to be a basket-case, i don't care what spec you buy."
Not so.
My mid-2010 MacBook Pro 13" boots (from appearance of Apple to finder) in about 7 seconds (still using 10.6.8). Faster than more recent MBPros.
I've installed an SSD and it's reasonably snappy and still as usable for browsing, email, etc. as it was when new.
After 7 years it does have limitations vis-a-vis more recent MacBooks, of course. Technology moves on, of course.
But it's still very usable.
Hardly "a basket case" after even 7 years.
Having said that, I'll probably "move up" in the near future (and keep it handy as a spare).
However, I WON'T be buying Apple's "latest and greatest" -- instead, I'll pick up a 2015 MBPro at significantly reduced pricing.
One gets more for their money that way, without ending up "that far behind".
I'll leave the "cutting edge" to the kids (I'm nearing 70), thank you very much.
You can sell MacBooks very good. It's Apple, not a generic Dell notebook.
i have a 2008 model I bought at an apple reseller for less than half the price , it was 8 months old at the time. I’ve used it 24/7 since I’ve bought it, hardly ever shutting it off... it’s usually in sleep mode. I’ve since replaced the logic board and the screen a few times under apple care . I had to swap in a new battery only two years ago (it ran on its first for nearly 8 years) and this year I swapped the hard drive it cane with for a 1 terabyt e. This machine is 10 years old at this point and fingers crossed it keeps going!
It heavily depends on what you use it for. If you're gonna edit 8K footage in the next 2-4 years then no, probably not! If all you do is web browsing, light photo editing, listening to music, watching videos and word processing then yes, it'll probably last that long.
My 2009 MBP is still a good machine, my in laws are using it daily and they're satisfied.
I have to point out that it was the last MBP with upgradable RAM and storage, so they're using a laptop with more RAM and a faster disk than the one I bought 8 years ago.
Now my aunt is using my mid 2012 MBA, it was the maxed out version of it so it has 8GB or RAM and I hope it will last another 4/5 years since she doesn't need a really fast machine.
I wonder how long I'll keep my 2016 MBP with TB, I hope at least 5/6 years. The display is great and it is really powerful, the main reason why I replaced my MBA was the display so now that I have a retina I should be ok
I have to point out that it was the last MBP with upgradable RAM and storage, so they're using a laptop with more RAM and a faster disk than the one I bought 8 years ago.
Now my aunt is using my mid 2012 MBA, it was the maxed out version of it so it has 8GB or RAM and I hope it will last another 4/5 years since she doesn't need a really fast machine.
I wonder how long I'll keep my 2016 MBP with TB, I hope at least 5/6 years. The display is great and it is really powerful, the main reason why I replaced my MBA was the display so now that I have a retina I should be ok
I admit I skipped right to this page, number ten.
I stopped using a 2007 MacBook Pro just this month. I suspect the heat sinks on the video card are failing. And I had mostly been using it without a battery installed (replaced once already, years ago now). I think the heat of charging the battery would heat up the video card; a system freeze would come along shortly after the first visible screen issues.
And the fans might be dead too, I never did run option-D hardware diagnostics at start-up.
So maybe the whole thing is fixable with a can of pressurized air, a new fan, and some new thermal paste on some chips. But that would be basically pointless as noted just on this page and probably repeatedly in this thread.
Although the machine was that old, it still did what I needed it to do - edit spreadsheets and compose tl;dr type documents. PC OS still has many advantages over mobile OS, obviously. But I watch television on a TV and I surf the web and maintain my 'digital clothes' of Social Media via, truly, far 'handier' devices.
I think as "phones" become ever more functional and we all become more 'multiple device' type people, the useful life of laptops might increase, along the lines I just wrote. My iPhone8 has Numbers on it to do basic spreadsheets, for example.
I stopped using a 2007 MacBook Pro just this month. I suspect the heat sinks on the video card are failing. And I had mostly been using it without a battery installed (replaced once already, years ago now). I think the heat of charging the battery would heat up the video card; a system freeze would come along shortly after the first visible screen issues.
And the fans might be dead too, I never did run option-D hardware diagnostics at start-up.
So maybe the whole thing is fixable with a can of pressurized air, a new fan, and some new thermal paste on some chips. But that would be basically pointless as noted just on this page and probably repeatedly in this thread.
Although the machine was that old, it still did what I needed it to do - edit spreadsheets and compose tl;dr type documents. PC OS still has many advantages over mobile OS, obviously. But I watch television on a TV and I surf the web and maintain my 'digital clothes' of Social Media via, truly, far 'handier' devices.
I think as "phones" become ever more functional and we all become more 'multiple device' type people, the useful life of laptops might increase, along the lines I just wrote. My iPhone8 has Numbers on it to do basic spreadsheets, for example.
"Can a MacBook last for 10 years?"
In short yes.
It all depends on how you treat it though.
I have several Macbooks that are about 10 years old that are fine.
I also have 2009, 2012, 2014 all are running strong. Super strong.
Yes I also have a 2017 MBP that has given me more problems than all the others added.
So I guess I'd say I really don't expect the new Macs to last 10 years but anything before late 2016 will be ok.
Sad but true...
In short yes.
It all depends on how you treat it though.
I have several Macbooks that are about 10 years old that are fine.
I also have 2009, 2012, 2014 all are running strong. Super strong.
Yes I also have a 2017 MBP that has given me more problems than all the others added.
So I guess I'd say I really don't expect the new Macs to last 10 years but anything before late 2016 will be ok.
Sad but true...
Yes it can, provided you take care of it well enough and use it within its operation parameters. My current MBP is a 15" e2011, on its 6 year, and thankfully, it'll serve me for a few more years even with the dGPU now "disabled."
I should have stayed with Mavericks on my early 2011 MBP, but some software needed at least El Cap. Anyway, doing audio work with it without any major trouble. It has been updated to 16 gb of RAM and a Samsung 850 Pro 512 gb. Now on Sierra and it'll stay there...
At work, I have two white MacBooks: one Unibody (late 2009) with 4 gb of RAM. Does what I need under Snow Leopard. The other one has less memory, less storage and runs on Leopard: it feels a bit slow...
I had a white MacBook 2007 that I gave up in 2014. It was still running exceptionally well (partly because I replaced the HDD with an SSD), but it no longer qualified for the latest OS X/macOS system software.
I ran the older operating system for about a year or so before it became clear that I wasn't getting all of the cloud service benefits that my newer Macs were enjoying. That was ultimately the dealbreaker.
I had acquired a svelte MacBook Air 11" in 2013 and the old MacBook saw increasingly less use.
Also, the display was fading. The cold-cathode fluorescent backlight was probably putting out 30-40% of the light than it was able to pump out when brand new. I had upgraded the HDD, increased RAM, and replaced the battery but at the end of the day, it was still an old, heavy notebook with a tired display.
The optical drive was giving more frequent errors and only offered DVD playback (or maybe just single-layer DVD burning), certainly no double-layer DVD burning.
Heck, my iPhone SE is faster than that old MacBook.
I ran the older operating system for about a year or so before it became clear that I wasn't getting all of the cloud service benefits that my newer Macs were enjoying. That was ultimately the dealbreaker.
I had acquired a svelte MacBook Air 11" in 2013 and the old MacBook saw increasingly less use.
Also, the display was fading. The cold-cathode fluorescent backlight was probably putting out 30-40% of the light than it was able to pump out when brand new. I had upgraded the HDD, increased RAM, and replaced the battery but at the end of the day, it was still an old, heavy notebook with a tired display.
The optical drive was giving more frequent errors and only offered DVD playback (or maybe just single-layer DVD burning), certainly no double-layer DVD burning.
Heck, my iPhone SE is faster than that old MacBook.
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2007 MBP 2.2 C2D Santa Rosa still going strong.
Replaced the HD w/256GB SSD, 4GB RAM maybe 3 years ago.
Mostly used for web browsing and photo editing. Sometimes get the beachball when using Chrome. The only thing that annoys me is looking at the screen quality compared to the computers and mobile phones of today.
Replaced the HD w/256GB SSD, 4GB RAM maybe 3 years ago.
Mostly used for web browsing and photo editing. Sometimes get the beachball when using Chrome. The only thing that annoys me is looking at the screen quality compared to the computers and mobile phones of today.