From El Capitan to...?

[Annaifos]

Hey people of the interwebs!

So I'm still running El Capitan on my mid 2015 macbook pro. I was once told by a reliable source that this was the best system on mac to date, but this was two years ago. I was told I'd be a fool to update, so I didn't. I'm also conscious of the fact that my macbook pro might start lagging if I make a jump to any of the later updates. Despite it still functioning perfectly, I'm starting to experience the issue of not being able to run some softwares; apparently El Capitan is "too old".

Question is, how worth it is it really to update at this point? What might be some pros and cons? Is my macbook pro truly too old? I really, really don't want to spend on the newer ones either, as I've not heard a single good word about them. In fact I've been planning to "upgrade" form my 13" to the 15" one, same generation basically. Thoughts?

Best,

Annaifos

 

[hftvhftv]

There's no reason you should be on El Capitan. It is out of date and a massive security risk to be using software that was last patched in 2018. Get updated to Catalina ASAP or Mojave if you need 32 bit app support. Your 2015 MacBook Pro is by no means too old to run the latest software. There are people running Catalina on Macs from 2008 on spinning rust with 4GB of memory. However, if you have cash to burn, just buy a new MacBook.

 

[Annaifos]

Thanks for the info!!

 

[Fishrrman]

I still use El Cap on my own 2015 MacBook Pro, and it still runs fine for me.

IF I was going to "upgrade" (and I have no interest in doing so right now), I -might- go up to 10.12 "Low Sierra" and just "leave it there". Low Sierra is the last version of the Mac OS to run natively in HFS+, which I prefer to APFS.

I care -nothing- about "security upgrades".
They have no meaning at all to me.
In 32 years of Mac use, have never had a problem.

 

[throwthedice]

There's no reason you should be on El Capitan. It is out of date and a massive security risk to be using software that was last patched in 2018.
.
.

I'm on a similarish boat to the OP and I'm curious about this whole security scare. What is it that me, as someone with an older version of software, is missing out on? I understand there are "security updates" but what security breach am I susceptible to?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Apple posts descriptions of their security updates. If you can understand those, great.

I recently upgraded to High Sierra due to software requirements. Minimum requirements usually dictate my upgrades.

 

[Nozgog]

I have the MacBook Pro 15 2015 - I upgraded from the 2014 15" last year.

macOS Mojave 10.14 is currently rock solid, it runs better than High Sierra 10.13 on my 2014 model (both were fresh installs)

If you don't have 16GB of RAM on your 13", enjoy the upgrade to 16GB of RAM on the 15", as well as Quad Core processors and a bigger screen.

Don't get the 2.8 Ghz CPU because of heat/noise. Don't get the AMD GPU unless you really need it for performance/external monitors.