*HELP* MacBook Pro 13" A1278 How will this handle mountain lion?

[Jakedavies]

Hi all,

This is my first post so excuse me if I appear a tad rookie.

I was looking into buying a cheaper older MacBook pro as my budget can't stretch to their current retail price and I came across a used one for £499.

It's the 13" A1278 model with 3GB Ram and 160GB HD. October 2008 I think

Firstly is it worth that much ?

and secondly, how will it perform while running mountain lion, will it be a slouch?

Here are the full specs http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/specs/macbook-core-2-duo-2.0-aluminum-13-late-2008-unibody-specs.html

Would really appriciate a response!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

With four GB RAM it should be able to run OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion quite fine. 3 GB might be okay too, but is a little bit on the low side.

Also know, that it is a "MacBook" and not a "MacBook Pro", thus it has NO Firewire 800 port like the 13" MacBook Pro, which has been introduced in 2009.

I just mention it in case you need a Firewire port.

As an additional note, that MB can support up to 6 GB officially and 8 GB of RAM unofficially, though there are reports of being unstable when sing 8 GB of RAM.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

To learn more about Mac OS X: Helpful Information for Any Mac User by GGJstudios​

 

[whoknows87]

Hi all,

This is my first post so excuse me if I appear a tad rookie.

I was looking into buying a cheaper older MacBook pro as my budget can't stretch to their current retail price and I came across a used one for £499.

It's the 13" A1278 model with 3GB Ram and 160GB HD. October 2008 I think

Firstly is it worth that much ?

and secondly, how will it perform while running mountain lion, will it be a slouch?

Here are the full specs http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...-2.0-aluminum-13-late-2008-unibody-specs.html

Would really appriciate a response!

I have a Macbook pro mid 2009 model , had it for 2 years not a single problem soon as i installed ML 3 days after my HD failed, I have no doubt that it was the upgrade to ML, even though it was the top of line model that year 2.53 Ghz, 4GB Ram, Apple claims HD fail sometime cant prevent that from happening ...... yeah, Back Up your HD, and upgrade if it fails you can swap out ur own HD afterwards Good Luck

 

[Jakedavies]

With four GB RAM it should be able to run OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion quite fine. 3 GB might be okay too, but is a little bit on the low side.

Also know, that it is a "MacBook" and not a "MacBook Pro", thus it has NO Firewire 800 port like the 13" MacBook Pro, which has been introduced in 2009.

I just mention it in case you need a Firewire port.

As an additional note, that MB can support up to 6 GB officially and 8 GB of RAM unofficially, though there are reports of being unstable when sing 8 GB of RAM.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

To learn more about Mac OS X: Helpful Information for Any Mac User by GGJstudios​

Thanks a lot for your reply, so is it worth £500?

Am I better spendin less money on an older, more underpowered machine or go for the new MacBook air w/ 4gb ram but only 64Gb hard drive?

What's the best option in your opinion. Are airs far inferior?

 

[monkeybagel]

That would probably be a fine notebook. It should run 10.8 decent.