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how many years can i work on a MBP?

B

bourne

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 4, 2007
7
0
I had a toshiba notebook with 512 ram p4 1.7 CPU on 2002,
after 3 years, the hard disk became very slow, and came out mother board + memory problems.

then I bought a mac mini G4 1.4 (few months later there came intel macs, my pity), after one and a half years, I find it slow for me to do my daily developing works, such as Java, Flex, Photoshop...I feel firefox on my mini is slow, too.

so I am thinking to buy a MB or a MBP,
since the MB and MBP are newly updated, MBP will work fine for leopard,
how many years can I work on this mac before to feel it is slow?

just a guess or a feeling according to your experience with Mac is OK.

thank you~

:)
 
We'll all perceive the speed of a computer differently, so it's hard to tell you how long it'll be before you'll think a MBP is slow.
 
If you are finding your computer too slow - might be because you have a lot of stuff running you don't need.

My MBP started running quite slow partially because I had installed a few hacks, so a wipe of the hard drive, fresh start and it was back to normal.

Depending on what you want from your MBP you should get 3+ years out of it. But technology advances that fast that it is hard to tell what we might have in 3 years.
 
bartelby said:
We'll all perceive the speed of a computer differently, so it's hard to tell you how long it'll be before you'll think a MBP is slow.
Click to expand...

my levels for slow:

very slow: when I open Photoshop CS3 or Flex or Firefox, my mac will freeze for some seconds, that's really slow for me and can't stand.

slow: the system may not freeze, but the cursor is busy for a while, the compile time of a Flex/java project or a Photoshop action takes 30s to 90s.

I think that's the CPU speed problem, when I hear my friend's MBP 17(the new MA897 2.4GHz) never takes more then 10s to do those tasks, I rather want to jump out of the window...
 
Your friend's new 17 MBP will be a 64bit processor. Using an application that is designed for a 64bit processor will mean rendering times aswell as general "wee" tasks will be significantly quicker.

Steve done a demo of 32bit and 64bit and WWDC07 and the different was remarkable.
 
Are we talking objective or subjective here? For example, I've had my PB for just over two years. I don't think it runs any slower than when I bought it but sometimes it seems to. New software apps get bigger and bigger. I've bought new software that could do with more memory than the PB has, and which makes it feel fairly slow when I use those apps. I could put more memory in it and it would run better, but I'll be upgrading in a few months so I'm not going to bother.

It would also depend on what you're using it for. I'm sure the game enthusiasts would want to upgrade to the latest and greatest fairly frequently. If you wanted it to last as long as possible, you could future-proof it for a while by putting in more RAM. I've tended to change after about 3 years but it's not hard and fast. I've always had a reason.

I'm sure that our expectations increase too. Don't think there's an easy answer.
 
Kilamite said:
Your friend's new 17 MBP will be a 64bit processor. Using an application that is designed for a 64bit processor will mean rendering times aswell as general "wee" tasks will be significantly quicker.

Steve done a demo of 32bit and 64bit and WWDC07 and the different was remarkable.
Click to expand...

ye

so I think I need to buy a new 64bit MBP/MB to keep me away from jumping window.
 
Upgrading from a Powerbook G4 667MHz (1GB RAM)

If it helps you guage - I'm upgrading to the latest and greatest SR MBP 2.4 w/7200RPM HD from a 6+ year old Powerbook G4 667 MHz (TiBook) - It's served me well and is the last laptop that was manufactured that could also run Mac OS 9 (which I still occasionally play with :)
 
bourne said:
then I bought a mac mini G4 1.4 (few months later there came intel macs, my pity), after one and a half years, I find it slow for me to do my daily developing works, such as Java, Flex, Photoshop...I feel firefox on my mini is slow, too.
Click to expand...
That's a very low end Mac. It's intended as a 'switcher' Mac. While it will run Photoshop etc this was not what it was intended for and that's why after only 1.5 years you're finding it too slow.

A top end MBP should be good for 3 years plus in terms of performing the tasks you do now - and if you have AppleCare along with damage/loss/theft insurance then I see no reason why it wont physically go 3 years and beyond.

I say should because technology changes pretty rapidly, and your usage habits might change too.
 
G42Pro said:
If it helps you guage - I'm upgrading to the latest and greatest SR MBP 2.4 w/7200RPM HD from a 6+ year old Powerbook G4 667 MHz (TiBook) - It's served me well and is the last laptop that was manufactured that could also run Mac OS 9 (which I still occasionally play with :)
Click to expand...

Ahh...love this. One of the computers that got me interested in Macs again was a Titanium Powerbook I saw a girl using daily in class about a year ago. There's something neat about using a piece of gear for years and years and having it work as well as it did the day you bought it.
 
Well I've had my MacBook and it's still working like it came right out of the box.

This is my main computer too, did I mention That?
 
It's perception.

I was happy with the speed of my ibook 1.2ghz that I had for almost 4 years..running a lot more software than I do on the mbp. Some things are slow, such as video and audio production, but it wasn't bad. I thought it was time for something new, and now, I don't touch the ibook for video or audio. I still use it for graphics and a couple of other things. Soon it will be installed into my Jeep. :)
 
My parents have my old Powerbook G3 pismo that has been used daily since 2000. It's pretty slow, but totally acceptable for email and internet. Works like a champ, everyday.
 
bourne said:
..
then I bought a mac mini G4 1.4 (few months later there came intel macs, my pity), after one and a half years, I find it slow for me to do my daily developing works, such as Java, Flex, Photoshop...I feel firefox on my mini is slow, too.

:)
Click to expand...

The mini was quite outdated for a long time. I guess you bougth one late 05 or early 06, while f.ex PowerbookG4 1.25Ghz was available in as early as 2003.
I had a Pb G4 (1.33gHz), and i used it untill i got my SR MBP
 
3 years sounds about right

I bought a top of the line desktop 3 years ago and it's held me over quite nicely. (I had to switch because I'm moving)

In choosing between the MBP and the Air, I ultimately opted for the MBP because it too would be another system that could last me for a long period of time.

I'm by no means a power user and would have loved something as thin, unique, and mobile as the Air but ultimately, I think it would be too underpowered to last 3+ years even with my low-demand needs.
 
I just finished using my Powerbook G4 1.67 Ghz. I bought it when it was released 3 years and 5 months ago. That's been about my avg. Mac life. And I've had 7.
I was managing a 30,000 photo library, all the normal surfing and emailing, 40 Gb of music files, encoding and burning, iMovie, iDVD, work docs in MS Office, etc etc. Basically doing everything anyone would, without a rather unique use. And honestly, it was more the end of my Apple Care extended warranty, than any true usability issue.
On which note I should add that I highly endorse the Apple Care. I've always had it and always gotten my money's worth, since I tend to put my computers through their paces, physically. One single repair pays for it, and I find Apple very VERY accommodating when you have it. They even once did an $800 repair, due to a wine spill 2 months OUT of Apple Care warranty. Though they did warn it wasn't normal. But I'm a good customer.
Good luck
 
i've had a macbook 1.83GHz CD for the last 2 years, and i haven't ever really wished it was any faster. I'm a Photoshop CS3 and iSquint whore.
 
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