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Is upgrading to Lion worth it?

J

JSK1121

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 21, 2007
90
0
I have a Black MacBook from around 4 years ago, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2, running Leopard. Of late it's been very slow, my browsers, Safari, Chrome and Firefox, all stop working after several hours of use, and the computer generally seems very laggy and washed up.

So, for this, I come to you. Is it worth my while to buy the Snow Leopard upgrade and then get Lion, or is it probably just time for a new computer? I was hoping to get a new MBA when they get refreshed/redesigned next year, but I don't know if my patience will hold for that long. If I hear I'll get all kinds, or even some, of performance improvements by ditching Leopard, I'm willing to take that chance.

Thanks in advance for your help, and happy holidays!
 
I think you should go up to Snow Leopard and stop right there. Purchase Coolbook if you have to. Coolbook is more or less the ultimate solution to computers slowing down.

If your computer is slowing down in Leopard, it won't be much prettier under Lion, if not worse.
 
 
JSK1121 said:
Of late it's been very slow, my browsers, Safari, Chrome and Firefox, all stop working after several hours of use, and the computer generally seems very laggy and washed up.
Click to expand...

Of late?

Why would your blackbook suddenly be washed up? I assume it worked just fine with these apps at one time.

OSX just doesn't deteriorate to the point of never being usable again. Chances are if it was truly "washed up" your macbook just wouldn't work anymore. Since you're waiting on the MBA refresh, just back up your critical data, nuke the drive and reinstall Leopard again. I certainly wouldn't want to run Lion on your machine.
 
JSK1121 said:
I have a Black MacBook from around 4 years ago, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2, running Leopard. Of late it's been very slow, my browsers, Safari, Chrome and Firefox, all stop working after several hours of use, and the computer generally seems very laggy and washed up.

So, for this, I come to you. Is it worth my while to buy the Snow Leopard upgrade and then get Lion, or is it probably just time for a new computer? I was hoping to get a new MBA when they get refreshed/redesigned next year, but I don't know if my patience will hold for that long. If I hear I'll get all kinds, or even some, of performance improvements by ditching Leopard, I'm willing to take that chance.

Thanks in advance for your help, and happy holidays!
Click to expand...

Upgrading the Lion is probably the worst thing you can do. Newer operating systems are usually more resource hungry, since they are designed with newer machines in mind. Snow Leopard might work fine, but I doubt you will get any improvements by upgrading to Lion. More likely you will find that you run out of memory.

It would make sense to upgrade to SL, since Leopard no longer receives updates, i.e. you might be missing out on security patches etc.

Your issue with browsers might be related to you running out of memory. Nowadays these programs happily take up to 1 GB of ram. Some simple fixes:
- only use one browser at a time
- limit your tabs to 10 or so
- restart browser if necessary. Safari now has a nice resume feature, I guess the other browsers have similar options.

I guess eventually it's time for a new computer, but you don't have to rush.
 
Steve's Barber said:
Of late?

Why would your blackbook suddenly be washed up? I assume it worked just fine with these apps at one time.
Click to expand...

Without knowing any specifics about the setup, my first guess would be a typical case of the hard drive being too full. Usually remedied by freeing up 10-15% of the drive's capacity.
 
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