Life Expectancy

[TechGod]

True...we do not know...enter 2015 and lets see....For Apple's sake, I hope they don't fail again....Anyway, I thought the OP should know....Life expectancy of a 2-3 grand Apple laptop is not as high as one would expect. They have the worst QC... not fitting a company of Apple's reputation.

Is that why my early 2011 MBP hasn't failed yet?

 

[macjunk(ie)]

Is that why my early 2011 MBP hasn't failed yet?

But mine has
Probably depends on usage patterns...Or maybe you got a good unit. But there is no denying the fact there are plenty of 2011 lemons in the hands of people...Have a look in the forums. Guys have paid from their own pockets to get this repaired. I read somewhere there is a class action lawsuit building up.

Hey...I love Apple but I hate the fact that their reliability has taken a beating. I had the 8600, 330M and more recently the AMD fail on me, reducing my expensive laptop to an aluminum paper weight. So don't blame me if I have no confidence in Apple's reliability.

 

[TechGod]

But mine has
Probably depends on usage patterns...Or maybe you got a good unit. But there is no denying the fact there are plenty of 2011 lemons in the hands of people...Have a look in the forums. Guys have paid from their own pockets to get this repaired. I read somewhere there is a class action lawsuit building up.

Hey...I love Apple but I hate the fact that their reliability has taken a beating. I had the 8600, 330M and more recently the AMD fail on me, reducing my expensive laptop to an aluminum paper weight. So don't blame me if I have no confidence in Apple's reliability.

Fair enough.

 

[george-brooks]

I've had my current macbook pro for just shy of 3 years. Still working good as new for the most part, still fast enough for anything I throw at it and I don't plan on getting a new laptop any time soon. That being said, it's fully upgraded. The only issue is a small blemish in the display, but AppleCare should be able to take care of it before it expires. I think 5-6 years is sort of the maximum life of a MBP if you're just using it for everyday tasks and take good care of it. If you want to keep your machine for as long as possible and don't care too much about performance, I think the only real time to upgrade is when the latest OS isn't supported anymore (if it is still working by that point).

 

[chaofahn]

Curse you, smiley!

Up until the 3-4th year, my 17" 2009 MBP ran as smooth as butter. It struggles a bit now but it is still very useable.

My friend still uses his 2007 White Macbook with little fuss.

TL;DR - Bar freaky accidents, Macs have a great lifespan!

 

[wineandcarbs]

If you take care of it, it'll most likely still be running fine. Performance may not be as desired if your needs have changed and you're using more intensive programs 5 years down the road. My MBP is 3.5 years old and still runs great. I'm actually impressed that the battery is still trucking along (with every other computer I've had, the battery has always stopped holding a charge within the first year. Battery life isn't what it used to be but I don't have to be on the charger all the time).

I have an Acer from 2004 - with a Pentium 4 processor! - that technically still works in that it turns on, you COULD do various Office and internet functions with it, etc. but it would suck to do it on. Your MBP could end up lasting you years, but you may end up deciding to upgrade for other reasons down the road.

 

[iBook_Clamshell]

Out of curiosity, I'd be interested in seeing a photo of your machine.

Here ya go:

It's a Macintosh SE. 8Mhz CPU(that's right, megahertz) and 4mb or RAM(which is the max) running OS 6.0.8!

Microsoft Word 4.0(sorry about the blurry pics).

And my favorite race game(on any computer), Test Drive Two: The Duel. The coolest thing about it is the manual shifting, in which the space bar is the clutch and you move the shifter with the arrow keys: ↑+←=1st, ↓+←=2nd, ↑=3rd, ↓=4th, ↑+→=5th...
and doom to you if you don't hold both keys down for 1st, 2nd, or 5th.