Lion the best option for me?

[GoNC]

I have a 2008 Macbook Pro (pre-unibody) running Snow Leopard 10.6.8

2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB RAM

I only want to upgrade to Lion so some apps can work (Anki, Evernote). I don't have an iphone and I can't use the latest Yosemite features on my machine so I see no point in going there.

 

[DeltaMac]

I think Mountain Lion will be more stable for you.
It's what I prefer, but it's up to you... Mountain Lion is still getting security updates - Lion is not.

Either way, you should also consider upgrading your RAM.
You can go up to 6GB, but 4GB will be fine with 10.7 or 10.8

 

[GoNC]

^ Thanks. From pics I see Mountain Lion still has a similar look to Snow Leopard which I want. Will extra RAM be noticeable though? I don't use any demanding applications. Or will a newer OS require more RAM? 2GB is the minimum recommended for ML as opposed to 512 MB for Leopard which is what my MBP came with.

 

[DeltaMac]

Just to clarify...
Your MacBook Pro would have shipped with 2GB memory standard.
It also shipped with Leopard, which has minimum requirements of 512 MB

So - plenty of memory space if needed - with an older system that simply has less demands on memory.

If you upgrade to Lion, or Mountain Lion, then either of those require 2GB of RAM...
And, the overhead for running the system is gone.
It really has little to do with using or not using "demanding" applications, as your system determines how much RAM is available to any one app at any particular moment. If you have very little spare RAM for the system to use, then you end up with lots of page-outs to the hard drive. And, that leaves you with a system that may not then "feel" fast or smooth, likely because of lack of memory.
Does that make sense?

 

[SuperKerem]

Mountain Lion is much better than Lion!