MacBookPro5,5 upgrade and Lion

[noproblem]

I have a mid-2009 13.3” MacBookPro5,5 with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz processor and 2*1GB DDR 3 1066MHz of memory.

I have bought the mac a 2*2GB Crucial DDR3 1066MHz CT2KIT25664BC1067 memory and a 96GB Kington V+100 SATAII SSD in order to give a boost midway through it’s life.

As a result I am working out if I should take advantage and upgrade to Lion and take full advantage of the OSX 10.7, iCloud and iOS5 integrations however I have been hearing there are some teething issues with Lion, such as the flash videos not playing correctly in Safari.

Also I am hearing that the pre Intel iSeries (i3/5/7) processors are struggling Lion’s increased processing requirements and I ask the members of this forum that it might be better to stay with Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6.8)? Has anyone had experience of using Lion on with the same generation MacBook Pro? How was it? Did you have any issues? Would you have any recommendations it either way?

Objective and impartial advice only please.

 

[maflynn]

I'm running on a 2010 MBP (a 7,1 MBP I think). It has 8gb of ram and a 120gb SSD.

I found that Lion works well from a performance and stability perspective. I also did a clean install which seems to avoid a lot of the instability issues being reported. My point is I have machine that is closer to you specs then the i5 based MBPs and it works well. From what I've read 4gb will give you decent performance but 2gb, will make you pay as its painfully slow.

 

[tbln]

FWIW, I have a mid-2009 15" C2D 3.06ghz and Lion runs just fine. I don't notice any noticeable slow downs compared to when I had Snow Leopard. I did a direct upgrade from the app store. The only issues I had that caught me off guard were Lion-specific, such as needing new printer drivers (Canon).

 

[rubirock]

i have the same base model mbp5,5 with 8gb ram and 500gb hard drive.
I've had only very minor issues w/lion like the trackpad not waking from sleep on swipe (at 10.7 only the keyboard would work, now with 10.7.1 a tap of the trackpad works, but still not a swipe like in SL) and getting used to the new multi-desktop setup, launchpad, etc.

i will say that you might return the 4gb ram and upgrade to 8gb since it's so cheap there's really no reason not to max it out. jumping from 2 to 8gb made all the difference with being able to run ArcGIS 10 in win7/vmware without a beachball in SL or Lion. As memory hungry as lion seems to be, i think it can only help.

My geekbench scores are nearly identical between 10.6.8 & 10.7.1, Lion being a few points shy of SL but nothing to complain about. The only major problem is battery life, which i've seen drop from 6-7hrs on a full charge to 4+hrs. not sure why.

overall, I would say upgrade. I really enjoy having the extra desktops, particularly with the small 13" form factor.

I'm interested to see how you like the kingston ssd as that seems like it may be my next upgrade. Are you planning on installing another hard drive in the optibay? I plan on installing an ssd as the boot drive and moving the 500gb wd hd to the optibay.

good luck!

 

[anbuchelvansci]

No Issue but little bit slower then SL

I have the MacBook Pro mid 2009 , 13" 2x1GB , 500GB WD HDD
Have 3 Operating System on the same drive. i use lion since the GM Version.

50GB Lion ; 35GB - Windows 7; 400GB - Snow Leopard.

My battery will stand upto 5 hours of web browsing.slow down when using more then 3 hours because safari eat 500mb of my ram , after resetting safari speed is ok. but cannot able to run virtual machines because of low memory.

no problem at all , i learn iPhoto have some issues , but all other application is work perfectly well .

good to go lion.

wish to update my ram to 8GB KTA-MB1066/4G or CMSA8GX3M2A1066C7