MBP 2010 - Should I buy one?

[Lancer]

Need a MBP for basic tasks while on the road, at a budget price ($300AU)

Tasks include,
- eMail/internet/Netflix
- Word, Excel & Photos
- Playback of MP4 video x264/x265
- 1-2 hours battery life, will be used on mains power most of the time.

Looking at 2009/2010 MBP 13, pre i5 (as they tend to cost twice as much on eBay here in Australia)

 

[Khaleal]

I wouldn't recommend, it's a very old laptop and will be soon OOS. If you're on a strict budget I'd recommend you getting at least a mid 2012 one (which BTW, you can upgrade to 16GB RAM and SSD of any size)

 

[vseera]

Nope. How about a cheap ipad?

Or if not, a mid 2012 one as the other person suggests.

 

[EugW]

A 2010 will all of that OK except for h.265. It will even run High Sierra, fully supported.

I too would go for a later model but if you can’t, it would be acceptable to run a 2010. Just be aware though that you’d need to install an SSD to make it acceptable so that has to be factored into the price. Also, bare minimum is 4 GB RAM but 8 GB is usually preferred.

A 2009 can also work and get High Sierra unofficially.

Check my sig. I have a 2008 aluminum MacBook and a 2009 MacBook Pro both running High Sierra and they work just fine but they are of course a bit slow. However that’s with SSD and 8 GB in both.

 

[qawes]

Need a MBP for basic tasks while on the road, at a budget price ($300AU)

Tasks include,
- eMail/internet/Netflix
- Word, Excel & Photos
- Playback of MP4 video x264/x265
- 1-2 hours battery life, will be used on mains power most of the time.

Looking at 2009/2010 MBP 13, pre i5 (as they tend to cost twice as much on eBay here in Australia)

Even though you specified it in this post, I would strongly recommend you save up a little bit more, dig deeper and find yourself a 2011 model. It's possible you'll be needing to upgrade next year and today's deal might be tomorrow's loss.

You'll get way more "bang for your buck" with a 2011 model, so my answer is no, you shouldn't buy a 2009/2010 model.

 

[Lancer]

I've got a 256Gb Samsung SSD from the 2011 15" MBP (which died - video card) with should be fine. I'll try and get a 2011 or better, 13" but could be tough on my budget.

An iPad is okay in theory but a bit hard to play MP4 without a suitable external SSD. Love Apple products but so much easier to slip an SD card in a Android tablet and play video files.

 

[nnoble]

Need a MBP for basic tasks while on the road, at a budget price ($300AU) Looking at 2009/2010 MBP 13, pre i5 (as they tend to cost twice as much on eBay here in Australia)

I'm on a mid-2010 MBP now. I'd be delighted if it was included in the list of machines to take the next OS update, but I don't expect it will.

 

[theluggage]

Need a MBP for basic tasks while on the road, at a budget price ($300AU)

I never feel that money spent on old computers is well spent... but actually, at that sort of price (people may be missing 'AU' in that dollar price, which makes a difference) it might actually be worth considering. Do take into account what @EugW said about fitting a SSD and min. 4G RAM - so don't go much higher.

If you were prepared to spend more money, I'd go for a newer MacBook Air, but if If AU$300 is your price limit then I don't think you're going to do better without going to a PC or tablet solution.

I have a 2010 13" MBP (4GB, with SSD, still running 10.9) that I use as an emergency backup, or when I need a basic computer on-the road and don't want to lug my 17". Its perfectly usable for general tasks. You can't get away from the fact that its an 8-year-old computer, but you're not trying to do anything that people weren't doing 8 years ago... Be forewarned that it might be excluded from the next version of Mac OS (but the current version will be supported for several more years anyway) and - obviously - if it goes wrong its going to be "beyond economical repair" - so don't count on it lasting you too many years.

If I recall correctly, the NVIDIA motherboard-chipset-with-graphics in the Mid-2010 13" MBP is a keeper (and the reason why that model stuck with Core 2 Duo rather than i-series processors with inferior integrated graphics) - it's the 2010/2011 MBPs with discreet graphics that are best avoided.

 

[Naimfan]

Sure. Good, albeit slow today, machines.

 

[Lancer]

Not worried about the next OS, as long as it works for a few months. I would love something new(er) but here the starting price for a MBP is about $1900AU, I'd rather put that into my new iMac. And as I said I have a Samsung 256Gb SSD that was in a 2011 MBP15, which should be an easy swap for the 2010 MBP.

 

[EugW]

Not worried about the next OS, as long as it works for a few months. I would love something new(er) but here the starting price for a MBP is about $1900AU, I'd rather put that into my new iMac. And as I said I have a Samsung 256Gb SSD that was in a 2011 MBP15, which should be an easy swap for the 2010 MBP.

If you already a 256 GB SSD, then the 2010 will likely be fine. I see that all of the 2010s have 4 GB RAM, so you have a decent starting point. You won't be stuck with a 2 GB machine like you might if you got a 2009.

If you find a deal on RAM, it might even be worth upgrading to 8 GB. The current prices are around $60-80 US. Too bad there aren't some crazy sales like there were last year. I managed to find 2 x 4 GB of PC3-8500 DDR3 1067 MHz Transcend RAM (8 GB total) last year for about US$35, sold by Amazon.ca. Sale only lasted a couple of hours though before it sold out. Perfect for the 2008 aluminum MacBook I bought for US$150 off Kijiji a few weeks before.

 

[Lancer]

Its just a matter of winning one on eBay at a good price.

 

[Fishrrman]

Look for a 2012 release non-retina MacBook Pro and upgrade the internal hard drive yourself if necessary...