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I kept my 2010 MacBook Pro for 4 years before upgrading to the retina MacBook Pro. I finally upgraded in 2014 because I had some spare cash and I really wanted a retina display on my laptop, since my tablet and phone both had one. Performance started to get a little slow, but I'm sure an upgrade to an SSD would have made it feel new again.

Obviously my retina MacBook Pro has an SSD, along with a Core i5 processor (vs. the Core 2 Duo in my old MacBook Pro), so I honestly don't see myself upgrading to a new MacBook pro for another 3-4 years at the earliest. My old Sony Vaio definitely didn't last as long as my Macs are. Not as good looking, either.
 
About a week after I went from 4 GB to 8 GB and I've definiately noticed a difference. There was a slight sluggishness with a lot of Firefox tabs open which I just put down to the machine getting on a bit and 'only' having a 2 GHz C2D processor, but now this lag has gone. I was anticipating finally upgrading this year (either a Skylake rMB or redesigned rMBP if they appear), but now I think this machine may live on another year at least! Only bad news is that I've run out of upgrades for it!
 
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I'm also looking to replace the battery.
Anyone knows a good third party brand ?
I bought a $40 battery from Amazon here in Canada and it works great. Sometimes you cant always pay attention to the reviews because alot of people only write reviews on things like that if theyre broken.
 
I bought a $40 battery from Amazon here in Canada and it works great. Sometimes you cant always pay attention to the reviews because alot of people only write reviews on things like that if theyre broken.
Thanks.
40$ is not that much. If it lasts at least 2 hours that will be good for me as I don't really use the machine that muchz
I don't know in the US but in Romania a replacement battery from Apple costs 160$. Thats an insane price for a component for a computer which is 7 and a half years old.
 
Thanks.
40$ is not that much. If it lasts at least 2 hours that will be good for me as I don't really use the machine that muchz
I don't know in the US but in Romania a replacement battery from Apple costs 160$. Thats an insane price for a component for a computer which is 7 and a half years old.
Just don't buy based on mah as they usually lie about it. But mine lasts just over 2 and a half hours
 
I bought a new battery for mine last year (same exact model, 2.4c2d), fortunately it was OEM, but the seller is no longer pushing products on eBay. I don't think I'll ever find another official Apple battery for this.

The cracking in the photo around the hinge mechanism is among one of the parts I've replaced called the clutch cover, ran me about $25 for the part. I've upgraded mine to 8GB of ram and installed an Optibay in order to get two SSDs (removed the optical drive, SSD in its place). When I buy a new laptop, which should be soon.. this computer will be around as a backup for quite some time. The only regular maintenance I do on it now is cleaning the fan. On a second MagSafe, as of a month ago.
 
Which SSD are yall using in your late 2008 / early 2009 MacBooks? Any particular brand of RAM as well? Debating if I should throw some updates at my late 2008 uMB.
 
I've got a Samsung 830. It shouldn't really matter these days as you will be limited by the SATA 2 interface on the MacBook so the reported performance of the latest drives will not be reached. Still, lots faster than the old HDD though. I think Samsung and Crucial are pretty safe brands to go with an fairly cheap too.
 
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