Nedd some advice- what would be the best prior-year Macbook to look at?

[jeff123816]

I have a 2011 MacBook Air that is not going to be supported beyond High Sierra. I do not do much heavy lifting with my laptops but I use one Mac-exclusive app (OmniFocus) that I need to continue with. Other than that app, I would move to Linux as it has everything else I would need. It's just that there's nothing remotely comparable to OmniFocus on Linux (or Windows for that matter).

I don’t have excessive funds and don’t need the best or most powerful hardware. Rather, I’m most interested in getting something that strikes the best balance between cost, performance, and longevity (future MacOS support). My research indicates that the 2015 MacBook Pro may be the sweet spot. I’m wondering if other people feel that way. The average price of a used 2015 MBP is between $600-$700. That’s doable for me (though it’s the top of my budget), so long as I can reasonably expect around 5 more years of support from Apple. Am I barking up the right tree with this line of thinking? Or would it be better to try to stretch for something more recent but less-equipped (like a 2016 MacBook Air)? Any thoughts would be very much appreciated. Thank you!

 

[kschendel]

I think you are on the right track. I think you can safely expect 5 more years of Apple support, at least partly because there's not really anything in the 2016/2017 models that is fundamentally different from the 2015 in terms of OS support. If Apple does surprise me and cut off the 2015 before 2023, it's likely to be a simple platform list thing which would easily be worked around. The 2015 rMBP has better performance and a better screen than the Air, even the most recent Air. A 2016 Air would not be a bad purchase, but I think the year older rMBP would be better.