Newest MBP for using Adobe CS6

[lil1998]

I need to replace my 2010 MBP, but am not yet willing to stop using Adobe CS6 (my clients don't pay me enough to start using CC subscription). I've heard that Catalina MIGHT work but Mojave is much more certain, right? But I cannot buy a brand-new MacBook Pro and put Mojave on it, is that correct?

In the past whenever I've gotten a new machine (admittedly very rare) or new external drive, I would just clone my entire old drive onto it, which would also change the pre-installed OS to whatever I'd been originally using (and if it was an external drive, it became bootable that way). Does this no longer work with computers that are significantly newer than the OS?

How far back do I need to go to use Mojave, and where do I find computers a few years old but in very good condition? I've bought refurbished machines and iPhones before, but they were probably max 1 year out of date.

Thanks for any advice you can give!

 

[mdgm]

Mojave is the last Mac OS for 32-bit apps.

If you're not willing to consider trying to run in a VM for Mojave you're looking at machines released before September 2018, so that's a mid-2018 or older MBP.

Considering the butterfly keyboard and soldered storage from 2016 onwards till the 2019(?) machines brought in a different keyboard for some in your situation the sweet spot would be the 2015 MBP which is the last with replaceable storage and the oldest MBP to natively support the upcoming Monterey release.

The 2015 has very similar hardware to the late 2013 and mid-2014 but the 2015 MBP has AMD discrete graphics cards and the SSD speeds are twice as fast.

 

[lil1998]

Mojave is the last Mac OS for 32-bit apps.

If you're not willing to consider trying to run in a VM for Mojave you're looking at machines released before September 2018, so that's a mid-2018 or older MBP.

Considering the butterfly keyboard and soldered storage from 2016 onwards till the 2019(?) machines brought in a different keyboard for some in your situation the sweet spot would be the 2015 MBP which is the last with replaceable storage and the oldest MBP to natively support the upcoming Monterey release.

The 2015 has very similar hardware to the late 2013 and mid-2014 but the 2015 MBP has AMD discrete graphics cards and the SSD speeds are twice as fast.

Thank you! So, there is this part of me that hates to spend so much money to only update by 5 years, partly thinking if I keep the next laptop for another 10+ years, maybe at some point I will finally have to give up and switch to Adobe CC anyway. Are you suggesting I'd need replaceable storage because the drive might break down? (my old one did, after only 4 years of daily use). Or just that I might change my mind on how much I need, because I'm pretty sure I'll make 1TB work although if I could get a decent deal on 2TB, I'd be interested...

I'm definitely not a techy person so I'm not really familiar with how VM works. (Also, now I'm seeing that High Sierra may be more stable for CS6 than Mojave?). Is it fast to switch back and forth for whenever I just want to use internet and Microsoft Office, or do I need to reboot my computer each time to go in and out of VM? And do you know if heavy use of Illustrator and InDesign run slowly through High Sierra on a VM compared to a machine that only has High Sierra (or Mojave if possible) installed? I realize "slowly" may be a bit relative considering how much suffering I've put my 2010 MBP through.

If 2015 or 2016 is really the best choice, is the only option for finding one through an individual seller? Or are computers that old available through a reliable retailer? Thanks so much.