Question about macOS and the MacBook

[drysdalk]

Hi,

I've just acquired a 2017 MacBook 12-inch, with an Intel Core i5 1.3GHz chip, 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It's come with Big Sur installed. I know I can update to Ventura, but I just wanted to get the thoughts of those who have been running this machine for some time as to whether or not that update is a good idea. Will it run Ventura as well as Big Sur, or should I expect to see a significant drop in performance ?

By way of a bit more context, I don't plan on doing anything substantial with this. To be honest, it's something I bought because I'd always wanted a 12-inch MacBook on account of how light and thin and just generally cool they are, though I mostly work and live on iPadOS for my day job and don't really have much I plan to do with this Mac other than just tinker around. So I won't be doing any heavy video editing or DTP or anything like that on here. So as long as the OS runs acceptably for some light general-purpose computing, that's pretty much all I care about.

 

[MultiFinder17]

You shouldn't notice any substantial slowdown from the upgrade. I run Sequoia on my 2016 base rMB, and it runs it quite well. These machines handle OCLPing to newer versions of macOS quite well in my experience if you're game for a little adventure

 

[ajergome]

I must be doing something wrong, I'm running Ventura and mine is unusably slow. Sometimes so slow that I can't airdrop a single file to it, I've been thinking about trying to find a linux distro that might work better to keep it alive

 

[iStorm]

I ran Ventura on my 2017 15" MBP and it was fine, but not everyone's experience/perception will be the same. What I consider fine might be slow to someone else.

At least with macOS, you can always downgrade. Make a backup (which you should be doing anyway) and upgrade to Ventura. If you like it, great! If you don't, downgrade back to Big Sur and restore from your backup, or give Monterey a try instead.

 

[EugW]

Ventura is definitely slower than Big Sur on that class of MacBooks. Personally, I wouldn't run anything less than Monterey for compatibility reasons, but I run Ventura on my 2017 12-inch core m3 16 GB 256 GB MacBook. Although Ventura is slower, it's still acceptable for my usage, since my primary "laptop" is an M4 iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I must be doing something wrong, I'm running Ventura and mine is unusably slow. Sometimes so slow that I can't airdrop a single file to it, I've been thinking about trying to find a linux distro that might work better to keep it alive

My 2016 gets used for communication apps, writing, and web browsing these days, so it's not like my uses are all that intense. The 12" rMB is a fairly limited machine to begin with, and everyone's threshold for what is and isn't acceptable performance will be affected by what they are doing on the computer and what their expectations are. Personally I'd make sure you have a solid backup of the machine, then give it a go. If it's acceptable to you, keep it and enjoy. If it's too slow for your needs or expectations, restore an older OS and your data.

Either way, enjoy your 12" MacBook, they're such fantastic little laptops if you're willing to work within their limitations ^_^

 

[drysdalk]

Hello,

Well, I decided to go ahead and update to Ventura. I just thought I'd reply here to let people know how it went, in case this info is useful to anyone else in the future.

I carried out the upgrade on Tuesday evening by downloading the MacOS Ventura 13.7.2 Install Assistant full package, and ran that to carry out the update. I think it took most of an hour, but it all went smoothly, and after quite a few reboots I was upgraded from Big Sur to Ventura.

After upgrading I then signed in with my Apple ID and downloaded the usual set of Apple apps, and also installed all the Office 365 suite of apps, since that's what we use in my work and I wanted to see if it could handle a normal day's work as well as my iPad Pro does, which is my normal daily driver system. I also tried downloading a few non-graphically-intensive games to see how the MacBook would cope with them.

Work-wise, today I used it whilst in the office for a full day's work. The MacBook was attached to a USB hub, using a second display which was attached to the hub via HDMI and running at 1080p.

In terms of performance, some apps (notably Teams and Edge) took a fair while to start, but once they were running they were fine. For the sake of completeness, I had the following Microsoft apps all running simultaneously during the day, and used both displays throughout:

• Outlook for e-mail
• Edge for work-related Web browsing
• Teams for work chat and meetings
• OneNote for taking notes on some documents I was reviewing in Edge
• ToDo to mark items off my to-do list
• OneDrive running as a background file syncing service continuously
• And running on-demand rather than permanently, I used Word, Excel and PowerPoint for short periods throughout the day

I also had some Apple apps open in the background through the day as well:

• Safari for occasional non-work browsing
• iMessage for occasional chat with family members through the day
• Mail for checking personal e-mail
• Calendar for checking personal appointments

I also over lunch read some magazines on the Kindle app, though I didn't leave that one running after I was finished with it.

All of the apps listed above ran quite happily on my 8GB i5 MacBook without a hitch. No real slowdowns to speak of beyond the startup time of the apps, and all running apps were at least as responsive as I would have expected them to be. Moving apps between displays worked fine, and ran smoothly. I was really happy with how well the MacBook handled things, and I wouldn't have any hesitation using it for a day's work again.

Gaming-wise, about the most impressive thing I've run is Disco Elysium, which I bought on the Mac App Store. With the graphics turned all the way down it runs perfectly fine as well. I've not tried anything more demanding than that, and I suspect that this level of graphics is about its limit, but then I wouldn't expect anything different to be honest given the CPU and integrated Intel graphics that it uses.

So overall, I've been really impressed with this little MacBook. It can handle a full day's work for me without any issues, and is fine for recreational use and a bit of gaming as well. And that's pretty much the best I was hoping for ! One thing that I've had to get used to again is heat - the iPad Pro generates basically none unless you're REALLY pushing it hard, whereas the MacBook heats up pretty easily (or more accurately, the Intel CPU does). But it's fine - and again, not unexpected.

 

[ajergome]

My 2016 gets used for communication apps, writing, and web browsing these days, so it's not like my uses are all that intense. The 12" rMB is a fairly limited machine to begin with, and everyone's threshold for what is and isn't acceptable performance will be affected by what they are doing on the computer and what their expectations are. Personally I'd make sure you have a solid backup of the machine, then give it a go. If it's acceptable to you, keep it and enjoy. If it's too slow for your needs or expectations, restore an older OS and your data.

Either way, enjoy your 12" MacBook, they're such fantastic little laptops if you're willing to work within their limitations ^_^

I put Mint on it and it seems decent. I might end up taking your advice and downgrading a few versions of macOS. I have super limited needs with it so I'm confident I'll find a sweet spot. I wish they'd make another!