repair or replace?

[whimsicalseal]

The screen on my 2012 15" retina mbp needs replacing, costing about 450USD. Otherwise its running fine - I'm using an external monitor to type this out. It meets my needs performance-wise (academic working with large databases).
My question is should I put more money into extending the life of this aged machine or stump up another 1.5k and get the new 2019 15" mbp?

 

[pika2000]

Yeah, the display costs quite a bit because they cannot simply replace the panel, the whole display has to be replaced.

But do you actually need another MacBook Pro? If a 2012 laptop meets your needs, maybe the new MacBook Air can as well, and saves you some money. That might help your decision.

 

[Thysanoptera]

The air will be slower, but a heavy discounted 2018 13 inch will be at least 40% faster than 2012 15'' retina. The only downside is that the available configs will have same or lower RAM/SSD capacity when compared to a 7 year old model.

 

[whimsicalseal]

thanks for the advice - I was considering the 2018 air. My main concern is the keyboard and missing the screen size, performance should be ok from what I've read.