Should I buy the macbookpro 2015 or the MacBook Pro 2011/2012 and upgrade it?

[Withoutlimits]

hi everyone I'm kinda new here and I'm thinking about to get my first MacBook. I have money to buy a used MacBook Pro retina 2015 8gb ram 256 ssd i5 or a MacBook Pro 2011/2012 8gb ram 256 ssd i7 and upgrade the ram+ssd ?
The MacBook Pro 2015 retina is about 880.000 usd and the MacBook Pro 2011/2012 would be like 765000 usd and plus the upgrades (16 gb ram and 500 gb ssd would be like 950000 )

What should I do ?

 

[Unami]

depends on what you're planning to do with it - i guess you're talking about 13" models, right? from a speed perspective, it looks like the newer i5 is actually the by 50% faster processor. but 16gb of ram and 500gb of ssd is also pretty nice to have. if you're going to do stuff that needs more ram (video/photo editing), there will be more swaps to the probably faster but smaller 256 gb ssd. 256 is usually a pretty tight fit, i constantly struggle to keep 10-20 gb free on my old 2009 mbp with 3rd pary ssd - and i don't really do anything with that machine any more. but that also really depends on your type of computer usage. the old one got a disc drive if you need that (which might or might not bite the bullet soon, but can be replaced, even with a second ssd) the battery of the old one will be older and didn't even last as long as the new one when it was new. but you can replace the battery by yourself, while you have to send the new one to apple for that.

still, personally i'd go with the newer one because of it's faster (longer lasting) processor, newer battery, smaller form factor, retina display and because it's cheaper. you're probably not going to use it as a video editing machine anyway (or you'd be thinking about the 15" pro with the discreet graphics), and for office work, surfing the internet and some light multimedia-work it should be fine for years to come.

 

[Withoutlimits]

depends on what you're planning to do with it - i guess you're talking about 13" models, right? from a speed perspective, it looks like the newer i5 is actually the by 50% faster processor. but 16gb of ram and 500gb of ssd is also pretty nice to have. if you're going to do stuff that needs more ram (video/photo editing), there will be more swaps to the probably faster but smaller 256 gb ssd. 256 is usually a pretty tight fit, i constantly struggle to keep 10-20 gb free on my old 2009 mbp with 3rd pary ssd - and i don't really do anything with that machine any more. but that also really depends on your type of computer usage. the old one got a disc drive if you need that (which might or might not bite the bullet soon, but can be replaced, even with a second ssd) the battery of the old one will be older and didn't even last as long as the new one when it was new. but you can replace the battery by yourself, while you have to send the new one to apple for that.

still, personally i'd go with the newer one because of it's faster (longer lasting) processor, newer battery, smaller form factor, retina display and because it's cheaper. you're probably not going to use it as a video editing machine anyway (or you'd be thinking about the 15" pro with the discreet graphics), and for office work, surfing the internet and some light multimedia-work it should be fine for years to come.

Hey thanks man! I'm going to use it for editing videos in Final Cut Pro and photos in photoshop. So do you think these programs will run fast?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Get the newest one the graphics are far superior as is the screen, not to mention thunderbolt 2 ports, AC wifi, it's thinner lighter has a far better battery life and will support OS X updates for far longer.
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Hey thanks man! I'm going to use it for editing videos in Final Cut Pro and photos in photoshop. So do you think these programs will run fast?

Well videos in Final Cut Pro will be ok but a 13 inch is only a dual core with integrated graphics so it's never going to match a quad core 15 inch machine with a dGPU, photoshop should be fine.

 

[maflynn]

I think the newer one will serve you better.

 

[theluggage]

What should I do ?

The only upsides of the 2011 model are (a) you can upgrade the RAM and (b) that you can cram it to the brim with storage, since the HD is user-replaceable & you can replace the optical drive with a second HD or SSD - so you can be walking around with 3TB of storage, if that's what floats your boat and (c) the ethernet port (if you need wired ethernet on the 2015 you'll need a Thunderbolt or USB to ethernet dongle. or a TB dock).

In all other respects, the 2015 model will be better. 2 x Thunderbolt 2 (or DisplayPort), USB 3, HDMI, the retina display and better CPU/GPU.

Personally, I'm happily using a 2011 MBP with RAM and SSD upgrades, but I've had it since 2011- I wouldn't take one on today.

 

[farkleboy]

I went through the very same dilemma about 4 months ago. Upgrade an older one or just get a newer one? To make a long story (and about 30 hours of research) short, I went with the 2015 15" MBP. I wanted one with flash storage, at leas 512gb and a good graphics card. I'm a video editor by trade, and when I heard that the flash storage on the 2015 model was faster than the 2014 model (by 2x) that sold me. But, now I think the biggest advatange of the 2015 model is the force touch trackpad.

For as long as there were laptops, so endured my hatred for all trackpads. Small, inaccurate little devils that existed to torture me, they were. As the MBP matured, they got bigger, but for all that, the amount of force needed to initiate a click (until the touch click was implemented) was just too much to the point that I always carried a mouse around. It was just a fact of life for me to use a mouse when using a laptop.

No More! The force touch trackpad is now the only trackpad that is worthy of my use, and I will have my $100 Logitec MX Master mouse (which I love and adore ,and has saved my carpal tunnel that the magic mouse caused) next to my lappy, and forget it is there. I edit in premiere pro with the FT trackpad, and its fantastic. There is even a fun amount of haptic feedback when dragging a clip from the bin to the timeline, as I move it around the trackpad teases my fingertips with little clicks and boops and bops depending on what the clips is snapping to or moving over.

So, TL;DR get the 2015 version, faster, snappier, will be supported longer, (I think it has the newest BT capability too) and you can get applecare on it as well. Long live the Force Touch trackpad and faster storage. I also got mine slightly used with low low battery cycles on amazon for 12 mo no payments/no interest financing.