Should I get a $540 upgraded late 2008 Aluminium MacBook or $890 early 2011 MacBook P

[devilsway]

I've been using my white early 2008 MacBook (32-bit) while holding out for the new iMac which I'm certain of getting. However, with Mountain Lion not supporting 32 bit systems and the new app updates in the Mac App Store often requiring something later than Snow Leopard, I'm forced to get a new MacBook.

Right now I have two choices: a $540 late 2008 aluminium MacBook or a $890 early 2011 MacBook Pro (both second hand and lowest tier, except the MacBook has recently gotten a new battery, 500GB hard disk, and 4GB of RAM).

For usage purposes, I only really need the souped-up 2008 MacBook, but the 2011 allows me to use AirPlay (which is something that I would use often if able to) and the sting of Apple discontinuing my existing MacBook is still hurting.

Would you recommend I stick with the cheaper, and probably more sensible option of getting the 2008 or should I stick with 2011 so I can stay on Apple's support radar for longer?

 

[Mikey7c8]

If you're unable to buy new for cost reasons, spending $6-900 for no real increase in capability seems potentially foolish.

Is there anything you can't *do* with your current macbook ? If it were me, I'd be tempted to forgo ml and live with it until buying something newer.

 

[devilsway]

If you're unable to buy new for cost reasons, spending $6-900 for no real increase in capability seems potentially foolish.

Is there anything you can't *do* with your current macbook ? If it were me, I'd be tempted to forgo ml and live with it until buying something newer.

You're right of course and that's sound advice. Basically my current MB only has one working USB port and the hard disk sounds like it's about to go sooner or later (speeds up very loudly when multitasking, takes a bit of time to startup when opening the lid) and in pretty bad condition, but otherwise it's still working.

I've always planned on having an iMac at home and a more mobile MacBook to take to work. The MacBook Air probably doesn't suit me as I'd like my mobile Mac to be able to work with audio editing and photo processing.

 

[throAU]

No improvement? The early 2011 will have a core I series which has hardware support for AES encryption (30x speedup at that task) along with quicksync video (hardware accel, again, likely 30x speedup for things like airplay).

The core I series is a massive leap in performance, even without considering the hardware accelerated instructions for encryption and video.