Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Should I upgrade?

Soulflower

Soulflower

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 17, 2011
186
29
I posted this on another thread but should have posted my own thread.

I have a MacBook Pro Retina, 13" Late 2012 2.9 GHz, i7, 8 GB with 500 GB storage.

I'm considering updating to the new 2019 MBA. I was going to max it out.

Do you recommend the upgrade? Will I notice a difference? At what point will Apple stop supporting my MBP? I have always said that I would get rid of it when it could no longer be updated.

Many thanks for any advice you can offer.
 
Erehy Dobon said:
I have no idea. You fail to mention what you do with your computer currently, whether or not you are still happy with it and if it is insufficiently meeting any of your needs. Because of this lack of info I cannot advise whether or not maxing out the MBA would be beneficial in your unstated usage case.


Well, if you have tired old eyes like me, the Retina Display will be a godsend. Unfortunately, the keyboard of the 2019 MacBooks models are far inferior as to the keyboards used on models of your computer's generation. Those are two things you should physically test out before you make your purchase decision.


Who knows? In terms of hardware/repair support, maybe in a year or two. I think Apple declares Mac hardware vintage/obsolete after about 7 years. Yours is rapidly approaching that threshold.

From the software side, maybe the next macOS release after Catalina (Sep/Oct 2020). Yours is the oldest model of MacBook Pro that will be supported on Catalina so it is likely to be next on the chopping block.

Anyhow, good luck with your purchase decision.
Click to expand...

I'm still happy with my MBP other than the fact that it is getting older and the hard drive is filling up. I only use it for personal use - photos, movies, books, documents, apps, etc.

It does have a Retina display but is the MBA and improved display? I do have old tired eyes.

I also wondered if I would notice a difference as far as speed or other performance things although mine is not terrible.

Thank you for your reply.
 
In terms of CPU performance, a new MBA does not perform much better than your 2012 MBP—the 2012 MBP is a solid machine still supported by Catalina.

If lack of storage is the main obstacle with which you're wrestling, have you considered updating the SSD in it? It's a bit of surgery, but there are step-by-step guides available. A 1TB SSD would double your storage and keep your machine (and you!) happy for a few more years. I wouldn't necessarily recommend OWC, but this will give you sense of pricing (and something from Amazon, etc. will be cheaper).

As far as the MBA display is concerned, I believe the main advantage it has over your MBP is True Tone support and probably a bit wider color gamut.
 
You will definitely notice a difference in performance as well as in weight.

Here's the diff in CPU performance. Not to mention RAM and SSD will be faster too.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012) Benchmarks - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com

MacBook Air (Late 2018) Benchmarks - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com

The only thing you need to watch out for is the keyboard. The feel of butterfly keyboard is very different. Visit an Apple store or Best Buy and test drive the keyboard to make sure you like it. Also, you will be missing magsafe and a bunch of other useful things like the SSD reader with the Air.

Edit: Fixed the link to point to geekbench 5 for the 2019 MBA (which has an identical processor to the late 2018 MBA).
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Solomani
Thank you so much. I love using my notebook but don't know much about all the specs.

Is there any reason I should consider the MacBook Pro over the Air? Are there any advantages other than weight and battery life?
 
Since you have a Retina Pro the Air won't provide you many advantages except for weight and longer battery life. The best upgrade you can do is to replace your original Apple SSD storage drive for something better as phairphan mentioned above. You have a solid laptop which will run Catalina, the new upcoming MacOS, without any issue. Keep in mind though when you upgrade to Catalina you won't have use of any 32 bit software.
 
ghanwani said:
You will definitely notice a difference in performance as well as in weight.

Here's the diff in CPU performance. Not to mention RAM and SSD will be faster too.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012) Benchmarks - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com

MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2019) - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a MacBookAir8,2 with an Intel Core i5-8210Y processor.
browser.geekbench.com

The only thing you need to watch out for is the keyboard. The feel of butterfly keyboard is very different. Visit an Apple store or Best Buy and test drive the keyboard to make sure you like it. Also, you will be missing magsafe and a bunch of other useful things like the SSD reader with the Air.
Click to expand...

The RAM and CPU will be faster (the SSD will be much faster), but the Geekbench results you posted are utterly misleading. You posted Geekbench 5 results for the MBP and Geekbench 4 results for the MBA. These two tests are based on entirely differently scales and incomparable. The results I posted above are on the same Geekbench 5 scales. There's a minor difference in performance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ghanwani
My MBP is a good solid machine and has never had issues. Would it be to my advantage to sell it while it can still be updated? Would the resell price drop when it can no longer be updated? Thank you for all the responses. It has been very helpful.
 
phairphan said:
The RAM and CPU will be faster (the SSD will be much faster), but the Geekbench results you posted are utterly misleading. You posted Geekbench 5 results for the MBP and Geekbench 4 results for the MBA. These two tests are based on entirely differently scales and incomparable. The results I posted above are on the same Geekbench 5 scales. There's a minor difference in performance.
Click to expand...

Thanks for correcting me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: phairphan
I think the pertinent question has been asked, what do you do with your Mac Pro or what is it not doing for you? In my family Apple ecosystem we have two late 2012 MacBook Air's. We are real light users not power users. So my rule of thumb is change the hardware when Apple stops supporting it with the latest software. Given both Air's will run Catalina and most likely next years interim update to Catalina I figure we have ay least 1 more year and possibly 2 more years before needing to upgrade hardware.

Just did it with my iPhone. I am not a phone power user either but I sold my iPhone 6 and bought a 7 because the 6 will not be supported in iOS 13.
 
I bought my 2019 MBA about 2 months ago, and so far so good. My needs are routine, primarily: Mail, Messages, Notes, Safari, Photos, and iWork.

I like the feel of the keyboard. Reliability has not been a problem, but 2 months is not much time. I decided that between the 4th generation keyboard and the 4 year warranty I could live with the risk. However, I can get by without my computer for a few days if it need repair. Some people are not in that position and might not want to take the risk.
 
phairphan said:
The RAM and CPU will be faster (the SSD will be much faster), but the Geekbench results you posted are utterly misleading. You posted Geekbench 5 results for the MBP and Geekbench 4 results for the MBA. These two tests are based on entirely differently scales and incomparable. The results I posted above are on the same Geekbench 5 scales. There's a minor difference in performance.
Click to expand...

I did some research and apparently if I upgraded to the Macbook Pro 13" I would notice more difference in performance. Am I looking at this correctly?

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012) Benchmarks - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2019) Benchmarks - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com
 
Soulflower said:
I did some research and apparently if I upgraded to the Macbook Pro 13" I would notice more difference in performance. Am I looking at this correctly?

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012) Benchmarks - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2019) Benchmarks - Geekbench

browser.geekbench.com
Click to expand...

The machine you have pointed to above looks like it is the Macbook Pro with the 2.8 GHz i7 processor. The base price for that machine at Apple is $2099.

The base MBP, the one has a base price of $1299 at Apple has the 1.4 GHz i5 processor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back