What do I do. My 2008 macbook unibody just can't keep up with daily demands any longer. Websites are slow to load...its time to upgrade. Thank you for your service trusty Macbook.
I'm not too excited to drop the $ on a brand new 16" if I don't have to, especially given the feedback and issues some have had. Is the 2015 rMBP's 15" really the second (maybe first) best option? Will this unit become obsolete in a matter of a couple years and I'll have to go through this whole process again?
Needs:
-Light video editing (& not necessarily 4K)
-Multi window browsing with youtube/netflix/live sports streaming in background
-Lots of typing/school marking etc
-Frequent use of Microsoft word/excel/powerpoint
Thanks everyone
I can do all that on a 2017 MBA that is a dual-core i5 1.8 GHz, 8 GB RAM, HD Graphics 6000 with 1.5 GB VRAM. These are my battery stats as well, just yesterday, with a slightly heavier-than-usual workload. Started with 11:30 AM yesterday and went till a little over midnight. I should say that exactly 3 hours out of this, I was not in front of the laptop. The battery is at around 85% capacity and I did this exercise since I hadn't done it in over a year.
I use this computer to do these tasks daily:
- email
- browsing with several tabs open, sometimes even over 40, tamed down as I finish reading
- working with a few apps open as I switch between them for work
- extensive typing as I write to earn.
Some of the software I use:
- Affinity Designer
- Swift Publisher
- Safari
- OmniFocus
- OmniOutliner
- Bear Notes
- Day One
- Microsoft Excel
- Canon Digital Photo Professional for RAW photo editing
- Handbrake
- VMware Fusion for Windows 10 in a virtual machine.
At some point or the other, I have worked with several of these open together including having the VM in the background and working on Safari with over 20 tabs, OmniFocus and taking some notes in Bear, and switching from macOS to the VM for certain things.
I used to use a 2011 MBP 15" with 2.4 GHz quad-core i7, 256 GB SSD and 16 GB RAM. Then moved to 2016 MBP 13 with 2.9 GHz dual-core i5, 256 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM. Now I am doing all of the above on a 2017 MBA with 1.8 GHz dual core i5. What this means is, choose a computer you can afford today and you will be happy with it for your needs that you mention. I have even played a game on my 2017 MBA with integrated graphics and 8 GB RAM that my 2011 quad-core with dedicated graphics and 16 GB RAM ran poorly!
A 2015 MBP is still more than enough for your tasks, but is not a good buy today considering its proximity to the vintage title. See if you can pick up a 2017 MBA for a steal somewhere. You will find a lot of users here on this forum itself who are using this petite machine happily.