Upgrading a MBP Mid-2012 to a MBP Mid-2012 or 2021 M1

[gren81]

My MBP Mid-2012 has some occasional fan and screen flicker issues. The battery has 565 cycles - so coming up on the 1,000 count for the original battery. I have worked with Apple Support over the years to make things better but it regresses over time.

My daughter’s Mid-2012 is nearly perfect - hardly used and only 41 cycles - which I can buy at parental subsidized pricing ($150) but still a great deal compared to Apple’s valuation.

My MBP runs Catalina OS with 8 GB of memory and a 512 SSD that I installed ~4 years ago.

Her MBP runs the original MacOS maybe with a couple of updates which I would update -likely to Catalina. I would move 4 GB of memory from mine to hers (totaling 8 GB max) and likely buy a new SSD 512 GB to 1 TB.

Am I wasting my money and time? My intuition says no as I cannot justify a new 2021 [M2] for what I do. (No gaming, lots of Office-like tools, web browsing, some amateur CAD, some photos but no video.)

I just hate to see her fully functional MBP Mid-2012 get recycled when mine is showing its age and usage. Maybe I can justify an M1.

Any thoughts, sanity check, or recommendations?

 

[justashooter]

I have two of the mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13's and use one daily for office tasks, lots of photo editing and minor video editing (short 3-4 minute videos). The other is a backup used on bigger shoots or by a second photographer, and is also used for longer renders of videos. I am a full-time freelance photographer. It is still a very capable machine. You are not wasting your time or money.

Don't take that the one that has few charging cycles is in better condition than the other with 565 cycles. My backup has more than 1,800 cycles and just started displaying the "service" message last month. Battery still last more than 2 hours and has no indications of swelling. My theory is that regular charging cycles is good for a battery, leaving it plugged in all the time is not good.

I stopped upgrading at Mojave, a very stable OS and I still run some 32-bit apps. If you go to Catalina all apps have to by 64-bit.

Apples says the max ram is 8gb, but this MBP will use 16gb just fine, I have been running 16gb ram since 2015 and replaced the HDD with an SSD in about 2017.

 

[gren81]

Thanks @justashooter. Catalina was a performance hit - ‘itigates with SSD. If I may ask:

* What 8GB memory specs do you have installed? 16GB would be great.

* What SSD brand and size do you go with?

My daughter’s MBP was rarely plugged in but I understand that non-use can be as bad as bad or worse than non-use.

I will do a full backup on my Airport Time Capsule before doing anything.

The screen flicker and fan noise is making me a bit biased against my own mid-2012.

 

[justashooter]

The mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13 takes 204-pin PC3-12800, 1600MHz, DDR3 SO-DIMM ram. I like OWC, Kingston, Crucial, Micron brands. One of mine has OWC, the other Kingston. All bought used off of ebay, didn't pay more than $40 for a pair 8gb chips, although prices are higher now. My main computer has two SSD's, a Samsung EVO 850 500gb and I removed the DVD (it had quit working) and installed a Crucial MX500 500gb drive in it's place, using this:

OWC Data Doubler: Get 2 Drives in your MacBook Pro

Replace the optical drive in your MacBook or MacBook Pro 2008 or later with a second hard drive or SSD. Add up to an additional 1.5TB of internal storage.

eshop.macsales.com

The SSD's are a Samsung EVO 850 and a Crucial MX500, both 500gb. The Crucial is a bit less expensive.