Upgrading from a 2013 MBP to a 2015

[Nbd1790]

I have a 2013 Macbook Pro 15 inch (i7 - 16gb RAM - 768gb SSD - dedicated graphics) That I've had for about 5 years now. Everything works fine, was never mistreated and still runs Serato, Ableton, Logic and Photoshop extremely well.

I've recently started panicking and questioning how much longer this will last given its age (and how much I use it on a regular basis for everything) and was considering buying a 2015 to make my daily driver and use this as a backup (trying to avoid the whole all USB c thing as long as possible)

The 2015 I'm looking at is used in mint condition (2.8 i7 - 16gb RAM - 1TB SSD - Dedicated Graphics) and still has Applecare until November of this year. The seller is asking for $1700 which seems reasonable to me after shopping around on ebay and such.

Regardless, I need to purchase an additional mac to have as a backup (I DJ on the weekends and the fear of not having a backup machine should my current one fail has been giving me anxiety)

Also, I could really use the extra hard drive space if it were to be my primary machine. On the other hand, I found a 2015 Macbook Air (full spec i7 8gb 512) that would suite my needs as a backup machine just fine for DJ use, and will save me about $1000.

Is the 2015 machine a good buy? Or is it going to just be more of the same (aside from hard drive space) and I should opt for an air as a secondary. Thoughts / comments appreciated.

 

[kohlson]

I have nearly the same machine, but with 1TB. About a year or so ago it started rebooting with kernel panics. Increasingly so. I used it over the summer, and made sure I was backed up daily. Toward the end of August I ran Apple's hardware diagnostics, and it passed everything. It died completely a few days later. I took it into the Apple Store, and it passed all of their diagnostics. Of course the tech just sent it off to the depot. It came back with a new logic board, SSD, and top case. $650 and a 90-day warranty. (The tech explained that $650 is the maximum charge to repair anything in this situation.) It's worked like a champ ever since.

But let me get this right - you're panicking, not the laptop, right? The MBP is working fine? If so, I would recommend getting the Air - I think the 2015 is a little pricey. It would always be a serviceable back up, as long as everything is backed up.

 

[Nbd1790]

I have nearly the same machine, but with 1TB. About a year or so ago it started rebooting with kernel panics. Increasingly so. I used it over the summer, and made sure I was backed up daily. Toward the end of August I ran Apple's hardware diagnostics, and it passed everything. It died completely a few days later. I took it into the Apple Store, and it passed all of their diagnostics. Of course the tech just sent it off to the depot. It came back with a new logic board, SSD, and top case. $650 and a 90-day warranty. (The tech explained that $650 is the maximum charge to repair anything in this situation.) It's worked like a champ ever since.

But let me get this right - you're panicking, not the laptop, right? The MBP is working fine? If so, I would recommend getting the Air - I think the 2015 is a little pricey. It would always be a serviceable back up, as long as everything is backed up.

Hey - thanks for your insight. Yeah the computer itself is working fine. I just use it frequently (plugged into a home studio setup for a few hours a day and then on a majority of the night when deejaying) - after 5 years, I just started to wonder when it might run into some issues.

Think I'm going with an Air I found for $900 with Applecare until 2020. Thanks again