Who's Got Oldest Daily Use Macbook

[nanosour]

Just curious to see how many people are still using older macbooks as their daily user. I'm still using a 2007 White Macbook purchased in Jan '08. I use if for web surfing and email about 3 hours per day. Still works great, but the fan runs pretty much all the time once some java script or video runs on a web page.

My Specs:

2GHz Intel Core 2 Dou
3GB DDR2 Ram
80 GB HDD
OS 10.7.5

I don't keep anything of value on this computer as I know its browser is not up to date with the latest security patches. Also, only 21Gb of the 80Gb available are used on the HD which helps in keeping it running smoothly.

I'm tempted to get a new one, but this thing just keeps on ticking.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Wow, I couldn’t use one of those one button MacBooks daily. I hate the trackpad and they’re stuck on Lion. Credit to you.

My Mum still uses her 2009 C2D Unibody MacBook. SSD, 8GB RAM, and it’s still perfectly usable. Certainly still has a better trackpad than anything on a Windows laptop.

 

[EugW]

We still occasionally use our 2008 white MacBook, but since it's limited to 10.7.5, I've given up on Mac OS X for it. It's actually running Chrome OS now. This machine has 4 GB and HD. (I had an SSD in it for a while, but Chrome doesn't need an SSD, so I'm using it in another Mac.)

However, we have a 2008 aluminum MacBook in daily use, running 10.13.3 High Sierra. Also a 2009 aluminum MacBook Pro also with 10.13.3 High Sierra. Both machines with 8 GB and SSD.

 

[nanosour]

I'd be interested to know how you installed Chrome OS on the macbook. I tried to install Win7 last month and couldn't since this macbook won't recognize a bootable USB stick and the DVD drive isn't working anymore.

 

[EugW]

I'd be interested to know how you installed Chrome OS on the macbook. I tried to install Win7 last month and couldn't since this macbook won't recognize a bootable USB stick and the DVD drive isn't working anymore.

Try a different USB stick. Not all will work with all Macs for boot, even if they do otherwise.

Here is the version of Chrome I installed on my white MacBook4,1.

https://www.neverware.com/freedownload

Since I have Windows machines already, I used the Windows-based USB installer creator (which is 64-bit). Once the USB drive was created, I used it to boot the Mac, and installed CloudReady Chrome OS from the drive. It didn't take very long at all.

 

[nanosour]

Thanks. I just did it and it worked. The chrome browser definitely works much better than the latest safari browser on 10.7.5. Still not sure I'll keep it as I like having icloud information (iCal, Mail, etc) available on the macbook. I'll give it a trial period.

 

[Project Alice]

I've got a 2008 4,1 black macbook that I converted to a 2009 5,2 and installed high sierra on it. 2.13ghz, 500gb SSHD. It runs very well for a daily driver. with the exception of high sierra choosing not to boot today, it has ran extremely well. I'm currently trying to figure out why it did that. Probably another HS bug. Windows 10 is also installed on it. I couldn't use the 4,1 as a daily driver anymore, being stuck at 10.8.5 was not gonna cut it. and the x3100 is terrible.

 

[elf69]

Daily home machine is 2007 iMac.

my daily work machine was a 2009 then 2010 unibody MacBook with high Sierra.
sold the 2009 and the 2010 logic board failed.
Was also using a 2007 17" MacBook Pro with El Capitan, but that too died.

current daily is 2012 MacBook Air but it bit too small, both screen (11.6") and SSD (64GB)

I do have a 2007 MacBook but 10.7 is too old for daily use as a lot my apps will not work on it.

 

[Macdctr]

For those who are using their 2007/08 MacBooks I think that's great! Nice to see these computers being used

I still have my 2008 Black 2.4GHz/6GB MaBook I take out from time to time. I recently installed a 500GB 7200rpm HDD and did a fresh install of Snow Leopard before putting it away. My Black MacBook has been replaced as a daily by a 2013 MBA 1.7GHz i7/8GB/256GB SSD I recently acquired from eBay for cheap.

I still love my Black MacBook... great laptops.

 

[rampancy]

For a while, I've used a 2006 2.0 Ghz Core Duo MacBook as a retro gaming machine alongside my slightly more modern 2013 11" MacBook Air. It's actually remarkable how much you can do with a machine specced so low, and I still use it to play games like Spiderweb Software's RPGs, as well as open-source ports of games like Descent.

I eventually moved up to the mighty Late-2008 2.4 Ghz MacBook, and I've recently moved up again to a rarer Mid-2009 2.13 Ghz MacBook that I upgraded with an Samsung 850 EVO and a stock optical drive-HDD caddy.

While I think the A1181 MacBooks were one of Apple's worst laptop lines due to their over-reliance on obsolescent integrated graphics and hobbled memory buses, at the same time I absolutely adore them for being the most open and user-accessible Macs I've ever worked with. And graphics aside, with an SSD and the RAM maxed out, they're wonderful machines to use. I'm actually mulling over going back to my Core Duo MacBook and replacing the Airport Card with a Broadcom Crystal HD card, just for kicks.
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Thanks. I just did it and it worked. The chrome browser definitely works much better than the latest safari browser on 10.7.5. Still not sure I'll keep it as I like having icloud information (iCal, Mail, etc) available on the macbook. I'll give it a trial period.

If you want modern browser for use with your older MacBook I also want to recommend Waterfox, which, while 64-bit only, will run happily on 10.7.5.

 

[Mockletoy]

I still have an old C2D MacBook Pro from 2007 or 2008, one of the ones with the faulty nVidia 8600m GPU solder. I took the motherboard out years ago and used a heat gun to melt the solder and, fortunately, didn't fry anything in the process. I don't use it often, but every now and then I'll fire it up and it's always ready and willing, if not exactly as able as it once was.

 

[Yojx21]

My daily machine (i use it as main computer) have the fellowing specs:

MacBook Pro 17' Early 2008
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz T9300
60 Gb SSD
6 Gb DDR2 Ram
macOS High Sierra
Upgraded AirPort card to work with High Sierra

It run just well ! I love that 17' screen !
Very nice machine !

 

[east85]

I had been using the first Aluminum Unibody MacBook 5,1 (MB467LL/A Core2Duo 2.4GHz, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M) from 2008 until the keyboard gave out on me recently. I took good care of it though, replacing the clutch cover, battery, fan, rubber feet, adding 8gb of ram and deleting the optical drive in favor of two SSDs. Of course this happened over the course of many years.

I absolutely am attached to my MacBook so I kept telling myself I would go ahead and fix the keyboard for the last few weeks. I spent a lot of time hunting around on eBay for the best deal I could find on a new Keyboard or Topcase w/Trackpad but ended up getting distracted. As a result I scored an almost brand new (extremely low use) MacBook 5,1 on eBay for $200 with the paper still between the screen and the keyboard, if you watch any unboxing videos you'll know what I'm talking about. The battery only has a few cycles. There's also zero wear on any part of it including the keys (no polish), ports (no marring or worn pins) and feet. No cracks in the clutch cover whatsoever. It literally looks like it has never really been properly used and that's what I am hoping for. I feel ridiculously excited about it, even though we're talking about a laptop from 2008.

As long as everything checks out upon inspection I plan to move over my RAM, Optibay & SSDs into the new arrival. I still plan on doing the keyboard repair on my original 5,1. These machines really do keep going just fine with a few hardware upgrades and care (keep in mind that I am a heavy user, it's a wonder the keyboard lasted as long as it did). I know for another $200 I could easily get into an equally upgradeable and much more powerful MD102LL/A but the thing is I never found myself wanting to upgrade because my MacBook couldn't do what I needed it to do anymore from a performance standpoint, so I haven't.

I think in the near future I am going to try to find a good deal on an LED Cinema Display (MC007LL/A, 27")
to pair with it.

 

[617660]

Most of the repliers don't use these ancient machines on a daily basis anymore so it kind of deviates from what the OP asked for.

2011 MBA. Used 4-5 hours a day. Not just my daily driver but my only machine.

 

[east85]

I plan on using the MacBook 5,1 as my only machine again as soon as everything is swapped over.

Update:

I removed the fan, RAM, 2xSSD & Optibay from the MacBook 5,1 as the new (to me) one just shipped.

I also found a nice 24" Cinema Display (MB382LL/A) in great shape for $199 shipped so that is on the way as well.

 

[Mac_Fag]

I still use a 2007 MacBook Pro 2.4GHZ as a daily driver on Mavericks, it still works great!

 

[rosyapple]

I still use a 2007 MacBook Pro 2.4GHZ as a daily driver on Mavericks, it still works great!

I had a 17-inch 2007 MacBook Pro, which died after 5 years during a 20 (or was it 40?) man raid in World of Warcraft. I burnt the graphics card I think. I did not remember if I used it in clamshell mode. If I didn't burn it, it would probably still be my (semi) daily driver too.

I still miss that laptop. It was heavy, but man, 17 inch, I simply loved it. Designing, coding, visiting website, everything looked great on it.

My current machine is a 2010 MacBook air, and my partner uses a 2009 iMac at home. Both are used as main machines on a daily basis.

 

[elf69]

I got one them 2007 17 inch pros too.

also think the GPU gone!
great machines but I hate the keyboard in it though!

I replaced my 17 inch with a 2010 13 inch macbook which died so now have a 11 inch 2012 air which I do not like that much.

 

[pika2000]

As much as we want to criticize Windows, this is where Windows's backward compatibility shines.
I can install Windows 10 on an eeePC netbook, and it still runs. If I have an unsupported Mac, either I have to stick with the old OS, or go and run Windows on it. Kinda sad since the hardware themselves can be quite good or memorable (eg. the black plastic Macbook).

 

[TheSkywalker77]

I use a 2008 Unibody MacBook.
It still works quite well for being 10 years old. I recently upgraded the ram which helped a ton for multitasking. I also used dosdude1’s tool to upgrade it to High Sierra as well so it’s on the newest OS which is quite nice.

 

[east85]

A poster here actually wrote a nice script that makes YouTube run fine if you've had any hiccups in Safari:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...and-reduce-youtube-cpu-usage-by-2-4x.1997973/

The MacBook 5,1 I received is in immaculate condition & came with the original packaging. The motherboard looks corrosion free and I suspect if it was ever used, it must have been in clamshell mode somewhere because the keys have no polish. These are pretty notorious for cracked clutch covers, none of that here. When I opened it up to swap everything over I was reminded of how annoying it is that apple used lock-tite on all their screws, but at the same time I was glad to see that I'm the first to really do any kind of substantial teardown on the device.

As for Windows the drivers are actually written to use 512MB of VRAM, while OS X limits this model to 256MB so Apple did definitely gimp the drivers (maybe for battery life?). I'm curious for those of you that upgraded to Sierra and beyond if that's still the case (would be listed in Apple menu, about this mac and under Graphics). Also Bootcamp on El Capitan (and previous) will force 32 bit Windows 7. With a little bit of tinkering I forced a 64 bit install when I had a need for Windows.

Overall, along with the Cinema Display the machine has been more than ample for my tasks. Just to be 100% transparent I do have another Mac that has been issued by my employer, but I only use it for work related tasks. For now I'm putting money aside for an upcoming Mac Pro whenever it releases, depending on how open the platform is (in terms of upgradeability) I will bite that bullet for what is hopefully my next 10 year system.

 

[RegularGuy09]

I use a 2008 Unibody MacBook.
It still works quite well for being 10 years old. I recently upgraded the ram which helped a ton for multitasking. I also used dosdude1’s tool to upgrade it to High Sierra as well so it’s on the newest OS which is quite nice.

Nice, so your 2008 MacBook is still usable? It handles web browsing and normal tasks fine? Thats so awesome man.

How's your Mac Mini going?

I still have a 2007 2.7Ghz C2D,2GB RAM, 80GB HDD desktop which I run Linux on. Still handles basic web browsing and word processing smoothly.

 

[TheSkywalker77]

Nice, so your 2008 MacBook is still usable? It handles web browsing and normal tasks fine? Thats so awesome man.

How's your Mac Mini going?

I still have a 2007 2.7Ghz C2D,2GB RAM, 80GB HDD desktop which I run Linux on. Still handles basic web browsing and word processing smoothly.

The Mac Mini I'm talking about in my signature? It's running awfully on High Sierra. With only 2 gigs of RAM it doesn't have much going for it. I mainly use it for beta testing High Sierra.

 

[RegularGuy09]

The Mac Mini I'm talking about in my signature? It's running awfully on High Sierra. With only 2 gigs of RAM it doesn't have much going for it. I mainly use it for beta testing High Sierra.

Yeah. That's understandable. Although I'm sure if you put in a 250GB SSD and 8gigs of RAM, it would breeze through daily activities.

So do you use any other macs , or is the MacBook your daily machine?

 

[EugW]

Nice, so your 2008 MacBook is still usable? It handles web browsing and normal tasks fine? Thats so awesome man.

How's your Mac Mini going?

I still have a 2007 2.7Ghz C2D,2GB RAM, 80GB HDD desktop which I run Linux on. Still handles basic web browsing and word processing smoothly.

My 2.0 GHz 2008 aluminum unibody MacBook5,1 runs decently for web browsing and light Office and email in High Sierra.

The keys things that make it usable:

- It has GeForce 9400M so h.264 video playback is easy.
- I upgraded it to SSD.
- I upgraded it to 8 GB RAM, although 4 GB is usable. (2 GB is unbearable.)
- I installed an ad blocker for my browsers. This decreases CPU load during web browsing.

Note that I only bought the 2008 last year, but I knew it’d be OK since I had already been using a 2009 MacBook Pro with the above upgrades and it worked fine.

Note though, the 2.26 GHz Pro does work a bit better since it seems that extra 13% CPU loaf is enough to smooth things out a little bit. With video playback the 2008 MacBook sometimes has some dropped frames at the launch of a video or when doing other actions but this is reduced on the Pro, despite its having the same GPU. OTOH, if you just let the video play, 720p and 1080p h.264 video play smoothly on both machines.