Would you buy a late 2008 aluminium unibody?

Do NOT EVER get a 3rd party battery. If you do, then you deserve any problems that arise from it. It is not worth the marginal cost savings from getting an OEM apple one from the genius bar.

Definitely swap out the crap HDD with a new SSD. Take out the optical drive (discs are obsolete) and replace it with a 2nd SSD, or leave the bay empty and get 40 mins extra battery life.

The ram is probably maxed at 8GB already. The graphics is a 9400m, which won't play any games but is fine for general use.

 

Still a good MacBook if the price is right. I've got one in full time use. Installed an SSD and new battery (OWC and Anker are third party ones I'd trust with a solid warranty and exchange process) in 2013 and its been going strong since I bought it in October 2008. The 2.0 GHz model doesn't have the backlit keyboard the 2.4 GHz model does, but that's a minor point.

Paired with an SSD and the 8GB of RAM is has it should run ElCapitan just fine along with the latest apps like Office 2016.

 

This series holds up well. I have one with a few modifications (ssd, ram) it's suitable for running the latest software.

 

Still using mine as my only laptop. Upgraded to SSD and 8gbram. Orginial battery shot it self in 2012, using a 3rd party chinese battery since then still giving me 2.5 hrs charge for web browsing, documents when out and about. (<1hr using lightroom)

-Photoshop, Lightroom work great.
-Adobe Premiere runs like a champ edinting 1080p videos that are no more than 15min long. Exporting will take a few hours, so leave that over night or while I'm at work.

-Windows under Fusion runs fine, I dedicate 1 core, 3gb ram to it when I need to do tasks for work.


I would like to upgrade to the macbook 12inch but lacking to many ports. I'm looking at a surfacepro 4.

 

I wouldn't buy anything with a Penryn generation or older CPU in it, no matter what kind of deal I could get.

Get something with a CPU that was selling in 2010 or later. That means no MacBook. I'd look for a 13" MacBook Pro or Air, 2011 or newer.

 

agreed...

 

For simple tasks, these unibody MacBooks will be fine. I'd get an SSD to help improve responsiveness.

After market batterie can work fine. I have one that I got for $25 from eBay and it has bee working fine for about a year.

Keep in mind it's a pretty old computer and do not pay too much for it.