MacBook Pro 2012, still okay?

gad-westy

gad-westy

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Hi all. My wife needs a new laptop for her work. She's been using a chrome book. Nice idea but it's just not working for her.

We have a few apple bits and bobs in the house including an iMac so leaning heavily towards getting an apple laptop but can't justify splurging out on a brand new one right now.

When I got our current iMac I bought an older model and then maxed out the ram and fitted an ssd. It works really nicely and flies along and obviously saved us a chunk of money. So I'm thinking of doing the same again and buying a 2012 i5 13" mpb, and fitting a 500gb ssd and 16gb ram. Looks like it would cost about £5-600 all in.

It'll be used predominantly for ms office stuff, emails, web etc. May also get a little bit of use for photo editing if we're away anywhere.

I assume it should work nicely but would welcome opinions?
 
I have a 2012 MacBook Pro. I upgraded the hard drive to 1tb a couple of years ago and it has 16gb ram. I use it for everyday and store and edit all my photos on it. Just installed IOS Sierra and it still flies along
Most of the later MacBooks come with no DVD drive, for me, it's an essential.
Buy one, I don't think you will be disappointed.
 
Well in many respects the MacBook Pro will be complete overkill for web, email and office apps and will happily edit pics too.

Just be aware that the i5 is a dual core weaker processor, it won't even come close to a 'proper' desktop based i3 processor, Let alone an i5.

If you want to spend £500-600 then there are better options than a soon to be 5 years old mbp.
 
neil_g said:
Office on Mac is poor. Lacks features compared to win version.
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And compatibility STILL isn't 100%

If you wanted a Mac I would look at one of the new 12" MacBooks, you should be able to get a 2015 version for around £600 (or you could be for the price hikes) and it will do everything you want and has a very fast SSD already.

Alternatively I would probably look at something new and Windows as a lot has changed in the world of laptops in 5 years and some premium features have become mainstream (backlit keyboard for example).
 
Thanks folks. Much to ponder. I hadn't considered the differences between office on windows and the mac. My wife uses office on the imac sometimes so I assume it's fine for her needs but need to do some homework on that.

Will take a look at 12" macbooks but the generally small SSD's and lack of ram is off-putting.

And seems I need to refresh my knowledge of what PC laptops are like these days. Any particular brands stand out in terms of offering the same kind of general quality?
 
gad-westy said:
Thanks folks. Much to ponder. I hadn't considered the differences between office on windows and the mac. My wife uses office on the imac sometimes so I assume it's fine for her needs but need to do some homework on that.

Will take a look at 12" macbooks but the generally small SSD's and lack of ram is off-putting.

And seems I need to refresh my knowledge of what PC laptops are like these days. Any particular brands stand out in terms of offering the same kind of general quality?
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Mine has 512gb HD and 8 gig of RAM which is enough for having a few massive TIF files open in Photoshop and LR running at the same time, not sure a casual user would need any more?

Anyway, the Dell XPS is generally considered the best laptop around at the moment, you might be able to get a 2015 model for your budget, that will be super powerful. Or, I've just come across the Asus Zenbook which is basically a Macbook in windows form and about 30% of the price.
 
Nawty said:
Mine has 512gb HD and 8 gig of RAM which is enough for having a few massive TIF files open in Photoshop and LR running at the same time, not sure a casual user would need any more?

Anyway, the Dell XPS is generally considered the best laptop around at the moment, you might be able to get a 2015 model for your budget, that will be super powerful. Or, I've just come across the Asus Zenbook which is basically a Macbook in windows form and about 30% of the price.
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Thanks Ned. I'll do some homework!
 
The mid 2010 Macbook Pro I am typing on right now is still going strong! Updated to an SSD drive and 8gb of RAM, bought it a new lease of life.
 
Stu Meech said:
The mid 2010 Macbook Pro I am typing on right now is still going strong! Updated to an SSD drive and 8gb of RAM, bought it a new lease of life.
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Good to hear. My wife fancies a mac as she is used to using them. I think it's a few years since she's used a windows machine and she's recently being jumping between chrome book and imac. I like the integration we get with having apple stuff. Or at least I like that it all integrates without me really having to do anything. The 2012 model appeals because I think it's the last year before they got much harder to upgrade but I could be wrong. It is a little hard to take spending so much on a 3-4 year old machine though!
 
There's a 256GB 2015 MBP on AVF for £650 at the moment which is a very good price considering the recent price hikes, quite tempted myself...

New seller though so you'd want to pick it up from him.
 
You'll be fine just remember its heavy as hell. Any MacBook Air from the last few years will also suit your needs. I tend to use an air about 80% of the time and a 2012 pro only when I need to process lots of images.
 
Nawty said:
There's a 256GB 2015 MBP on AVF for £650 at the moment which is a very good price considering the recent price hikes, quite tempted myself...

New seller though so you'd want to pick it up from him.
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Thanks Ned. I'll take a look.
 
tictoc said:
You'll be fine just remember its heavy as hell. Any MacBook Air from the last few years will also suit your needs. I tend to use an air about 80% of the time and a 2012 pro only when I need to process lots of images.
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Slightly concerned about storage space with those. It's not necessarily a disaster or anything as I know you can get them with larger drives but most seem to be 128 or under. What are they like to type on? I wondered if they might be a bit fiddly for serious work.
 
My only problem with the Air is the screen which is horribly low res by modern standards, photo editing was a major chore on my old one.

The other thing about the newer MBPs is that although you can't upgrade them they are already powerful enough for anything but serious video work so you don't really need to upgrade them but they also have the Retina screen which is very nice and difficult to beat.
 
Nawty said:
My only problem with the Air is the screen which is horribly low res by modern standards, photo editing was a major chore on my old one.

The other thing about the newer MBPs is that although you can't upgrade them they are already powerful enough for anything but serious video work so you don't really need to upgrade them but they also have the Retina screen which is very nice and difficult to beat.
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Yep the retina ones are really nice but seem pretty pricy.
 
Agree with you both above. Screen is a slight let down and storage is a compromise but it's plenty fast and light. I was comparing a 15" pro to an 11" air. Is a 2012 13" pro retina?
Another slightly off topic thingy is an app called Duet, let's you use an iPad or iPhone as a second screen, that with the tiny air made editing and colour checking more straight forward thought not ideal.
 
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gad-westy said:
Good to hear. My wife fancies a mac as she is used to using them. I think it's a few years since she's used a windows machine and she's recently being jumping between chrome book and imac. I like the integration we get with having apple stuff. Or at least I like that it all integrates without me really having to do anything. The 2012 model appeals because I think it's the last year before they got much harder to upgrade but I could be wrong. It is a little hard to take spending so much on a 3-4 year old machine though!
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Good luck with whatever you choose. For the record, my mid 2010 model is the only Mac I own and use it every day. And more than keeps up with what I need to do (the hardest it works is with 24mpx RAWs).
 
I have a mid-2012 macbook pro (non-retina). I maxed out the ram to 16Gb myself and fitted a 1Tb SSD. Fine for editing too.

Some MacBooks have soldered RAM so you can't upgrade.

I like having the Superdrive built in as I often use it to burn photo DVDs.
 
I have a 2012 Macbook Pro and it works nicely, but the Adobe Pack, Office and a few other things slows it down quite a bit. It works very nicely if you don't use the most CPU eating stuff at the same time. I'm going to change to an SSD disk soon and hope it will help. For simpler things it's a very good computer and will probably work for many years yet.
 
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