Potential MacBook Pro owner

jamez2013

jamez2013

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Looking at second hand MacBooks as budgets are very limited, and there seems to be a lot of good condition core 2 duo ones around how would these fair compared to the i5 versions, I'm just looking to run Lightroom photoshop (creative cloud versions) etc, my current windows laptop is. Samsung i3 ultra book and I find this pretty tiresome and slow, so how would they compare? Logically I'm saying pay the extra and wait for a good i5 but another frivolous part of me is saying the core2duo will be fine, thought please
 
Whilst the processor will help, I didn't experience the biggest gain going from my core2duo MBP to my i7 MBA in the processor. The biggest gain by far was the SSD that is build in. That will transform the experience. Sure when you crunch big effects, rip CDs, transform movies you notice the difference but with photos it is not that obvious. Storage is.
 
An old one will do and the HD is easy enough to replace with an SSD

The newer i5s have better battery life.
 
Cheers thanks for he info, so getting a core 2 duo and putting a ssd should be more than fine, what's the max ram you can put in?
 
I added a Samsung SSD and upgraded the RAM to 8GB a while back, for my Macbook Pro 13" Core 2 Duo and it gave it a new lease of life.
I'm someone who uses it heavily for image editing and a lot of quite intense software development, no problems at all.
You can get some pretty impressive deals on these older Macbooks now, good bang for your pound.
 
Chr!s said:
I added a Samsung SSD and upgraded the RAM to 8GB a while back, for my Macbook Pro 13" Core 2 Duo and it gave it a new lease of life.
I'm someone who uses it heavily for image editing and a lot of quite intense software development, no problems at all.
You can get some pretty impressive deals on these older Macbooks now, good bang for your pound.
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Cheers that's pretty much what I wanted to do, made an offer on one on eBay fingers crossed :) I did have a lovely Lenovo x201, till it fried itself :( but I decided going to try a Mac this time
 
I agree that SSDs and RAM help revive legacy machines. That said, the core 2 duos spanned machines with 32bit and 64 bit firmware. Along with hyperthreading, this means that some can run the latest OS but the older ones are stuck at OS 10.7 Lion. I think the oldest ones not yet consigned to OS history are:
15/17 inch: late 2007
13 inch: late 2008/early 2009.

Do double check on a website like everymac.com

IIRC the current Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom bundle requires OS 10.9 Mavericks so you won't want to get stuck with a machine that maxes out on 10.7 Lion.

Other photo software like CaptureOne needs 10.9 minimum.

The joys of planned obsolescence

Personally I'd try to stretch to an i3/i5/i7 if you can, more to keep the machine viable for longer and not OS/software limited to older versions.
 
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I have a late 2008 Unibody Macbook with 2GHz core 2 duo, upgraded with SSD and 8GB RAM. It's fine for stuff with a low load, but processing images in lightroom wasn't great, and use of the brush tool was difficult, rapidly becoming worse with every additional brush stroke. It's usable, but far from ideal.

Later versions - hopefully with better architecture - might fair better, but I'd avoid personally.
 
The Core 2 machines will be slow with modern camera files due to their size. OK for use as a field computer to download edit, rename etc but I wouldn't use them for serious editing . ( I know I have a core 2 machine )

Also be aware that with age all batteries deteriorate so be aware that battery life may be imparied.

If you can afford it go for an i5 quad core machine
 
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Chappers said:
The Core 2 machines will be slow with modern camera files due to their size. OK for use as a field computer to download edit, rename etc but I wouldn't use them for serious editing . ( I know I have a core 2 machine )

Also be aware that with age all batteries deteriorate so be aware that battery life may be imparied.

If you can afford it go for an i5 quad core machine
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Hi, thanks for the advise , looks like I'm upping the budget a bit and going for a i5 onwards, narrowly missed a quad core i7, was being a bit tight, but I'm determined to stick to a budget and get the right machine for the budget, awaiting a response for a i5 late 2011 machine for £300
 
get later ones or you might regret. Back in the day C2D MBPs were amazing once maxed out, but those days are gone. 16MP or larger files will take a heavy toll, and full HD playback will be choppy. And I bet you want USB3 connectors too.
 
daugirdas said:
get later ones or you might regret. Back in the day C2D MBPs were amazing once maxed out, but those days are gone. 16MP or larger files will take a heavy toll, and full HD playback will be choppy. And I bet you want USB3 connectors too.
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Yeah I was going to buy this as a main machine, as I'm being evicted by a small person from my study I need to move away from a desk setup hence the reason for. MacBook Pro, fortunately I just won a eBay a late 2012 model (i5) for £411 bit more than I wanted to spend but I'm hoping it will last all that longer, fingers crossed
 
If you want to find out exactly what the maximum RAM for a given MBP (or any other computer from the fruit factory) is, your best bet is to locate the model's listing over on EveryMac, although there's also a dedicated page listing all the capacities for all the "Unibody" MBPs; more or less, it's 8GB before 2011, 16GB thereon.

I'd agree - adding an SSD makes a big difference. I had a mid-2009 C2D MBP, and replaced the optical drive with a 256GB SSD for the OS, applications, and fast media (uncompressed YUV HD video) - even tasks like simple web browsing were significantly, noticeably faster.
 
I had a core 2 duo Mac Mini until yesterday (basically a Macbook with no display internally). With 8GB RAM and an SSD it flew once the OS was loaded, was perfect for basic tasks. However, like others I would recommend against it for photo processing unless you're very patient. Shame as with most office tasks it was fine.

NB: In case you're wondering I managed to kill it somehow faffing with the BIOS trying to get Windows 7 onto it without an optical drive. Doh.

OP: Do you actually need a portable machine as something like the previous generation Mac Mini are well priced, upgradeable and should be well up to the task? You'd certainly bag a bigger bargain that MacBooks.
 
Steelfish said:
I had a core 2 duo Mac Mini until yesterday (basically a Macbook with no display internally). With 8GB RAM and an SSD it flew once the OS was loaded, was perfect for basic tasks. However, like others I would recommend against it for photo processing unless you're very patient. Shame as with most office tasks it was fine.

NB: In case you're wondering I managed to kill it somehow faffing with the BIOS trying to get Windows 7 onto it without an optical drive. Doh.

OP: Do you actually need a portable machine as something like the previous generation Mac Mini are well priced, upgradeable and should be well up to the task? You'd certainly bag a bigger bargain that MacBooks.
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Thank for the advice I have been fortunate enough to get a MacBook Pro i5 (ivy bridge) for £410 even still has over 6months AppleCare with it, and I'm very very pleased certainly powerful enough for Lightroom and light photoshopping, some more RAM down the road would be nice.

I would have stuck with a desktop, but with a small person on the way and a small two bed place I have been evicted from the spare room :( so my work space is now whatever flat surface I can find. But so far I'm very pleased with the MacBook it's a revelation compared to windows.
 
I have a 2010 Macbook pro which has a core 2 duo processor with 4GB Ram and I have replaced the drive with SSD drive.It works very well with light room and other apps.Much faster than before replacing the hard drive
 
While I agree Core 2 Duos are showing thier age, 6 years give or take, my 2009 MBP with SSD and 8GB RAM really holds its own (3 other non-mac laptops have died in that period).
Can't comment on Adobe CC (I haven't bothered trying) but running CS6 is fine, HD playback isn't choppy and it handles 4 VMs and 2 dev envs just fine.
If you've got the budget for an i5 or i7 definately go for it, if not, you won't be dissapointed with a Core 2 Duo at the prices they're going for nowadays.
 
Thanks again to all for their advice, I was fortunate enough to push the budget that little further and get a mid-2012 model i5 (£411 with 6moths AppleCare still) and
In totally smitten with it, bit of a learning curve but nothing to bad, but I am upgrading the RAM 8gb which should sort out some bottle necks then once the price of the SSD's fall a little bit more will be looking in that direction as well.
 
jamez2013 said:
Thanks again to all for their advice, I was fortunate enough to push the budget that little further and get a mid-2012 model i5 (£411 with 6moths AppleCare still) and
In totally smitten with it, bit of a learning curve but nothing to bad, but I am upgrading the RAM 8gb which should sort out some bottle necks then once the price of the SSD's fall a little bit more will be looking in that direction as well.
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May I ask where you bought it from?
 
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