Last year I upgraded a 2011 and 2010 MBP to a new MB and MBP. The older laptops I had already maxed out RAM and replaced them with SSDs. The new laptops were worth the upgrade for boot time, wake from sleep, weight, and battery life. However, every criticism about the new laptops are true--even if you throw money at dongles, cables, and wireless replacements. What's ridiculous is I bought an Apple usb-c to hdmi cable and it has very large amounts of signal issues on both the MB and MBP. Thankfully a third-party usb-c to displayport doesn't have those issues. Lastly, since the RAM and HDD aren't upgradable I had to pay higher prices upfront instead of upgrading after the fact like I've been doing for over a decade. Unfortunately, this was also true when looking at similar Linux/PC laptops.
I think if I had a 2012 model I would have been able to wait longer for new laptops. Currently, I'm very likely dumping the MBP as soon as new ones come out with a better keyboard.
When I did my shopping last year I was prepared to get a Linux laptop if things looked comparable and the price was significantly cheaper (assuming the risk of unknown problems like battery or hardware longevity) and the prices were roughly the same with other compromises I wasn't prepared to make.
Re:On the Sad State of Macintosh Hardware
by skunkworker on Friday June 15, 2018 @03:14AM
(#17318043)
2011s are a great machine. But as of the next MacOS release 10.14 they are no longer supported, as 10.14 will enforce Metal and those pre 2012s don't have the right gpus for it. I recently picked up a lightly used 2015 because the current touch bar ones continue to have problems.
I'm on Linux though, so given recent fails and the general trend towards non-repairability and non-upgradeability, there's very little incentive for me to consider Apple hardware when I eventually upgrade.