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by callmemclovin 1340 days ago
Huh, interesting, I always think of the Macbooks from the 2007-2011 era to be the best in terms of hardware regarding the reliability - if you look up the major Macbook recalls and problems, they all begin after that time, for example the dying graphics problems, faulty logic boards, delaminating retina screens, faulty SSDs and so on...
1 comments
urthor 1340 days ago
Oh, I'm speaking from a performance per watt/single threaded perspective. Feature oriented.

If you're buying your laptop for reliability, not quite the same thing.

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72deluxe 1340 days ago
My 2012 MacBook Pro non-retina is still going strong!

Just replaced the battery in it after the original would only charge to 67%, so hopefully I'll get another 10 years out of it.

Now it's running Linux, as of this year.

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SyneRyder 1340 days ago
Still using a mid-2012 MBP as my second machine here too. It's a great machine if you upgrade it to 16GB RAM (which it can take despite Apple's official claims) and an SSD. And unlike modern Macs, those are easy upgrades / repairs that you can do yourself. I actually just bought another mid-2012 MBP on eBay, as a backup in case this one dies, and as a dedicated Linux / elementary OS machine until then.

Also, the mid-2012 has the best trackpad, ever. A proper, satisfying mechanical click when you press it. I just can't use those haptic trackpads Apple put on every laptop from 2015 onwards.

The mid-2012 MBPs have very unreliable SATA flex cables though, so make sure you keep some spare flex-cables on hand. I had six of them replaced by Apple during the 3 year warranty period. (That unreliability is what made me switch back to Windows & use a Thinkpad X1 as my daily driver, but I'm keeping the Mac alive with my own repairs after Apple refused.)

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72deluxe 1340 days ago
I upgraded to 16GB RAM and put a 1TB SATA3 SSD in it too. Never had an issue with the SATA flex cables myself, so I must have been lucky.

The trackpad took some tinkering on Linux but I got it to behave like a Mac with three-finger drag. Didn't need rotate or any other gestures but I had got used to three-finger drag and 2 finger right-click.

It's my daily driver. Amazing to think it started out running Snow Leopard. Great piece of hardware.

Even the CD drive on it has been useful for ripping my entire 1000 CDs of yesteryear and then using sacad and kid3 to apply artwork to the MP3s, then host on Navidrome on a Pi4 at home with Wireguard VPN access so I can stream all my music on my phone using Subsonic whilst out and about. Really happy with the setup and the machine.

Meanwhile my work 2016 Macbook's keyboard is playing up again after it was replaced (£900 worth, replaced free by Apple thanks).... Replacement includes the entire top panel and touchbar (which was defective too) and also a new battery...

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