The only thing about such old MacBooks is how unreasonably expensive they are where I am. A ThinkPad is almost always the way to go. Awesome video as always!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed! It is quite region dependant. Even here, I've noticed 16" Macbook Pro 2019's going for around £300. The Intel market has collapsed.
I just refurbed a 2015 with 16 GB of memory and brought it up to Sequoia operating system. Very pleased with how it's working and gifted it to my sister
@underratedradio-u5t it was the result of a project where the client didn't want it back so I actually don't have a price. On swappa they are around 250 to $300
Go for it! Always good to go out of your comfort zone. I'll be honest I don't really use MacOS so kinda had to do a bit of learning off camera haha. Thanks for watching 😄
Nice deal! I got mine for $64... you beat me. These are still great laptops and I love mine. Great laptop and also the same weight as the 14 inch macbook pro.
Battery in this mac begins its the evolution into spicy pillow form. I've had dozens of these Macs in my hands and I can see it with my naked eye. One caught fire in my hands - I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
I still have and use my 2015 15" with AMD graphics regularly. I purchased a 16" M1 Pro as my main as a replacement in 2021, but the 2015 is still used as a kind of family/second computer. It's screen is still fantastic, build quality excellent, keyboard and trackpad better than any Windows laptop made since (which is quite funny) - battery is fine, I replaced it with an iFixit one back in 2021 and it can get a good 5-6 hours of use. Speakers are okay but not amazing. The trick is to turn off the Intel Iris Pro graphics, once the auto switching is off, the AMD GPU is used 100% of the time, resulting in a smooth 60fps all of the time, and no choppiness. I'd also advise replacing the thermal paste for the CPU and GPU as this helps a lot with cooling (factory paste was bad) - new battery every 3/4 years and it'll just keep working. Best and most resilient laptop I've ever had. I've had multiple other "high end" windows laptops and they've all lasted 2 years tops, this 2015 MacBook Pro will outlive me
Thanks for the insight, yes I agree the 2015 MacBook Pros are certainly up there. The trackpad is especially good, force touch on a near 10 year old device is crazy. Might hold onto this one for a while, I don't really use Macs but this might convince me to.
Watching this on my 2015 13' macbook pro with i5 512gb ssd which i bought in october of 2018(slighlty used). Didnt buy the latest ones at that time due to butterfly mechanism keyboard issues. Still working great (average battery life now & speakers with rattling sound). Used it for 4 years of my bachelors degree and still use it for coding etc.
I have one but it's been in storage for about a year, since it had a battery swell issue that apple said had already been serviced or that it didn't qualify for free replacement under that defect program. I got a really great deal on a 2018 2.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 16gb ram and the better graphics. I think it was top of the line when new, and I got it for a price that was giving me a better computer, with UsbC faster everthing and OS upgradability, better video resolution. I forget the price apple told me they would give me to change the battery, I already got a replacement non-warped bottom panel to swap out as well if/when I decide to take apple up on the offer. If I did decide to do it, I'll probably turn it into a Linux or unix machine, who knows. But I'm already considering a macmini m4 and semi-retiring this 2018 and only relegate it for use on travel/trips, but with how easy it is to hook a computer up to a television these days, I probably would just take the mac mini on trips if hotel stays are involved, but all that said, I could get a long just fine for a few days with my iPhone 15pro max. It's crazy how fast tech is excellerating these days, I just with apple went more back to the DIY aspect of upgrading or swapping out components as needed based on your use-case. I won't be surprised if apple just goes to a lease-only model of macbooks, with the lower price of icloud storage, one could just wipe your old unit, turn it in, get your new one, log in and restore in no time from a fast internet connection. I don't really want that, but it totally would be feasble for them. Thanks for posting your vid! btw, hopefully you'll do some tests running various other OS's.
The best repurposing I've seen for these era MB Pros are as streaming music players for Apple Music. Even the slowest i5 chips are more than powerful enough to drive the Apple Music program, even the Intel graphics are sufficient to display album art graphics, and the wifi chips have no problem with up to the 24/192 HiRes files that Apple Music serves. Even the old HDD drives are fast enough to serve up tracks from the Apple Music local library. (Find an old Thunderbolt 2.0 external hard drive on Ebay, and storage is limitless) The internal DAC is OK for casual listening via consumer grade wired or Bluetooth headphones. But the music really comes alive when paired with a DAC which will accept an optical input and balanced output (e.g., Schiit Modius), as this era MB Pro is the last to offer a TOSLINK optical output built into the headphone jack. Paired with an even a moderately priced upscale headphone amp accepting balanced input (e.g., Schiit Midgard) and moderately upscale headphones (e.g. Meze 109 Pro, Sennheiser 6XX, YMMV) and balanced cables, one has a killer system. arguably as "good" as systems costing multi thousands of dollars. While optimized for Apple Music, other streaming service software (Tidal, Amazon Music, etc) will also work.
Apple lost its marbles when Tim Cock got too confident around 2013-14s. Windows laptops (IN THE SAME PRICE RANGE) caught up in build quality and began to offer more features like OLED, 4K Display, touch, and varied form factors.
Eh, benchmarks might've been low which makes sense as it's nearly a decade old but actually using it wasn't bad at all. I could do everything I need to do, even worked well with some video editing.
This MacBook suffers from soldered memory. So it is unlikely to have a decent spec. 16 was the top of the line, 8 is going to be painful to use, 4 is probably not worth it. The 2012 models with optical drives are slightly less powerful and don’t have Retina displays, but pretty much all consumer items can be replaced. You can even remove the optical drive and have a second SSD.
Most Macs still run 8GB, I encountered no issues with memory during my testing. Though I agree 16GB would've been nice. I'll have a look at covering the 2012 MBP. They were definitely on top for quite a while.
@ they can, but 8gb with newer MacOS is very painful. OCLP might allow it to be installed, but the experience is a sad face. Give the same hardware 16gb and is is usable.
yes i still have my 2011 MBP 13 inch fully upgraded SSD, RAM and still runs fine on the original battery. i will never sell this machine. I did recently upgrade to the 14inch M4 MBP as my new daily driver
The only thing about such old MacBooks is how unreasonably expensive they are where I am. A ThinkPad is almost always the way to go.
Awesome video as always!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed! It is quite region dependant. Even here, I've noticed 16" Macbook Pro 2019's going for around £300. The Intel market has collapsed.
Same here, people still ask for 400-509 euros
I just refurbed a 2015 with 16 GB of memory and brought it up to Sequoia operating system. Very pleased with how it's working and gifted it to my sister
how much did it cost?
@underratedradio-u5t it was the result of a project where the client didn't want it back so I actually don't have a price. On swappa they are around 250 to $300
Nice Video once again!!! Im a old timer Thinkpad Fanboy,thinking of getting a old intel mac to use with Linux!! Greetings from Cape Town
Go for it! Always good to go out of your comfort zone. I'll be honest I don't really use MacOS so kinda had to do a bit of learning off camera haha. Thanks for watching 😄
watching this on my 13 inch i got two years ago for $100, still runs great with ubuntu, love the display.
The display is awesome!
Nice deal! I got mine for $64... you beat me.
These are still great laptops and I love mine. Great laptop and also the same weight as the 14 inch macbook pro.
I agree, this generation of MB Pros were undefeated. Surprisingly still usable.
Battery in this mac begins its the evolution into spicy pillow form. I've had dozens of these Macs in my hands and I can see it with my naked eye. One caught fire in my hands - I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
I still have and use my 2015 15" with AMD graphics regularly. I purchased a 16" M1 Pro as my main as a replacement in 2021, but the 2015 is still used as a kind of family/second computer. It's screen is still fantastic, build quality excellent, keyboard and trackpad better than any Windows laptop made since (which is quite funny) - battery is fine, I replaced it with an iFixit one back in 2021 and it can get a good 5-6 hours of use. Speakers are okay but not amazing. The trick is to turn off the Intel Iris Pro graphics, once the auto switching is off, the AMD GPU is used 100% of the time, resulting in a smooth 60fps all of the time, and no choppiness.
I'd also advise replacing the thermal paste for the CPU and GPU as this helps a lot with cooling (factory paste was bad) - new battery every 3/4 years and it'll just keep working. Best and most resilient laptop I've ever had. I've had multiple other "high end" windows laptops and they've all lasted 2 years tops, this 2015 MacBook Pro will outlive me
Thanks for the insight, yes I agree the 2015 MacBook Pros are certainly up there. The trackpad is especially good, force touch on a near 10 year old device is crazy. Might hold onto this one for a while, I don't really use Macs but this might convince me to.
Watching this on my 2015 13' macbook pro with i5 512gb ssd which i bought in october of 2018(slighlty used). Didnt buy the latest ones at that time due to butterfly mechanism keyboard issues. Still working great (average battery life now & speakers with rattling sound). Used it for 4 years of my bachelors degree and still use it for coding etc.
That's incredible, these laptops have definitely aged well. I wouldn't mind using it at all.. 😄
If the battery hasn't been replaced, then it could be 🔥spicy🔥
I have one but it's been in storage for about a year, since it had a battery swell issue that apple said had already been serviced or that it didn't qualify for free replacement under that defect program. I got a really great deal on a 2018 2.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 16gb ram and the better graphics. I think it was top of the line when new, and I got it for a price that was giving me a better computer, with UsbC faster everthing and OS upgradability, better video resolution. I forget the price apple told me they would give me to change the battery, I already got a replacement non-warped bottom panel to swap out as well if/when I decide to take apple up on the offer. If I did decide to do it, I'll probably turn it into a Linux or unix machine, who knows. But I'm already considering a macmini m4 and semi-retiring this 2018 and only relegate it for use on travel/trips, but with how easy it is to hook a computer up to a television these days, I probably would just take the mac mini on trips if hotel stays are involved, but all that said, I could get a long just fine for a few days with my iPhone 15pro max. It's crazy how fast tech is excellerating these days, I just with apple went more back to the DIY aspect of upgrading or swapping out components as needed based on your use-case. I won't be surprised if apple just goes to a lease-only model of macbooks, with the lower price of icloud storage, one could just wipe your old unit, turn it in, get your new one, log in and restore in no time from a fast internet connection. I don't really want that, but it totally would be feasble for them. Thanks for posting your vid! btw, hopefully you'll do some tests running various other OS's.
I learned yesterday that the mid 2014 variant can play Dofus Unity at low I was SHOCKED
Hahaha that's crazy. Maybe I should've played a few extra titles.
The best repurposing I've seen for these era MB Pros are as streaming music players for Apple Music. Even the slowest i5 chips are more than powerful enough to drive the Apple Music program, even the Intel graphics are sufficient to display album art graphics, and the wifi chips have no problem with up to the 24/192 HiRes files that Apple Music serves. Even the old HDD drives are fast enough to serve up tracks from the Apple Music local library. (Find an old Thunderbolt 2.0 external hard drive on Ebay, and storage is limitless) The internal DAC is OK for casual listening via consumer grade wired or Bluetooth headphones. But the music really comes alive when paired with a DAC which will accept an optical input and balanced output (e.g., Schiit Modius), as this era MB Pro is the last to offer a TOSLINK optical output built into the headphone jack. Paired with an even a moderately priced upscale headphone amp accepting balanced input (e.g., Schiit Midgard) and moderately upscale headphones (e.g. Meze 109 Pro, Sennheiser 6XX, YMMV) and balanced cables, one has a killer system. arguably as "good" as systems costing multi thousands of dollars. While optimized for Apple Music, other streaming service software (Tidal, Amazon Music, etc) will also work.
Thanks for the information, that's very interesting 👍
I need to get a macbook to get linux on it
Best of both worlds eh?
This was also my first thought
That's an odd way to spell "ThinkPad" 😜
just use asahi
No Windows 10 or 11
Apple lost its marbles when Tim Cock got too confident around 2013-14s. Windows laptops (IN THE SAME PRICE RANGE) caught up in build quality and began to offer more features like OLED, 4K Display, touch, and varied form factors.
Use open core lagcy patcher for newer versions of Mac OS
I did, watch around the 9 min mark 👍
@ that cool I did it on my 2015 MacBook Air it been great especially with that 8gb of ram
I still hate myself for buying one in 2020 for 600 quid
Ah I remember those days, since M1 the intel Macs have plummeted in value. It's worse if you bought a new intel macbook before M1.
Those benchmarks aren’t good, they’re terrible. The latest Apple Silicon is like another universe from this
Eh, benchmarks might've been low which makes sense as it's nearly a decade old but actually using it wasn't bad at all. I could do everything I need to do, even worked well with some video editing.
tbh if u insist in having a macbook this is perfect
Yep, if you can find one for the right price. The 15 inch ones are even better!
This guy maybe obsolete but being able to run any Linux on it, is maybe the good point 😅
This MacBook suffers from soldered memory. So it is unlikely to have a decent spec. 16 was the top of the line, 8 is going to be painful to use, 4 is probably not worth it.
The 2012 models with optical drives are slightly less powerful and don’t have Retina displays, but pretty much all consumer items can be replaced. You can even remove the optical drive and have a second SSD.
Most Macs still run 8GB, I encountered no issues with memory during my testing. Though I agree 16GB would've been nice. I'll have a look at covering the 2012 MBP. They were definitely on top for quite a while.
@ they can, but 8gb with newer MacOS is very painful. OCLP might allow it to be installed, but the experience is a sad face. Give the same hardware 16gb and is is usable.
yes i still have my 2011 MBP 13 inch fully upgraded SSD, RAM and still runs fine on the original battery. i will never sell this machine. I did recently upgrade to the 14inch M4 MBP as my new daily driver
christmas giveaway?
No, this mbp 2015 retina 13 inch is not worth it anymore. Better safe up and get the mb air m1
I beg to differ. If you can find one under $100 it's still a solid laptop.
😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
Haaashim