Yeah I'm using a 2011 on Windows 11 and it's fine too, but Sequoia is pretty slow. Sonoma was significantly better than Sequoia, but still slower than Windows. It seems like MacOS has become way too bloated over the past couple of years.
@@RickUsesComputers LOL, that's very true. Windows itself has been bloated for years as well. I did strip out some things like Onedrive, but it didn't make that much of a difference. Thing is I'm not cool enough to be a Linux user, so I don't have much choice. I use Windows mainly for gaming anyway, and with a 6770M at a 1920x1200 screen you can use all the performance you can get, so I'm not too keen on using translation layers unless I have to.
Amazing machine. I also drove a top spec 2012 15” with hi res display. I was even doing light coding for my engineering master without a problem besides some fan noise due to 90% cpu usage. With a new battery, I could get 4 hours of online work out of it, including light coding and writing an article on the cloud.
I'm still using a late 2012 MacBook Pro as my daily driver. I've replaced and upgraded the hard drive a couple of times over the years (now running an SSD, of course), replaced the battery twice, maxed out the RAM, and it's still just ticking along. One of the best overall investments I've ever made in a computer. It was expensive at the time but I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of it. Goes well with my 2007 Prius, still going strong at 260k.
I still have mine in the closet somewhere. 15" mid 2012, anti glare matte display, SSD, maxed out RAM. I used to use it with a 30" Cinema Display. It was a pretty great setup.
I bough one last week for 20 Euros. with the i7 2,3GHz, 16GB RAM 1,25TB SSD, GT650m 512MB. And with the OpenCore Patcher to MacOS Monetery and i love this thing
I had a 13" 2012 and I loved it. With maxed out CPU spec, 16 GB RAM and a fast SSD, it was a capable little beast up till its logic board failed. I replaced it with a full-fat 2016 15" MBP. After a top case replacement, that keyboard is barely tolerable, although I mostly use my now ancient Magic Keyboard. The 2016 is now stuck on EOL Monterey and, well, I guess my days on Intel are numbered.
So glad to see this video. This is still my daily MacBook. 16 GB Kingston ram, 1 T SSD, upgraded wifi, Open Core running Sequoia 15.0.1 like a dream. I also have the factory Antiglare display. Want snappier? Go to System Settings/Accessibility/Display and turn on Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency. There's all the snap you need, Luke.
i got one 3 months ago and i love it so much it runs fast and cool compared to even newer macs,it's also running sequeia fast and smooth and i use it as my main laptop already changed the battery with a 9000mh one ,16gb of ram dual ssd's ,also planning to change the screen to a high res antiglare one from a 2011 macbook pro i can t believe that is 13 years old almost
Hey, you can actually watch dvd movies on these older MacBooks, that’s why I still love watching dvds on my 2009 MacBook pros plus using a full version of Photoshop 7!
I'd argue the 2015 MacBook Pro was seen as "the best" ever made, at least in terms of the Intel models. Admitedly they were compared against the abortion that was the 2016-2019 models where Jonny Ive was permitted to go nuts with his holy grail of pursuit of thinness at all costs. Apple really went with form over function on that generation...
I just finally upgrade my 2013 15” MBP running OCLP on Sonoma for a 14” M3 MBP. When it comes to light use there’s not a massive difference. The 2013 did get very hot and the M3 is always cool and get waaaayyyy better battery life. The old 2013 machine running Sonoma is still usable and my daughter is using it now to play games on.
I got a MacBook Air 2015 with the Intel 5650U Core i7 2.2 GHz CPU for 120 recently. It beats the MacBookPro in Geekbench single core and almost in multi core tests. RAM is 8 GB but replacing the battery is super easy and also you can upgrade the internal SSD quite easily. It has Thunderbolt 2 with support for an external 4K 3480x2160 display and the read/write speed of the SSD is about 1400 MB/s, It runs Ventura very well, also the newer MacOS versions, but I am awaiting for an SSD update to test. Maybe it would help for the MacBook Pro from 2012 to run Ventura instead of Sequoia?
I'm using one to type this right now. Upgraded the RAM to 16 GB, upgraded the main HDD to 2 TB, used an OWC DataDoubler to replace the SuperDrive with another 2 TB HDD, and I'm golden. Only demerit is that I can't upgrade the OS higher than El Capitan but I can live with that.
I bought my mid 2012 MacBook Pro in the summer of 2102. I quickly upgraded to 16GB and went through several SSD upgrades as well to 1TB. Recently the drive cable failed, which I replaced after running the disk externally for two weeks. Long story short-as much as I’ve loved this computer, I’ll be buying and M4 MacBook Pro on day 1 of availability!
i'm an original owner of a mid-2012 macbook pro. I updated to an ssd when the hard drive failed. I put the hard drive in an Ifixit enclosure for an external drive and reformatted it, works great. I only use the mid-2012 for surfing the internet, works fine for what i ask it to do. While I would like a new macbook pro to try out video editing, i can't afford one. But, for what little i use it for (every couple of days or so), I'm ok with it. I guess the reason i still use it is because i don't like spending a lot of money on something and then setting it aside, "unloved", for something else. But yeah, enjoyed seeing a review on something i actually own.
I bought the white one back in 2010 brand new from apple. I've replaced the HDD with an SSD and replaced the Disc Drive with another SSD. It still works fine and runs as well as any windows laptop of this era. I used to dual boot windows 7 on it as it ran windows better than most of the windows laptops I could afford.
This was my first official Mac computer I bought. Used it for school and still have it. Granted I don’t use it anymore just have it around for nostalgia reasons. But this videos makes me want to pull it back out and set it up for some basic usage.
I have very fond memories of my 2012 15" MBP, and I loved that laptop to bits. It was great for work, it could game, and I maxed out all the upgrades back then. It was sad when I had to sell it after 9 years in service, but my current 14" M1 Pro was that upgrade that finally made me decide it was time.
My 15” MBP (Mid-2007) was still my only Mac until Dec 2021, at which time it was a bit over 14 years old. I had maxed the RAM, and installed an SSD, and it had some delaminating on the display, but it worked perfectly. I still have it, but no longer have a working battery and haven’t used it but a few times since buying an M1 MBA in 2021. I also have a Late 2018 Mac Mini with the I5-8500B CPU, for those occasional times when I want/need to run an Intel based Mac. Picked it up used at the same time I got the MBA. Hard to believe it’s been nearly 3 years since I got those.
Bought a used 13” 2012 a few years back from a company who was retiring old Macbooks. It’s only a 2.5ghz with 512gb hdd and 4gb of ram, but what really surprised me was that it only had a battery cycle count of 73 at the time of purchase. Still have it and it’s still going strong, if a little sluggish.
You know the Mac is good when Luke has made no less than 3 videos in subsequent years on it “is it STILL good?” “How bout now” 😂 Same for the mid-2015 15”, they’re really solid machines. Also, I’m glad you mentioned this at 6:31 as I myself, a Mac fanboy with way too many of them, have definitely noticed this too. But at the same time I’m still super glad it exists and it definitely gives old Macs a new lease on life.
I was using my 2012 (retina) 15 inch mbp until this month when I got a good deal on an M1 mac mini. Honestly with 16gb of ram, an ssd and Sonoma installed it totally worked. The only reason I upgraded was that it started to hit cpu limits when mixing songs with more than 20 tracks and plugins. As a normal laptop it's still totally useable. I did find it ran better on Ventura however
In my opinion, Mid 2012 15" MBP is THE best macbook ever made. I own maxed out model with rare 2.7Ghz upgrade and GT650M with 1GB vram. It still runs like a champ! I recently installed fresh copy of Sequoia using OCPL and after disabling automatic wallpaper it runs flawlessly.
And honestly I wouldn't go for Retinas. You can't add second drive to it, you can't upgrade the ram, battery isn't as easily replaceable, keyboard also. I much prefer this chunky nugget
I still use a 2012 MacBook Pro for work and it still does what I need it to do. I use it for giant spreadsheets and other documents and it works great for those tasks, but it's kind of slow to get it started up. The tech folks upgraded the ram for me so it runs better, but I think if I could have an SSD in it, it would probably run a lot better. I doubt that I can talk the tech folks into swapping that out, though. On the bright side, they pretty much don't care what I do with this old MacBook. Everyone else works on Chromebooks, but the Mac can do airdrop with my personal phone, ipad, and iMac, which helps with some of the things I have to do.
I was loving my 15" 2012 MBP I now found a sufficient replacement for it. The 15" MacBook Air!. This is the first time for years that Apple release a 15" MacBook again and I am loving it....
I think the original Apple Silicon MacBooks from late 2020 will provide that level of lasting usability and value when they’re 12 years old. My 13-inch M1-nothing MacBook Pro feels like it’ll be my main Mac “forever.” Glad I got it with 16GB/1TB. It’s compact and sturdy, no noticeable weakness in battery. I rarely use “f-keys,” so I’ve even learned to appreciate having a Touch Bar (now a discontinued feature).
The other day I tried capturing video off an old 8mm VCR through firewire on my Mac Studio running Sonoma. There is a way to reinstall legacy support for firewire, but then I remembered that my 2012 MacBook Pro running Catalina has a firewire adapter and it imported the video just fine. I've been thinking about buying a new MacBook Pro, but I might hold off now, as in reality the 2012 works fine for what I use it for.
The anti-glare 2011 MacBook Pro 15" was the best Mac laptop to ever exist since the dawn of laptop computers. I really wish we had something like this today.
I still use this laptop in 2024! It’s running patched ventura and I have an anti glare display. It is the one with the i7-3615QM, 12 GB DDR3, and a 512 GB SSD. It’s a great laptop ngl, and I will plan on continuing to use it for as long as I can. I use it for school and do video editing on it sometimes. Best laptop i’ve ever used, and I have many many laptops in my collection, this one just stands out. Tried replacing it with my much newer hp 250 g8 with an 11th gen i7 that i found in e waste, but it was just too crap for me to use. Horrible build quality and the hinges felt like it was about to break. Trackpad wasnt great, keyboard was meh and didnt have backlight. Im back to using my 2012.
Luke is right, I have 2 Mac’s from 2012, a Ma mini and a 13” MacBook Pro, getting long in the tooth, they held up quite well for a long time, it got worse when the file system changed to apfs.
Thank you Luke for going back to your roots. Absolutely. I have the exact same anti-glare 15" MB Pro and love it, still use it. The GOAT and the sun setting on them are two separate things. Yes, they probably are the GOAT. And yes, the sun is setting on them but still perfectly usable and will be for some time. I still use my 2015 15" MB Pro as my daily even though I have a M1 Air.
Yes, It is running 16GB ram at 1867Mhz, and I found pretty good running MacOS Ventura than Sequoia. I am using hi-res Matt screen ver and hope it can last at lease next 2 years.
I bought a 2012 MBP 13" this past spring beacuse I need to keep and run a legacy 32 bit app that controls a universal remote I still have. Swapped in a SSD, maxed out the RAM and replaced the SuperDrive and it's still humming away like a champ. Hell it's faster than my kids much newer Chromebooks for everyday simple tasks ie. browsing, email, etc.
I have a 2012 and a 2015, both have newer SSDs and maxed out ram, and new ifixit batteries. I use the 2015 daily, and my partner just used the 2012 for a coding boot camp without issues
In my experience, some of the 2008 machines had crisper screens with much better color rendition than the 2012 unibody. And the screen was wildly better on the 2012 Retina MacBook, a machine that sadly also crossed the threshold into glued-in batteries, soldered in memory . . . These older machines are still very usable if you had had the foresight to pay Apple to replace the battery right before Apple gave up stocking the parts, however the vast majority of these machines on eBay will have very problematic batteries. I would not suggest that anyone seek them out at this point. It is hard at this point to find replacement batteries for these older machines that aren't fraudulently bad. Further although you can run new software it requires a high level of technical ability that most people don't have.
No way did you just upload this video. On Friday, I’ll go and pick up two of these for 150 bucks. Maybe I’ll even add another one for spare parts. We‘ll see… I think this is perfect for a webbrowsing/office laptop to make quotes etc.
Mid 2012 retina MBP still quite acceptable as a daily driver. For me, when the G4 Ti and the G4 aluminium PowerBooks came out they were the truly jaw-dropping modern laptop like never before, the rest that came after merely evolutions.
Mid-2012 Non-Retina got SATA-600 so you will get ~550 MB/s for the SSD. And you also got Mini Toslink 3,5mm output! Also easy task to replace the battery when needed. So much great about that MBP!
I have two mid 2012 Macbook Pro 13's and they are amazing in construction and just work. I bought each several years ago and upgraded them to double ssd's and max'd the ram and they are running Catalina. I have no interest in updating the OS. I will say without equivocation that these are the best laptops ever made by anyone. I have both hooked up to 27 inch monitors and use them with their lids closed and I am blown away by how good they are - the laptops adapted to the better resolution than the built in display and these are fantastic machines. I use these to download and to store media for later access (they have external drives) as well as to store my music files. I don't see anything about Catalina that makes it feel or look old especially since I am not in the Fruit ecosystem.
Put mine together for about $85 in parts and upgrades, this thing is a beast for the money, I agree it has turned the corner but I will still use mine as a daily driver for now.
I bought a late 2015 MacBook Pro and with Opencore it has been great as a daily. I’m not using it for anything heavy, just word processing and web stuff.
I think what I’ve found out recently is I repair iPhones and am amazed how many people are still rocking iPhone 7s / iPhone 7 Plus there’s lots of people out there that are quite happy with old tech so my question is if you have a 2012 MacBook what iPhone are you rocking?
Im still using mine for Djing, having a second high capacity hard drive inside is a huge bonus, and Dj software runs smoothly. My M1 Macbook Air struggles with the DJ software and haves a lot of cpu dropouts and audio poppings
I have two of them one with two internal hard drives, and a total of 5 TB on board. I do music and i've archived old sessions and full productions and bring them up-to-date when and if needed. I run Mojave on one volume and High Sierra on the other because I run multiple older apps. I can quickly flip operating systems when needed, and audition files or full productions, and airdrop them to my (much more modern) desktop or M1 laptop.I update them, continue to work, or just polish them and keep it moving. I've done so much stuff over the last 20 years there's no way I could have this kind of workflow with only a silicon Mac.
I still have a 15” mid 2015 MacBook Pro🤭 I love it still. I don’t do anything intense these days. The only concern now is that I just stopped receiving security updates …
I have 4 mint 2012s exactly like this Mac. One runs bare metal Linux awesomely have one with Mac OS Sequoia and the other for Linux VM's dual boot with Mac OS. All are beasts. Upograded to the max. Luke taught me everything about tearing Macs apart. These have the best keyboards ever in history
I had this computer when it came out. It was a powerhouse at the time. Unfortunately, there was an accident with liquid damage, and it went to computer heaven.
I sold my 2012 w/ antiglare display a couple of months ago for something around €200. While I loved the display, the upgradability and overall quality of the machine, I let it go because of the weight (those are thicc!) and its sluggishness in Sonoma. When running Monterey though, it's still a very fine machine!
I was using a 2012 17" since they came out. After it died, I replaced it with a 2012 15" which I used for years until last year when I moved to a 2015 15". Frankly I think a 2015 15" is a better purchase than a 2012 considering the internal SSD can be upgraded. I have a 4T in mine. If you could get a 2012 ultra cheap compared to a 2015, ok but based on regular used prices the 2015 is way better. But a 2012 can easily be used every day - my mom did up until last month when she switched to a 2015.
I used my 13” mid 2012 up until beginning of this year. The only reason why i got a new one is because i got tired of using oclp. Other than that it was still a perfectly usable laptop.
I have a 16” M1 Max. I still have my 2011 13” Mac. I remember installing 1TB SSD & 16 gb of ram. I also remember back when they had openings for all that stuff. Now , we can’t even do what we want (upgrade / repair) for the thousands we pay for these devices
How is your M1 max working out for you in 2024? What do you use it for? (I bought one recently but haven't xfered my software from my mid 2012 mbp yet)
@@big-baby-buddha I love it. Actually got it refurbished from Apple so it didn’t cost much. I use it for streaming mostly using Ecamm Live with the rodecaster duo. Ya know, I was so far behind at the time I bought it, I didn’t even realize they replaced iTunes with the music app. 😂
Not a 2012 MBP, but I still use (sometimes) my old 13" 2010 MacBook Air on Snow Leopard. It is blazing fast, and with InterWeb and the iLife/iWork suit, it is still pretty usable (I'd say the same for my 12" PB G4). So yeah, it's crazy to see how old computer can still be use to this day.
everyone crying about the end of the mid 2012 macbook pro while me watching this video on my daily drive Late 2009 Macbook running ventura like a champ lol
The only reason my personal laptop is a 15" 2013 Retina MBP is because a bottle of shampoo opened in my backpack during a vacation just a few months ago, killing my 2012. I had absolutely no intention of upgrading. I actually miss my optical drive. It was the only way I could rip CDs from Bandcamp so I could put FLACs on my phone.
I love mine. It's just solid. For most basic tasks it's still snappy, especially compared to a Windows machine even from a few years ago. Given its age, it's actually incredible.
I have two 2012 15" and one 2012 13". Still love 'em. OCLP and Sequoia do indeed *slightly* slow the one 15" down compared to earlier version of MacOS. I wish, though, Luke you would try linux on one of these; I have it on both my second 15" and the 13". I realize you are a MacOS guy, but really.... you finally did OCLP. Next up? Linux. I plan on using it on all my machines once OCLP no longer keeps things up to date (and it won't for much longer, of course.)
For the right price it’s still a good computer and the fact that you can put pretty much as much storage as you want in it is useful. I have one with the “high res” display and it’s good but my all time favourite MacBook is still probably the 17 inch. If only they made the 2012 17 inch. And yes I now you had a video on that.
I have one of these and something not mentioned: GPU failure. These machines *will* have their GPUs fail. I am impressed yours still work. Anyone who had them as a daily driver had them fail eventually. Mine is bypassed, so can only use the integrated GPU.
I'm typing this up on a mid-2012 unibody 13" running ubuntu 24.04.1 and it's running strong to say the least. I can program, browse the web, and handle all of my computing tasks on and they're dirt cheap now. I'd say it's still gtg from my perspective.
Great machines. I have a late 2011 17" (GPUkiller installed) with the anti glare, SSD and max RAM (max CPU as well). That display is amazing and the ports and expresscard slot help a lot. If it had good speakers it would be my primary media consumption device. If they made a 17" in mid 2012 (sans GPU failures of 2011) we'd still be raving about them. I haven't found a mid 2012 15' clean enough for my collection... yet.
I bought a used 2012 MBP and upgraded it with 16gb RAM and 512gb SSD and New Battery. I like it. It still works good. The battery life is not great but it works and I like having a laptop with DVD burner. I did have it dual boot MacOS and Windows-10 but Windows-10 was fine at first but then became bloatware heavy so I took it off. But I actually benchmarked both OS on the MBP and Windows-10 scored higher benchmarks about 15% Better. Thats the main reason I bought a Mac was to have Dual boot.
the 2012 was my first macbook pro ever!! i remember doing the SSD upgrade at work and 16GB RAM. good times... Now im on the Macbook Air M3...... ohh i also played through all of tomb raider on the macbook pro but running windows 10.
The biggest complaint that I have with current MacBooks is the lack of upgradability. Razer makes gaming laptops that are very close in form factor to the 2012 MacBook Pros, but still have upgradeable memory and SSDs.
You can buy a 2011 with a bad GPU and a working optional "high-res" screen and swap it over to a working 2012 with the 650M. Cost me $40 and came with a free 1TB SSD in it too.
I tried the screen replacement to the silver bezel one and it doesn't work. But yes, I have 3 of these and love them. GPU is terrible but using DosDude's permanent fix, makes this still a great machine
Still have one mid-2012, i7, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD and running Catalina it still runs ok fast. I still use it for like instances where I need old macOS and Intel like checkra1n or Limefix. I now have a M3 Pro 14 Mac
I think you’re really overselling the 2012 non retina MBP, that’s the same year the retina model came out, and other than not having upgradeable ram and fewer storage options, the fact that it came with pcie storage by default and the better display for not that much money makes it a real winner I think. It’s really the 2016-20 MBP where things went down hill.
I actually do have one of these with the anti glare display and the mid spec 2.6GHz i7. With an SSD and 16G RAM, it does handle macOS Sequoia okay, and I was able to use it for some web development work, though it certainly wasn’t too happy about doing it (fans were like, max the entire time, even with fresh thermal paste)
Saved an i7 mid 2012 with 47 battery cycles from a recycling depot for $5 AUD as it was assumed to be ‘broken’ when it was just a malfunctioning charger 😂
The biggest issue I’m having with this era of Apple devices is Thunderbolt. Good luck finding a Thunderbolt 1/2 cable outside of eBay. You’ll have an easier time finding FireWire cables these days. Such a shame for the 2012 MBPs and Minis.
Beside my upgraded 2018 MBP 15 32/2 (I really love the Touch Bar MBP with the upgraded keyboard), my 15 M2 MBA 24/2 (aka the Porsche GT3RS laptop), the 2012 15 highres 16/1 is still my GOAT.. and yes my 2014 Mac mini with 16/8
A had a 2012 MBP, that I maxed out with 2x 2tb SSD's (removed the CD) which I tethered to my camera for use in my photography studio. It was the best solution, because I used Carbon Copy Cloner to automatically duplicate image files to the 2nd SSD while shooting a session. However, that machine died a common death for this model - the graphics card crapped out.
I got a 2011 MacBook Air running Ventura using opencore, I tried Sonoma but it got way slower, it seems that with that update macOS became more resource intensive and makes older machines work harder, if you are trying this yourself I recommend using Linux or macOS Ventura
Put it this way, I don't see myself ever selling my mid 2015 15" MacBook Pro. In fact, I'm typing this comment on it while I wait for my new-to-me 16" M2 Max MacBook Pro to arrive from Apple's refurbished stock. I ordered the M2 max with 2TB SSD and 96GB of memory - I only use local storage for apps and the OS, so 2TB is plenty for me.
I used one for a while, and I don't recommend that any one upgrade the firmware to higher that Monterey, it's really fast on it and anything higher will make slow as we see in the video
For me, the performance on that 2012 MBP is not that slow compared to the intel 2020 MacBook Pro 13 inch base model, which is my daily driver still. Yes it can be painful compared to the newest MacBooks, but if you only use that then you don't really notice. If you are looking for a new MacBook, don't buy a unibody 2012, because they are getting too outdated. The only reason I would get one is because I love the built in DVD drive.
I recently bought one of these for 5 bucks. It already had an ssd and 8 gigs of ram in it. I installed Linux Mint on it and it flies.
where? that's downright ROBBERY
@@luciascarlet At my local thrift store.
Yeah I'm using a 2011 on Windows 11 and it's fine too, but Sequoia is pretty slow. Sonoma was significantly better than Sequoia, but still slower than Windows. It seems like MacOS has become way too bloated over the past couple of years.
@@SterkeYerke5555 It's pretty impressive that a bloated os like Windows 11 still runs fine on a computer from 2011.
@@RickUsesComputers LOL, that's very true. Windows itself has been bloated for years as well. I did strip out some things like Onedrive, but it didn't make that much of a difference. Thing is I'm not cool enough to be a Linux user, so I don't have much choice. I use Windows mainly for gaming anyway, and with a 6770M at a 1920x1200 screen you can use all the performance you can get, so I'm not too keen on using translation layers unless I have to.
A 2012 MBP with the higher resolution and upgraded SSD & RAM is still my daily driver. This was the golden era for Mac laptops.
with new macos or which OS? still have a 2012 laying around, was thinking of replacing it though, would have to change battery and screen is also ass
@@eljefe4300I think we reached the second renaissance with the M chips. I’m waiting on them receiving tandem OLED though.
Ubuntu or Linux Mint and it flies.
@@tdgdbs1 the same for Macbook Air 2017 (2015) with i5. Sonoma was unusable for me but linux mint is snapy and opens apps very quickly.
Amazing machine. I also drove a top spec 2012 15” with hi res display. I was even doing light coding for my engineering master without a problem besides some fan noise due to 90% cpu usage. With a new battery, I could get 4 hours of online work out of it, including light coding and writing an article on the cloud.
I'm still using a late 2012 MacBook Pro as my daily driver. I've replaced and upgraded the hard drive a couple of times over the years (now running an SSD, of course), replaced the battery twice, maxed out the RAM, and it's still just ticking along. One of the best overall investments I've ever made in a computer. It was expensive at the time but I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of it. Goes well with my 2007 Prius, still going strong at 260k.
same here. got the anti-glare version, had no idea they where _kinda_ rare ;-)
Good taste in computers and cars. I sold my 2008 Prius at around that mileage.
I still have mine in the closet somewhere. 15" mid 2012, anti glare matte display, SSD, maxed out RAM. I used to use it with a 30" Cinema Display. It was a pretty great setup.
I bough one last week for 20 Euros. with the i7 2,3GHz, 16GB RAM 1,25TB SSD, GT650m 512MB. And with the OpenCore Patcher to MacOS Monetery and i love this thing
does like brightness control work ?
@@mitanshchheda8478 yes it work
I still have my 2012 Antiglare rocking Raid0 SSD's with 16gb ram upgrade. Some how still holds 3hr charge on OG battery
3 hours its crazy good mine about 1 hour of you tube :)
That’s insane considering my 2019 i9 15” doesn’t last 3 hours at this point.
I've got dual SSDs for ages but never tried the RAID0 as it was only supported on old MacOS versions (Snow Leopard IIRC) what OS version do you use?
Watching on my 2012 MacBook Pro, which is my daily driver and also serves as the Plex server for my family.
Time to upgrade that thing. Should’ve done it years ago
I had a 13" 2012 and I loved it. With maxed out CPU spec, 16 GB RAM and a fast SSD, it was a capable little beast up till its logic board failed. I replaced it with a full-fat 2016 15" MBP. After a top case replacement, that keyboard is barely tolerable, although I mostly use my now ancient Magic Keyboard. The 2016 is now stuck on EOL Monterey and, well, I guess my days on Intel are numbered.
So glad to see this video. This is still my daily MacBook. 16 GB Kingston ram, 1 T SSD, upgraded wifi, Open Core running Sequoia 15.0.1 like a dream. I also have the factory Antiglare display. Want snappier? Go to System Settings/Accessibility/Display and turn on Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency. There's all the snap you need, Luke.
i got one 3 months ago and i love it so much
it runs fast and cool compared to even newer macs,it's also running sequeia fast and smooth and i use it as my main laptop already
changed the battery with a 9000mh one ,16gb of ram dual ssd's ,also planning to change the screen to a high res antiglare one from a 2011 macbook pro
i can t believe that is 13 years old almost
MacBook goat tier list: tier 1: MacBook Pro 2015 tier 2 M1 MacBook Pro tier 3 2012 MacBook Pro
Still rocking mine 👍🏻
They last forever!
True I'm searching one for cheap
Hey, you can actually watch dvd movies on these older MacBooks, that’s why I still love watching dvds on my 2009 MacBook pros plus using a full version of Photoshop 7!
I'd argue the 2015 MacBook Pro was seen as "the best" ever made, at least in terms of the Intel models. Admitedly they were compared against the abortion that was the 2016-2019 models where Jonny Ive was permitted to go nuts with his holy grail of pursuit of thinness at all costs. Apple really went with form over function on that generation...
Me too actually, and it makes me happy that I actually have a 15” 2015 MacBook Pro. I don’t do anything intense these days & I do love it still.
I agree it even has the retna displays and the faster cpu, upgrade to sequoia, and your good to go. Plus its slimmer.
I just finally upgrade my 2013 15” MBP running OCLP on Sonoma for a 14” M3 MBP. When it comes to light use there’s not a massive difference. The 2013 did get very hot and the M3 is always cool and get waaaayyyy better battery life. The old 2013 machine running Sonoma is still usable and my daughter is using it now to play games on.
I got a MacBook Air 2015 with the Intel 5650U Core i7 2.2 GHz CPU for 120 recently. It beats the MacBookPro in Geekbench single core and almost in multi core tests. RAM is 8 GB but replacing the battery is super easy and also you can upgrade the internal SSD quite easily. It has Thunderbolt 2 with support for an external 4K 3480x2160 display and the read/write speed of the SSD is about 1400 MB/s, It runs Ventura very well, also the newer MacOS versions, but I am awaiting for an SSD update to test. Maybe it would help for the MacBook Pro from 2012 to run Ventura instead of Sequoia?
I'm using one to type this right now. Upgraded the RAM to 16 GB, upgraded the main HDD to 2 TB, used an OWC DataDoubler to replace the SuperDrive with another 2 TB HDD, and I'm golden. Only demerit is that I can't upgrade the OS higher than El Capitan but I can live with that.
what bout 17-inch 2010 I have one and its also absolute beast
thinner bezels and bigger battery
I just recently bought a mid 2010 17inch myself and love it to
I bought my mid 2012 MacBook Pro in the summer of 2102. I quickly upgraded to 16GB and went through several SSD upgrades as well to 1TB. Recently the drive cable failed, which I replaced after running the disk externally for two weeks. Long story short-as much as I’ve loved this computer, I’ll be buying and M4 MacBook Pro on day 1 of availability!
i'm an original owner of a mid-2012 macbook pro. I updated to an ssd when the hard drive failed. I put the hard drive in an Ifixit enclosure for an external drive and reformatted it, works great. I only use the mid-2012 for surfing the internet, works fine for what i ask it to do. While I would like a new macbook pro to try out video editing, i can't afford one. But, for what little i use it for (every couple of days or so), I'm ok with it. I guess the reason i still use it is because i don't like spending a lot of money on something and then setting it aside, "unloved", for something else. But yeah, enjoyed seeing a review on something i actually own.
I bought the white one back in 2010 brand new from apple. I've replaced the HDD with an SSD and replaced the Disc Drive with another SSD.
It still works fine and runs as well as any windows laptop of this era. I used to dual boot windows 7 on it as it ran windows better than most of the windows laptops I could afford.
This was my first official Mac computer I bought. Used it for school and still have it. Granted I don’t use it anymore just have it around for nostalgia reasons. But this videos makes me want to pull it back out and set it up for some basic usage.
I have very fond memories of my 2012 15" MBP, and I loved that laptop to bits. It was great for work, it could game, and I maxed out all the upgrades back then. It was sad when I had to sell it after 9 years in service, but my current 14" M1 Pro was that upgrade that finally made me decide it was time.
My 15” MBP (Mid-2007) was still my only Mac until Dec 2021, at which time it was a bit over 14 years old. I had maxed the RAM, and installed an SSD, and it had some delaminating on the display, but it worked perfectly. I still have it, but no longer have a working battery and haven’t used it but a few times since buying an M1 MBA in 2021. I also have a Late 2018 Mac Mini with the I5-8500B CPU, for those occasional times when I want/need to run an Intel based Mac. Picked it up used at the same time I got the MBA. Hard to believe it’s been nearly 3 years since I got those.
I inherited a 2012 MacBook Pro 15 inch from my aunt. I can’t wait to upgrade it with more ram and an ssd so I can turn it into a Linux laptop!
Bought a used 13” 2012 a few years back from a company who was retiring old Macbooks. It’s only a 2.5ghz with 512gb hdd and 4gb of ram, but what really surprised me was that it only had a battery cycle count of 73 at the time of purchase. Still have it and it’s still going strong, if a little sluggish.
upgrade that bad boy
You know the Mac is good when Luke has made no less than 3 videos in subsequent years on it “is it STILL good?” “How bout now” 😂
Same for the mid-2015 15”, they’re really solid machines.
Also, I’m glad you mentioned this at 6:31 as I myself, a Mac fanboy with way too many of them, have definitely noticed this too. But at the same time I’m still super glad it exists and it definitely gives old Macs a new lease on life.
I was using my 2012 (retina) 15 inch mbp until this month when I got a good deal on an M1 mac mini. Honestly with 16gb of ram, an ssd and Sonoma installed it totally worked. The only reason I upgraded was that it started to hit cpu limits when mixing songs with more than 20 tracks and plugins. As a normal laptop it's still totally useable. I did find it ran better on Ventura however
still using my 2012 it works just fine not for general use. But will be upgrading to m4 pro soon.
I got an early 2011 macbook pro 13 inch for free and i am loving it! Already had the ram and ssd needed to upgrade it. Runs sequoia really well
In my opinion, Mid 2012 15" MBP is THE best macbook ever made. I own maxed out model with rare 2.7Ghz upgrade and GT650M with 1GB vram. It still runs like a champ! I recently installed fresh copy of Sequoia using OCPL and after disabling automatic wallpaper it runs flawlessly.
And honestly I wouldn't go for Retinas. You can't add second drive to it, you can't upgrade the ram, battery isn't as easily replaceable, keyboard also. I much prefer this chunky nugget
I still use a 2012 MacBook Pro for work and it still does what I need it to do. I use it for giant spreadsheets and other documents and it works great for those tasks, but it's kind of slow to get it started up. The tech folks upgraded the ram for me so it runs better, but I think if I could have an SSD in it, it would probably run a lot better. I doubt that I can talk the tech folks into swapping that out, though. On the bright side, they pretty much don't care what I do with this old MacBook. Everyone else works on Chromebooks, but the Mac can do airdrop with my personal phone, ipad, and iMac, which helps with some of the things I have to do.
Yup - I had two. Put 16GB RAM in them and Crucial SSDs. They were marvellous.
Purchased mine in 2012, it’s now my supplemental computer.
I was loving my 15" 2012 MBP I now found a sufficient replacement for it. The 15" MacBook Air!. This is the first time for years that Apple release a 15" MacBook again and I am loving it....
I think the original Apple Silicon MacBooks from late 2020 will provide that level of lasting usability and value when they’re 12 years old. My 13-inch M1-nothing MacBook Pro feels like it’ll be my main Mac “forever.” Glad I got it with 16GB/1TB. It’s compact and sturdy, no noticeable weakness in battery. I rarely use “f-keys,” so I’ve even learned to appreciate having a Touch Bar (now a discontinued feature).
The other day I tried capturing video off an old 8mm VCR through firewire on my Mac Studio running Sonoma. There is a way to reinstall legacy support for firewire, but then I remembered that my 2012 MacBook Pro running Catalina has a firewire adapter and it imported the video just fine. I've been thinking about buying a new MacBook Pro, but I might hold off now, as in reality the 2012 works fine for what I use it for.
The anti-glare 2011 MacBook Pro 15" was the best Mac laptop to ever exist since the dawn of laptop computers. I really wish we had something like this today.
I still use this laptop in 2024! It’s running patched ventura and I have an anti glare display. It is the one with the i7-3615QM, 12 GB DDR3, and a 512 GB SSD. It’s a great laptop ngl, and I will plan on continuing to use it for as long as I can. I use it for school and do video editing on it sometimes. Best laptop i’ve ever used, and I have many many laptops in my collection, this one just stands out.
Tried replacing it with my much newer hp 250 g8 with an 11th gen i7 that i found in e waste, but it was just too crap for me to use. Horrible build quality and the hinges felt like it was about to break. Trackpad wasnt great, keyboard was meh and didnt have backlight. Im back to using my 2012.
Luke is right, I have 2 Mac’s from 2012, a Ma mini and a 13” MacBook Pro, getting long in the tooth, they held up quite well for a long time, it got worse when the file system changed to apfs.
Thank you Luke for going back to your roots. Absolutely. I have the exact same anti-glare 15" MB Pro and love it, still use it.
The GOAT and the sun setting on them are two separate things. Yes, they probably are the GOAT. And yes, the sun is setting on them but still perfectly usable and will be for some time. I still use my 2015 15" MB Pro as my daily even though I have a M1 Air.
Yes, It is running 16GB ram at 1867Mhz, and I found pretty good running MacOS Ventura than Sequoia. I am using hi-res Matt screen ver and hope it can last at lease next 2 years.
I bought a 2012 MBP 13" this past spring beacuse I need to keep and run a legacy 32 bit app that controls a universal remote I still have. Swapped in a SSD, maxed out the RAM and replaced the SuperDrive and it's still humming away like a champ. Hell it's faster than my kids much newer Chromebooks for everyday simple tasks ie. browsing, email, etc.
I have a 2012 and a 2015, both have newer SSDs and maxed out ram, and new ifixit batteries. I use the 2015 daily, and my partner just used the 2012 for a coding boot camp without issues
In my experience, some of the 2008 machines had crisper screens with much better color rendition than the 2012 unibody. And the screen was wildly better on the 2012 Retina MacBook, a machine that sadly also crossed the threshold into glued-in batteries, soldered in memory . . . These older machines are still very usable if you had had the foresight to pay Apple to replace the battery right before Apple gave up stocking the parts, however the vast majority of these machines on eBay will have very problematic batteries. I would not suggest that anyone seek them out at this point. It is hard at this point to find replacement batteries for these older machines that aren't fraudulently bad. Further although you can run new software it requires a high level of technical ability that most people don't have.
No way did you just upload this video. On Friday, I’ll go and pick up two of these for 150 bucks. Maybe I’ll even add another one for spare parts. We‘ll see…
I think this is perfect for a webbrowsing/office laptop to make quotes etc.
Mid 2012 retina MBP still quite acceptable as a daily driver. For me, when the G4 Ti and the G4 aluminium PowerBooks came out they were the truly jaw-dropping modern laptop like never before, the rest that came after merely evolutions.
Mid-2012 Non-Retina got SATA-600 so you will get ~550 MB/s for the SSD. And you also got Mini Toslink 3,5mm output! Also easy task to replace the battery when needed. So much great about that MBP!
I have two mid 2012 Macbook Pro 13's and they are amazing in construction and just work. I bought each several years ago and upgraded them to double ssd's and max'd the ram and they are running Catalina. I have no interest in updating the OS. I will say without equivocation that these are the best laptops ever made by anyone. I have both hooked up to 27 inch monitors and use them with their lids closed and I am blown away by how good they are - the laptops adapted to the better resolution than the built in display and these are fantastic machines. I use these to download and to store media for later access (they have external drives) as well as to store my music files. I don't see anything about Catalina that makes it feel or look old especially since I am not in the Fruit ecosystem.
Put mine together for about $85 in parts and upgrades, this thing is a beast for the money, I agree it has turned the corner but I will still use mine as a daily driver for now.
I have a 13 inch mid-2012 running Monterey. It's a pretty good machine. I'm considering upgrading it to Ventura later this year.
don't do that. Ventura and later macos rely on metal 3 for the GUI, which is a pain in the neck for such old hardware
been waiting for a mid 2012 video for ages
My 2015 MBP i7 is still running strong. I’m running Logic on it. However, I still can’t wait to upgrade soon 😁
I bought a late 2015 MacBook Pro and with Opencore it has been great as a daily. I’m not using it for anything heavy, just word processing and web stuff.
I miss my mid-2012 13" and the upgrades, the HDD caddy, RAM, SSD... good times. Thought its day came and went a long time ago
I think what I’ve found out recently is I repair iPhones and am amazed how many people are still rocking iPhone 7s / iPhone 7 Plus there’s lots of people out there that are quite happy with old tech so my question is if you have a 2012 MacBook what iPhone are you rocking?
Im still using mine for Djing, having a second high capacity hard drive inside is a huge bonus, and Dj software runs smoothly. My M1 Macbook Air struggles with the DJ software and haves a lot of cpu dropouts and audio poppings
I have two of them one with two internal hard drives, and a total of 5 TB on board. I do music and i've archived old sessions and full productions and bring them up-to-date when and if needed. I run Mojave on one volume and High Sierra on the other because I run multiple older apps. I can quickly flip operating systems when needed, and audition files or full productions, and airdrop them to my (much more modern) desktop or M1 laptop.I update them, continue to work, or just polish them and keep it moving. I've done so much stuff over the last 20 years there's no way I could have this kind of workflow with only a silicon Mac.
I still have a 15” mid 2015 MacBook Pro🤭 I love it still. I don’t do anything intense these days. The only concern now is that I just stopped receiving security updates …
I have 4 mint 2012s exactly like this Mac. One runs bare metal Linux awesomely have one with Mac OS Sequoia and the other for Linux VM's dual boot with Mac OS. All are beasts. Upograded to the max. Luke taught me everything about tearing Macs apart. These have the best keyboards ever in history
M1 Air has now stepped into this in my opinion - hoping to keep mine for 10 years!
I legit have one of these going strong in the background, it won't die, I wonder if it ever will...
I sold my 2015 13” MacBook Pro this year. Kinda miss it, but saving up for a newer MacBook.
I had this computer when it came out. It was a powerhouse at the time. Unfortunately, there was an accident with liquid damage, and it went to computer heaven.
I sold my 2012 w/ antiglare display a couple of months ago for something around €200. While I loved the display, the upgradability and overall quality of the machine, I let it go because of the weight (those are thicc!) and its sluggishness in Sonoma. When running Monterey though, it's still a very fine machine!
I was using a 2012 17" since they came out. After it died, I replaced it with a 2012 15" which I used for years until last year when I moved to a 2015 15". Frankly I think a 2015 15" is a better purchase than a 2012 considering the internal SSD can be upgraded. I have a 4T in mine. If you could get a 2012 ultra cheap compared to a 2015, ok but based on regular used prices the 2015 is way better. But a 2012 can easily be used every day - my mom did up until last month when she switched to a 2015.
I used my 13” mid 2012 up until beginning of this year. The only reason why i got a new one is because i got tired of using oclp. Other than that it was still a perfectly usable laptop.
I love these throwbacks!
I have a 16” M1 Max. I still have my 2011 13” Mac. I remember installing 1TB SSD & 16 gb of ram. I also remember back when they had openings for all that stuff. Now , we can’t even do what we want (upgrade / repair) for the thousands we pay for these devices
How is your M1 max working out for you in 2024? What do you use it for?
(I bought one recently but haven't xfered my software from my mid 2012 mbp yet)
@@big-baby-buddha I love it. Actually got it refurbished from Apple so it didn’t cost much. I use it for streaming mostly using Ecamm Live with the rodecaster duo. Ya know, I was so far behind at the time I bought it, I didn’t even realize they replaced iTunes with the music app. 😂
Not a 2012 MBP, but I still use (sometimes) my old 13" 2010 MacBook Air on Snow Leopard. It is blazing fast, and with InterWeb and the iLife/iWork suit, it is still pretty usable (I'd say the same for my 12" PB G4). So yeah, it's crazy to see how old computer can still be use to this day.
everyone crying about the end of the mid 2012 macbook pro while me watching this video on my daily drive Late 2009 Macbook running ventura like a champ lol
The only reason my personal laptop is a 15" 2013 Retina MBP is because a bottle of shampoo opened in my backpack during a vacation just a few months ago, killing my 2012. I had absolutely no intention of upgrading. I actually miss my optical drive. It was the only way I could rip CDs from Bandcamp so I could put FLACs on my phone.
I love mine. It's just solid. For most basic tasks it's still snappy, especially compared to a Windows machine even from a few years ago. Given its age, it's actually incredible.
I have two 2012 15" and one 2012 13". Still love 'em. OCLP and Sequoia do indeed *slightly* slow the one 15" down compared to earlier version of MacOS. I wish, though, Luke you would try linux on one of these; I have it on both my second 15" and the 13". I realize you are a MacOS guy, but really.... you finally did OCLP. Next up? Linux. I plan on using it on all my machines once OCLP no longer keeps things up to date (and it won't for much longer, of course.)
For the right price it’s still a good computer and the fact that you can put pretty much as much storage as you want in it is useful. I have one with the “high res” display and it’s good but my all time favourite MacBook is still probably the 17 inch. If only they made the 2012 17 inch. And yes I now you had a video on that.
I have one of these and something not mentioned: GPU failure.
These machines *will* have their GPUs fail. I am impressed yours still work. Anyone who had them as a daily driver had them fail eventually. Mine is bypassed, so can only use the integrated GPU.
I'm typing this up on a mid-2012 unibody 13" running ubuntu 24.04.1 and it's running strong to say the least. I can program, browse the web, and handle all of my computing tasks on and they're dirt cheap now. I'd say it's still gtg from my perspective.
Great machines. I have a late 2011 17" (GPUkiller installed) with the anti glare, SSD and max RAM (max CPU as well). That display is amazing and the ports and expresscard slot help a lot. If it had good speakers it would be my primary media consumption device. If they made a 17" in mid 2012 (sans GPU failures of 2011) we'd still be raving about them. I haven't found a mid 2012 15' clean enough for my collection... yet.
Luke's fit looks like he's been digging for it at an archeology dig site, I dig it
I bought a used 2012 MBP and upgraded it with 16gb RAM and 512gb SSD and New Battery. I like it. It still works good. The battery life is not great but it works and I like having a laptop with DVD burner. I did have it dual boot MacOS and Windows-10 but Windows-10 was fine at first but then became bloatware heavy so I took it off. But I actually benchmarked both OS on the MBP and Windows-10 scored higher benchmarks about 15% Better. Thats the main reason I bought a Mac was to have Dual boot.
the 2012 was my first macbook pro ever!! i remember doing the SSD upgrade at work and 16GB RAM. good times... Now im on the Macbook Air M3...... ohh i also played through all of tomb raider on the macbook pro but running windows 10.
The biggest complaint that I have with current MacBooks is the lack of upgradability. Razer makes gaming laptops that are very close in form factor to the 2012 MacBook Pros, but still have upgradeable memory and SSDs.
You can buy a 2011 with a bad GPU and a working optional "high-res" screen and swap it over to a working 2012 with the 650M. Cost me $40 and came with a free 1TB SSD in it too.
I tried the screen replacement to the silver bezel one and it doesn't work. But yes, I have 3 of these and love them. GPU is terrible but using DosDude's permanent fix, makes this still a great machine
You can put linux ie. Ubuntu and other distros and still get updates often, extending the life of the 2012 Macbook.
Still have one mid-2012, i7, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD and running Catalina it still runs ok fast. I still use it for like instances where I need old macOS and Intel like checkra1n or Limefix. I now have a M3 Pro 14 Mac
I think you’re really overselling the 2012 non retina MBP, that’s the same year the retina model came out, and other than not having upgradeable ram and fewer storage options, the fact that it came with pcie storage by default and the better display for not that much money makes it a real winner I think. It’s really the 2016-20 MBP where things went down hill.
I actually do have one of these with the anti glare display and the mid spec 2.6GHz i7. With an SSD and 16G RAM, it does handle macOS Sequoia okay, and I was able to use it for some web development work, though it certainly wasn’t too happy about doing it (fans were like, max the entire time, even with fresh thermal paste)
I recently replaced my 13” mbp for an mba m3. Keep it as backup with sequoia installed (with the patcher you showed)
Saved an i7 mid 2012 with 47 battery cycles from a recycling depot for $5 AUD as it was assumed to be ‘broken’ when it was just a malfunctioning charger 😂
Using my 2012 MacBook to run windows 10 through boot camp, works great!
The biggest issue I’m having with this era of Apple devices is Thunderbolt. Good luck finding a Thunderbolt 1/2 cable outside of eBay. You’ll have an easier time finding FireWire cables these days. Such a shame for the 2012 MBPs and Minis.
Beside my upgraded 2018 MBP 15 32/2 (I really love the Touch Bar MBP with the upgraded keyboard), my 15 M2 MBA 24/2 (aka the Porsche GT3RS laptop), the 2012 15 highres 16/1 is still my GOAT.. and yes my 2014 Mac mini with 16/8
Still rocking 2 13 inch haswell retina MBP’s in our house (2013) , our son uses one everyday for homework and Roblox.
A had a 2012 MBP, that I maxed out with 2x 2tb SSD's (removed the CD) which I tethered to my camera for use in my photography studio. It was the best solution, because I used Carbon Copy Cloner to automatically duplicate image files to the 2nd SSD while shooting a session. However, that machine died a common death for this model - the graphics card crapped out.
I got a 2011 MacBook Air running Ventura using opencore, I tried Sonoma but it got way slower, it seems that with that update macOS became more resource intensive and makes older machines work harder, if you are trying this yourself I recommend using Linux or macOS Ventura
My uncle still has this macbook and its still going strong after an SSD upgrade.
Put it this way, I don't see myself ever selling my mid 2015 15" MacBook Pro. In fact, I'm typing this comment on it while I wait for my new-to-me 16" M2 Max MacBook Pro to arrive from Apple's refurbished stock. I ordered the M2 max with 2TB SSD and 96GB of memory - I only use local storage for apps and the OS, so 2TB is plenty for me.
I used one for a while, and I don't recommend that any one upgrade the firmware to higher that Monterey, it's really fast on it and anything higher will make slow as we see in the video
For me, the performance on that 2012 MBP is not that slow compared to the intel 2020 MacBook Pro 13 inch base model, which is my daily driver still. Yes it can be painful compared to the newest MacBooks, but if you only use that then you don't really notice. If you are looking for a new MacBook, don't buy a unibody 2012, because they are getting too outdated. The only reason I would get one is because I love the built in DVD drive.