New laptop? To heck with that!

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My “computer” since 2013 has been a 15" MacBook Pro, which at the time was about the highest performance machine you could buy. Quad-core i7, 16GB RAM, “only” 256GB SSD but I believe strongly in keeping large amounts of data - my photos, videos, and backups - on multiple external SSD drives. The display was (and still is) absolutely crystal clear, and more than enough screen-space for the work I do.

I have been an Apple computer fan since the 80’s, based on quality and intuitiveness of the UI and as a result, the apps themselves.

So I when my 2013 MBP started to have issues, I limped along. Battery I replaced twice, not unexpected on a machine this old. $40 and less than 30 minutes. Then the speakers quit - likely the amplifier as they both started to have issues at the same time. Finally, the keyboard. The case is rigid but there must be some flex which has affected the circuitry - it’s been used daily for all those years.

I decided at this point in my life, I could “get by” on a 13" Air, the cheapest option that would meet my needs, but even that was out of reach. I looked around on Craigslist and Failbook Marketplace and found many used options. We have a major college here nearby with what I assume are a lot of students who had mommy and daddy buy them a nice new laptop for school, but rarely used it and just want some cash. There are a few people selling quite a number of these, so I assume they are snapping them up from departing students.

So, I got a 2019 Macbook Pro 16" for $400! It’s like new, has 2.5x performance according to benchmarks (6-core i7), double the storage (500GB), a better display and keyboard, much larger trackpad, and it’s actually smaller and lighter than the 15" I had as the screen bezel is much narrower, and technology had improved to where the Pro is barely any thicker than the air. The sound is amazing - not just because I was using a good quality BT speaker for some time now. It’s way better than that, and the “surround” stereo effect is amazing. Battery life is about double. I have read that Apple released this model to build the best laptop they could at the time, and I believe it. Add to all that the touch-bar which I quickly came to love, and touch-key to unlock (fingerprint). Winner winner chicken dinner.

The only drawback is the switch to all USB-C, but I can live with that, and therefore the loss of the mag-safe charging connection but, again, easy to live with as a breakaway magnetic USB-C connector was just a few bucks.

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That’s a fabulous deal! I gave up on Macs in the early 90s after using them from the start when the cost for a similar machine was easily 2-3x the cost of a Windows pc. The world of laptops changed that math, but by then I was solidly Windows trained :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

This year I’m building my first Linux laptop!

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That’s a sweet deal, and you will really enjoy the increases in capability. Seems like every time I upgrade my computers (and I’m slow to do it—last one was 11 years old), I can’t believe I was satisfied with what I thought was pretty good performance on the old one. There’s no going back.

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Congrats on the great find! There’s little to compare to an upgrade in performance.

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After a life of PC laptops, my first forbidden fruit was the 2012 retina MacBook Pro shortly after its unveiling. Intel i7 with 16GB Ram, it provided faithful service into 2019… far longer than any of the Toshibas or Sony notebooks. The Glowforge Pro’s first years were driven by this rMBP.

With that admirable run, the 2012 retina MacBook Pro’s longevity allowed at least 3-4 years of additional deferred time to swell the piggy bank. In 2020, I configured my ‘forever’ MacBook Pro; 16” with an 2.3Ghz 8-core i9, 32GB Ram and a 2TB drive. Even splurged for the graphics card upgrade AMD Radeon 5500M with 8GB. Despite the 2020 purchase year, I believe it’s the same 2019 MacBook Pro you found; just different specs.

Fully maxed out with the 2.4Ghz i9, 64GB Ram, 8TB SSD, and a Radeon 5600M, the highest configurable pricetag was north of $7900. My notched-down version was not far behind that.

This was the era where Apple was derided with #DongleLife as they removed all other hardware I/O leaving only USB-C (which also doubles as Thunderbolt and DisplayPort). Not a particularly huge deal for me as I made sure the backpack was well-stocked with SD-Card readers, Ethernet adapters, HDMI adapters, USB-A adapters

The introduction of the 2019 MacBook Pros was also a correction for them. The previous several years had them mired with the well-scorned butterfly keyboards. ~2015 through 2018. Lots of pain & suffering there. In 2019, they went back to the tried & true scissor-type key switch.

If you still need to deal with thumb drives, Lexar makes one that has its ubiquitous USB-A plug on one side, the other is a USB-C plug. A twin-pack with 128GB each can be found at Costco.

It should also be pointed out that this is the era where not only the RAM is soldered to the motherboard, so is the SSD! Make sure you have a routine backup plan in place. On the slim chance the motherboard fries, it’ll be a bear pulling data from those chips.

On my 2012 retina MBP, the SSD was on a removeable module HOWEVER on a proprietary connection interface! Not NVMe, so those common enclosures didn’t work. The only enclosure appropriate for the 2012-2013 rMBP is OWC’s Envoy Pro.

Final caveat from another 2019 MBP owner is keep your eye on its battery health! Apple’s criteria is anything below 80% of original capacity is a sign of degradation. The MBP came with a 100 watt charger. Don’t cheap out with a weaker one. I spent time seeing if a more portable 65watt charger would work. Barely charging the 99Wh battery while simultaneously using just as much computing juice leads to premature battery failure. Thankfully, my patronage in AppleCare saved the situation with a covered repair.

Sounds like the i7 still fits your use case. After these 5 years, the i9 (and Intel in general) has brought me as far as it’ll go, so I grabbed a 13” M4 MacBook Air a week ago.

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Fabulous… I would have liked an i9 but see the Apple Silicon being the way forward, so at this point, and especially given my current financial circumstances, I am elated.

I actually wrote a frothy addition to my initial post last night, and deleted it a few hours later because I sound like an Apple “fan-boy” - I am not! But - I am a very technical person who appreciates performance, quality, and reliability. The value from this investment can not be over-stated.

… and I share all this because I think it could be a fabulous way for someone to enter into the Apple computer realm, or make someone else stuck with older hardware realize there are affordable upgrade options…

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My life hack is go for more RAM, maybe, but never the internal storage. NVME and SSD via thunderbolt 3/4 or USB3 are generally fast enough to never notice it’s an external drive. I bought an M1 Mac mini and did hard link folders so the Mac still thinks the documents, downloads, and another system folder are where theyve always buuuut they are located on an NVME external drive via thunderbolt. The drive will also function perfectly fine with my iPad Pro so I can just take the drive with me if I want.

And it cost me half of what Apple would have have charged for the storage.

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the key to that is you want the external for data files, not programs or cache. the externals are fast, but the program files and especially cache are where those miliseconds count. for speed, data storage is only an issue with opening/closing. but programs/cache are constant access.

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My photo and video archives are over 1TB, and there is no reason to keep them on the device itself. A 2TB SD is <$100, and plugged in when needed.

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Nothing wrong with that. People love the Apple silicon for good reasons. We all know you’re a smart guy, give us your frothy review! I’d love to hear it — I’ve probably got a year or two at most in my current laptop.

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that’s exactly what you should have external. personally, i have a networked drive hooked up to my router. that way it’s accessible by all devices.

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I have what was at the time an expensive, enterprise-class NAS device that slowly became less and less useful over time. Now, the apps I use and the size of the libraries, plus the fact I am down to just one “computer” of my own, make it far less convenient than a simple plug-in SSD.

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if you’re not accessing with multiple devices from multiple locations, a NAS is a lot less useful.

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OK. It’s really just re-stating what the differences are. It’s smaller and lighter than the 15" I had, but has a 16" screen which is as crisp as the much newer 27" iMac my ex has on her desk. The keyboard and trackpad are just wonderful. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had to use a BT keyboard for so long that I’d forgotten how good the MacBook KB is, but they did make a point to improve it for this model (new mechanism.) The trackpad is huge, and it’s taken me a while to get used to it “intruding” on my palms, but I love it being larger. The touch bar is really handy at times. Another thing it took a little while to get used to, but now that I have, and customized it, it’s pretty slick. I also like being able to unlock using a fingerprint. The drive is twice the size of the last one, which means I’m only running at about 40% capacity - that’s healthy for an SSD, although I never had any issue with the one on my 15". RAM is the same 16GB, CPU is quite a bit faster and of course six vs. quad core, but I have this one set to low power mode at all times. One app in particular, Zoom - which I use a lot - inexplicably uses so much CPU that the machine would get hot, my old one’s fans would be on most of the time as a result. Don’t think I’ve even heard them with this one - wondering if it actually has fans (it must…) I was slightly bummed that the power now goes thru USB-C, as the magsafe connector has proved its worth thousands of times, but the USB-C magnetic adapter works even better, as it snaps on very securely, and of course is easily replaced. It came in a 2-pack for just a few $$.

I do some “heavy lifting” in video work, also 3D modeling and occasionally push Inkscape or Gimp hard. The video (and audio) stuff is noticeably improved - conversions, adjustments, exporting, whatever. The apps themselves open faster. Gimp especially, I often wondered why it took so long. But Inkscape too - I use those two a lot. Finally, even Chrome is noticeably better. Again, some things would have the fans spooled up on the old machine, but never on this one.

All sounds great, but for $400?!?!? I’m still stunned - and there are plenty more out there, it seems.

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