Using the 2011 MacBook Pro in 2024

Second Channel:

[garyjene]

With my MacBook Pro model from 2011, it has the ear and mike as a combination instead of separate like the one you display in your video. But nice to know anyways

[oliverkhoo]

How do you all did not suffer from the 2011 graphic recall problem? Mine didn’t last 5 years. I’m still upset about it

[ilyasg]

when you use these older macbooks there’s a lot of trade offs to make. i really have no clue what apple did with the speakers, i always just thought mine was defective. and it’s funny, when the macbook air 2012-2015 had WAYYY better speakers than these unibodies. i like my macbook air more, but its slower (i assume due to being a dual core cpu, less ram, and thermal throttling).

[EvilTurkeySlices]

Just get the 2012, int has USB 3. I'm personally not aa fan of USB-C as it can be pretty fragile. Modern Apple laptops should add 1 or 2 type-A ports in addition to the type-C ports.

[ParadoxdesignsOrg]

this is such a negative review, try using a Windows laptop from this same era. Cheers!

[Lentrail]

my 2011 macbook is running sonoma lmao its not too bad

[Attakai_The_Kitty]

You should make a video on your 17” to show how terrible they are in 2024

[philipslighting]

I have the exct same model with high res display. I have permanently disabled the Radeon graphics on mine using dosdudes patcher. I love this machine its great fun. I also have a 2012 15 inch with high res display and 2 Apple silicon machines. I dont think many machines of this era would still be usable today plus it looks modern.

[andre]

I still have the Macbook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) running the High Sierra. (2.3 GHz Intel Core i5)
changed the battery, added an SD of 1TB.

[mrhamptero]

i have the mbp 2011 15 inch any tips for speeding it up?

[devnol]

unibody mac are just wayy too old to use today. The screen, trackpad, nic and speakers are probably way too old. A mid 2012 macbook with upgraded ram (up to 16 gigs!) and an ssd is probably the oldest model you could conceivably use today with patched macOS monterey (or even newer perhaps). I'm using the early 2015 13" model with 8 gigs (unfortunately soldered), a 480 gig ssd and a new battery running Sonoma and it's actually fairly tolerable for day-to-day work in Fusion CAD, video editing, software development, movies and web browsing. It's definitely starting to show its age but I can probably hold on to it for a couple more years before I will have to say goodbye.

[fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiictitious]

I have an old 2008 MacBook Pro I'd like to use more, but it gets way too hot. even doing basic tasks like web browsing it can get up to 70 degrees without using an app to increase fan speeds. Guess I shouldn't expect it to be cold considering it's a 3 Ghz core 2 duo & has 2 nvidia gpus (9400m, 9800m gt)

[thenetworkmystery]

I had a 2011 15" MacBook Pro, and it had the weirdest issue. The Radeon GPU somehow still worked, BUT... BUT... when I used OpenCore, there was no acceleration. Didn't matter whether I disabled the Radeon GPU, installed post-volume patches, etc. Nothing worked. It was the strangest thing. I've since recycled it.

[Lori_]

I just bought one 2 days ago and it still works great I was so surprised I only paid 40 bucks for it but I thank it’s still worth at least 65 it’s really fast and works better then my hp 2022 has a great picture and the speakers aren’t bad at all

[laaagg]

It would perform better if it's owned by a light user right?, like just basic document editing stuff like what data scientists and analysts do

[Mbro-dqdo]

I have 7 of these. Disabled the AMD GPU and patched Ventura into them all. upgraded ssd and RAM and they work perfectly

[Mbro-dqdo]

I run baremetal linux on a few of hem and its amazingly good. less bloat and they run 30-40 degrees cooler

[guaiqueritech]

I recently did a video on a similar MBP: even upgraded (Core i7, 12Gb ram and SATA SSD) it had issues running Sonoma via OPLC; leaving it in High Sierra was a No-No because of the lack of supported apps.

Ironically, windows 10 or even trying a cut-down version like Tiny11 should be a better suit for this machine (which I did not test)

What I did test was Linux, ZORIN OS 17, to be exact… and it was a dream. Zero compatibility issues, full driver support and no fan noise whatsoever. Using your Linux distribution of choice should transform this laptop into basically a high quality Chromebook, who’s is great to keep these still usable laptops from the landfill