The original MacBook Pro SUCKED!

Many of us assume that the Steve Jobs era was the peak of innovation, but today I'm going to show you why the original MacBook Pro, even though you can still use them today, is actually pretty bad! Under Jobs, the MacBook Pro had one of the worst records for reliability, and despite the low prices these 2008 and prior MacBooks command, you should probably steer clear...

time stamps
0:00 Intro
1:44 The first MacBook Pro had major issues
5:00 Later versions were also bad...
5:45 Pre-unibody vs Unibody MacBook Pro
7:34 Graphics failure on MacBooks before 2012
9:40 using a 2008 MacBook isn't great...
10:50 Closing thoughts

Gear:
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#apple #mac #tech

[lukemiani]

I’m SUPER excited to announce that the day after WWDC on June 6 I’ll be hosting a special live podcast and even with Noah Rubin, Sam Kohl and Jon Prosser to talk Apple announcements, do some giveaways and games, and more! Brought to you by CleanMyMac X, Genius Bar Goes Drk tickets are on sale now!! Head to geniusbargoesdrk.com!!!

[Sisamuth]

As a collector, I would say the Titanium PowerBook G4 is a way more attractive device

[HungryManticore]

Surprised you didn't mention that the very first MacBooks had 32-bit Core Duo CPUs, which is probably the most crippling issue, even if you want to install Linux on them.

[TheSkyeLord]

I will say one thing, unlike the 2011 MacBook Pros, the 2007 and early 2008 models got a proper recall for the GPU issues they experienced. If you can find a recalled 07/08 Pro, their GPUs are replaced with a revised model, and the issues of graphical artifacts or no boot are completely fixed. The only way I’ve found to tell the difference is if they have a green sticker in the RAM bay, or if the GPU die has a 603 or 604 model number, vs. 600, 601, or 602.

[tompov]

Honestly it blows my mind sometimes to thing that the original iPhone was concurrent with Mac OS X Tiger and the Pre-unibody MacBooks. The iPhone lives in the 3GS Snow Leopard era in my mind and its hard to believe that some people were setting up iPhones on those MacBooks running Tiger

[Bdog]

My mom STILL uses her 2010 15 inch MBP she bought new as her main laptop. She uses it at least 2-3 times a week with a light workflow. I swapped the 320 gig HD with a 256 gig SSD and upgraded to 8 GB of memory back in 2016. It has 86% battery health and about 350 cycles on the ORIGINAL battery. That thing is a solid performer. I could honestly daily drive it for school related work myself. Quite impressive.

[ccccjjjjeeee]

I had the 2007 15" and went through 4 logic boards, all due to the 8600m failing. The upside is back then the service at Apple stores was so good that you could just walk in with a broken computer and walk out with a new one 10 minutes later.

[coolcomputing]

I still use a 17" Early 2008 MacBook Pro CTO on dosdude1's Catalina Patcher every day for writing HTMl. I'm triple booting Catalina, Leopard, and Windows 7. It's honestly a still a beautiful machine, and loads of fun. However, it is a little long in the tooth and the new design language for the Apple Silicon Macs is a compelling upgrade...
(posted on a Early 2008 17" MBP)

[edipisreks]

The worst thing about the first ones was the terrible high pitched whine produced by something in the power regulation. It affected every single one that crossed my work desk, and it drove me batty.

[RodrigoVazquez]

Having a chat with you about all MacBook models, pros, cons, would be super cool and interesting, and it's a topic I'll never find anyone else to talk with. For most of the people, they're just computers, but for the true Apple Fan, they're an evolution cycle and a crucial piece of history.

[vwestlife]

I have a 2008 MacBook Pro running El Capitan and it's still perfectly usable today. In fact I used it until a few months ago to edit and upload almost all of my videos (upgrading it with 6 GB of RAM and an SSD helped with that) and now my dad uses it to do Zoom with his cousin in Australia, and it still works fine for that too. I now use a 2008 iMac which is equally obsolete but is equally obsolete but has a slightly faster CPU and a much larger full HD display. It's also still running El Capitan.

[dosdude]

To their credit, in the case of the Early-2008 and 2011 models, the GPU issues were in no way Apple's fault... The chipsets themselves were defective. In the case of the 8600M GT, luckily, by the end of 2008, nVidia released a revised version of the chipset, which completely solved the issue, and are 100% reliable (the revised materials were also used on the 9600M and MCP79 chipsets used in Unibody models). AMD, on the other hand, made no such effort, and as such we are stuck with defective Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx series trash.

In the case of the 2010 15" models though, that WAS entirely Apple's fault, as they failed to spec an appropriate capacitor for filtering of the GPU framebuffer power rail. They can be fully repaired by bodging on a better capacitor.

[tkusterb]

YES I had a late 2008 17-inch MacBook Pro and here's what I LOVED about it and miss: the keyboard! That silver keyboard, for me and my typing style, was a perfect-feeling input device. I could type so fast and so accurately on it. Unibody went for that black keyboard that was never as good. Plus, it had the front-loading super drive and firewire... as a beginner (Final Cut Pro 4) video editor, it was all heaven. I couldn't care less about graphics cards, etc. I wish I had it back just for the typic experience. And with (as. you mentioned) Snow Leopard, I never had a glitch. Ahh, those were the days!

[Ebalosus]

7:27 glad someone else remembers that the Jobs era of Apple wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows that a lot of other Apple fans misremember.

[lestermoonbottom]

Bought mine brand new in June 2006. Retired it in 2021 when a flower vase spontaneously exploded and dumped a cup of water between the bezel and LCD, murking up the bottom third of the screen. Still runs though.

So yeah, Snow Leopard was its last update. And I regretted ordering the “glossy” screen the instant I unboxed it. But at some point my Logic/Garageband setup got so crazy I dreaded rebuilding it on a new system, so I was like, “Oh well, I’ll use this till it dies…”

There’s no describing the abuse and indignity that machine has suffered. Here’s a random example: being left outside in a thunderstorm for HOURS.

I brought it in.

Turned it sideways so the water would POUR outta the case.

Disassembled it completely. Toasted it. Applied the appropriate greases and pastes. Reassembled and pressed the power button…

BONG.

And this happened TWICE.

Even the Superdrive still works.

(For comparison, my 2015 MBP got lightly drizzled on ONCE, and was neveragain the same.)

What sucks most about the 2006 Macbook Pro?

It wont frickin DIE!

[mx]

Oh boy. I bought an early 2006 15 inch model produced around the keynote announcement and it was quite the nightmare. The MagSafe connector got so hot that it caught on fire, so that was fun. These things were kind of rushed, leading me to believe that the Intel transition was not really planned at all. One of the funniest design flaws was that all of the early launch units had bent lids that did not shut properly. Even in Apple's promotional photos from the website had a slight bend on the lid.

[joshm]

Most people don't know that the earlier pre-unibody MacBook Pros are essentially plug and play with the 2008 top case (where the trackpad is attached), I put one on my 2007 and it's great!

[Whitecat]

I have one of those 2006 models, bought for 10 euros half a year ago, been in daily use since that and still works perfectly! Even the GPU still works and I even managed to get Windows 7 fully working with driver support. Seems that I got lucky. I want to also point out that Windows 7 on the Macbook Pro is much more stable for me than MacOS.

[jgh]

had the late 2008 model 2.5/2gb/512, my favorite MBP design by far especially in that final iteration....such an industrial look esp the power button as mentioned, speakers were amazing and the newly added LED and multi touch trackpad were welcome features

[jacobperez]

I recently received my nephew's old mid 2007 MacBook Pro non unibody and I considered fixing it up since it is beat up and is missing a battery but Iight as well buy a good condition one for cheap. As a fan of old vintage Apple products, I always liked the designs of these 2006-2008 non unibody MacBook Pro as well as the G4 MacBooks.