Ranking EVERY Intel MacBook on how long it will last.

Obviously this video is open to interpretation, as it's largely based on my opinion. Respect that in the comments, please, and don't go leaving any nobbish messages full of hate x


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[rondobrondo]

2015 was the greatest year for MacBook Pros ever IMO, and yes I can vouch for its abilities as a portable music production monster. A 2015 MacBook Pro base config is basically all you really need if you want a cheap laptop to use Ableton or other production software on it. I had been using one of those nonstop until a couple months ago, until my cats broke my 15" MBP. I was heart broken and I couldn't decide whether I wanted to just buy ANOTHER 2015 or just get an M1 Pro. Well, it was only $600 more to get the 16" M1 Pro MBP. But to be honest, the 16" MBP feels like home. Feels like the spiritual successor to the 15" MBP of 2015. They are ALMOST EXACTLY the same size. The 2015 MBP is like 90cm^3 and the 2021 16" MBP is like 97cm^3. Almost the same keyboard layout, basically same ratios between keyboard area, speaker area, etc, except now it has a full big trackpad which is maybe great? I'm not sure yet. I found myself to be more accurate with my 2015 MBP trackpad than this one; I can't seem to get the speed scaling right yet.

[ahmedrahi]

funnily enough most these high end intel MacBooks will kill themselves before they hit these lifespans due to the heat, my 2019 15 inch 8 core i9 recently became a victim

[TonyCR]

2019 16-inch user here, i got mine back in October of 2023 and i knew his life won't be long but well... we still have bootcamp, glad to see it called the best of Intel, shame to see it sunset.

[ColinsCity]

My 2009 17" MacBook died without warning a few weeks ago, it went from working to just not turning on no matter how many smc resets i did, interestingly this week my iPhone X malfunctioned and the screen is totally unresponsive. Of course i bought a replacement 17" MacBook, I love the screen size for watching YouTube and working on documents, I'm running Monterey on it and find it works quite well, it has 8GB RAM and a 2TB SSD and dual boots Windows 10 for my microsoft only softwares. I think it has a few more years left, it's going to be sad when the optical drive macbooks stop working completely because i do use them a lot for burning and ripping CDs and I have found they rip the CDs faster than my windows laptop did.

[a.lawrence]

I buy and sell intel MacBooks which I add SSD's to or update with the OCLP patchers (which work very well) or put Linux on. They ALL work very well and I'm talking 2010 until now. Sure a M series is better but for many if not most users who simply stream movies, browse the web, do basic Photoshop and more they work fine.

The M1 is going for $650 at several big stores. If you are looking to do more intensive Photoshop or movie edits, get one. However for many of us if not most a 'older' intel unit is fantastic.

[SankeshwarSivakumar]

gotta consider software support, i feel intel macs will lose support by 2026 at best, so all of them will be useless beyond 2026, there will be no way to patch them, and as time goes on(2027, 2028) even apps will lose support for intel

[billpandos]

It would be interesting to see a similar video for imacs!

[_lens_view]

Nine to eleven years is pretty good considering corporate leasing programs rarely exceed four years. My 2009 MBP still works fine for basic functions. My regular machine is a 2018 13” MBP. Works fine for heavier lifting. I also bought the last Intel iMac and loaded it up with memory, and it is a workhorse.

[Petero]

I consider all "Core 2 Duo" and later Macs usable. Even for the oldest of them (around year 2006-2008), Mac OS 10.7.5 Lion and an up-to-date Chromium Legacy browser are supported. The latest Ubuntu is also usable.

[joesalyers]

I bought the last 16 inch Macbook Pro with the i9 and just 3 months later I bought an M1 Mac mini on launch day, as a hold over until the more powerful M1 Max 16 inch came out. I spent way too much money that year. But I have to say I gave the i9 Macbook to my Mom and it serves all her needs for sure. I'm still on the M1 Max and am holding off until I need a new Machine. LOL

[QuantumCanvas]

Finally upgrading my 2012 MacBook to m3 air. These laptops feels immortal

[Flamethrower]

I honestly see my 2017 MBA only dying when 8GB of RAM will not be enough anymore for web browsers.
And that's the same year the M1 MBA will die.

[ap]

My MBP 2014 and MBA 2014 still ROCK!!! with i7, 16GB and 1TB SSD.. OCL Ventura and Sonoma rock!!!

[tzla]

Hi, a 2018 13" base model MacBook Pro owner here. I got it in August of 2018 (my first ever Mac laptop) and since then I’ve been using it quite a lot for almost every single task like video editing, audio machine, graphic design and many other things. Obviously it has the thermal issues, overheating sometimes and the butterfly keyboard (which honestly never gave me any problems), and I have to live with that. I was kinda surprised when I found they will give macOS Sequoia to 2018 models and I also realised 2024 will be the last year they will give support to these machines. Guess I’ll be using it until it dies in my hands.

[seses]

I have a macbook pro 2018 and I’m pretty disappointed with it. It has the recognised keyboard issue where some keys double click and it drives me crazy. Also overheats easily. It’s basically a mac mini at this point. On the other side my work laptop is a macbook pro M2 16gb ram and it’s the perfect machine. Just go apple silicon if you need to buy a new mac.

[rondobrondo]

I was indeed someone who bought a 2015 MBP 15" and never even looked at MacBooks or even other apple products whatsoever until Apple Silicon was released. And even then I didn't ditch the 2015 MBP 15" until 2024. But yeh, I absolutely did not care at all about Apple products from 2016-2024, and I was an iOS and MacOS developer for 3 years from 2017-2020 lol, still didn't care. Didn't need a better machine, the 2015 was too good

[domagojrupnik]

I have a MBP 2018 15" with a 2.6GHz 6-core Intel i7 and Iris 630 GPU with 16GB RAM. Running Sonoma 14.5 without any problems and waiting for an update to Sequioa. So far no thermal issues, hoping to keep it for some more years! =)

[mammal]

I would agree with most of it but I think that top spec 2017 15' Macbook pros would last a little bit longer than top spec 2015 15' Macbook pros. Their cpu performance is equal but their graphics are noticeably more powerful with 4GB of VRAM compared to 2GB in the 2015's (2017's score 20700 in geekbench compared to 2015's 13700). Also from what I have noticed they are 3x quieter at max rpm compared to the 2015's (also their touchbar's are not the most practical but amazingly quirky). I get that they lack legacy ports and have butterfly keyboards but I felt like they deserved some notice especially that I've recently have been able to buy a fully spec'd one for just 450$. Compared to about 300$ for a fully optioned 2015 I don't think it is the worst option out there (especially that mine has 2TB of storage).

[Morrow]

I love my late 2013 13'inch MBP, and I don't find the dual core hyper threaded cpu and 8gb to be too slow, it's still the fastest and snappiest laptop I've owned. I was surpised to find it could run games natively pretty decently, but it shined with steam link on the Beautiful Retina 2k screen. Gaming PC + macbook means I didnt have to shell out for a 15 inch, and those are way too heavy and big for me. Even the 13inch is heavy, but not one scratch or dent on it and that's why I chose it over a 15 inch, purely for looks and movie watching, steam link, which works fine :) great netflix machine.

[Xplozhun]

Just wanna say that your channel has been an absolute goldmine for looking at refurbished Intel Macs! I’m currently debating between a 2021 16” M1 Pro MacBook Pro (16gb/512ssd) and a 2019 16” MacBook Pro (32gb/1 TB ssd) on Ebay. Both are on auction and more than likely the 2019 will go for the lower price of the two.

As much as the M1 is tempting, I know I’ll regret the 16gb. It’s just so expensive the RAM upgrades with Apple. I plan to use it as a desktop Mac, to test out NLE packages and other video centric software. Not for freelance or work but more of a baseline system to dive deeper into post-production software and testing (I’m a finishing editor at a creative agency by day). So not really too worried about fans kicking in, the Touch Bar or the OS dropped support (OCLP is a thing).