A used 2015 Retina MacBook Pro might be the best MacBook you can buy today | Hacker News Reader

A used 2015 Retina MacBook Pro might be the best MacBook you can buy today

cultofmac.com

47 pointsmiles38 comments

I believed this and that's exactly what I did, I bought a 2015 15" rMBP used. It went for $700, but you can get them for even less.

The most obvious part of the decision was the lack of magsafe connector. How could Apple have made such an obviously anti-Steve Jobs decision? Nobody gives a shit if all the connectors on the sides are uniform. You don't get points in real life for making them that way. It's a point against, not a point in favor, they should be heterogenous.

I went out of my way two years ago to get a 15" 2015 MBP after coming to the same conclusion.

Last 'good' keyboard, replaceable storage, built like a tank , etc. And you don't need to calibrate the trackpad every time you open the damn thing.

It also happens to be the model/year I fixed the most at my uni's (super duper apple certified) repair shop, so I'm confident I can keep it alive for a while.

IN 2017, after going through my filters > 16GB RAM, 15 inch, and ease of use, *nix (have worked on Suse/Ubuntu for like 10 years), I settled on same. At that time new 12 inch MacBook was already out, but didn't like that touch thing at the top and seemed overpriced.

Found a brand new/sealed 2015 MBP on eBay about 3 months ago.. top of the line i7, 32gb ram, 512gb SSD, still the best laptop that exists IMO.

Interesting. Any guesses why anyone would have a sealed one, given that anyone could assume it would depreciate relatively quickly? (It's not really a "hold" commodity.)

Also if it's not too personal, roughly how much did you pay?

The going rate for them when I picked it up was around 1,800 - 2500. Check past/completed listings for sealed 2015 macbook pros. The higher end ones are rare, but they show up occasionally.

I would assume some business bought more than they needed.

Are you sure about 32gb ram? Max configs on Mid 2015 laptop: i7-4980 2.8Ghz, 1TB, 16gb ram.

That’s not possible. The chip used in that model was limited to 16GB. I worked in IT at that time and DB admins begging me to get them a 15” at that time with 32GB of RAM. I told them the chip from Intel was the limiting factor. When Apple updated a year or two ago, they moved to the next version of the chip which allowed 32GB. So yeah, 32GB in 2015 was not possible.

Oops, yeah, 16gb.

Old MBPs are mentioned a lot on HN; I want to give a shout out to the MacBook Air.

At home I'm still using an 8GB, mid-2012 MBA, and it feels just as responsive as my brand new 16GB MBA at work. I'm obviously not doing much to push it, but I'm getting away with web dev (Docker, multiple containers), browsing, watching movies, playing music, multiple desktops, etc without a problem.

If this breaks before they fix the keyboard issue I'd seriously consider the last MBA with the classic keyboard, even if it's missing the retina display or Touch ID.

My 2012 Air feels, in many ways, a lot more performant than my 2016 Pro. The Air is the best computer Apple has made in over a decade.

That’s what I have. Great laptop. Only recently it started to freeze for a few seconds a couple of times per week though.

I too have been having this issue as of late on my mid 2015.

Me too, mbpro 2013 or 2015 I'm not sure. Music or video keeps playing, input freezes. Very rare, but not rare enough to not notice.

I've seen it on my Mac mini a couple of times. I thought it might have been a bluetooth issue as both the keyboard and mouse were unresponsive but perhaps there is something else going on.

The freezing could be a heating issue. My 2015 MBP was doing the same, and the fans seemed to always be in high gear. I took the back plate off, cleaned the fans, and it performs like new again.

The 2015 rMBP can do some light modern gaming. I was able to run Prey (2017) just fine, as well as the new Disco Elysium.

Can the battery, RAM, and hard drive be serviced by the end user easily?

Mid 2014 mbp 13 here, you can easily service ssd and battery. Stuck with soldered ram.

RAM is soldered. SSD uses a proprietary connector - fortunately a low cost adapter is now available. Battery is glued to the chassis but there are removal kits available from iFixit which includes adhesive remover and new adhesive.

I've replaced my SSD with a new one using the adapter and it's working perfectly. It's about 2x as fast as the original drive.

It's not the best MacBook Pro by any stretch of the imaginative. I've also used a 2016 MBP and 2018 MBP both with Touch Bar and both are far superior.

Those were work devices and the 2015 is my personal device which I purchased due to cost. I've been very happy - it's running Catalina Beta perfectly and I've also run Window 10 using Bootcamp and recently have removed that and switched to Parallels running both W7 and W10.

I've replaced the battery and SSD on my 2015 15" MBP. SSD was very easy to replace. Battery replacement was very involved and took about two hours. It is doable if you're methodical.

“no Touch Bar” is listed as a con. I consider physical keys to be a pro.

Unless you want to use it on any flight, I've been flying a lot lately, with different airlines - every single one of them completely bans every 15" MacBook from 2015.

Indeed:

https://www.businessinsider.com/macbook-pro-banned-airlines-...

Do you actually own a 2015 and had it taken away?

I own a 2015 mbp and fly with it all the time - no issues. (flown probably 12 times since the ban, primarily United)

I can second this, I've brought my laptop on multiple flights after the ban and nobody cared. Amsterdam - Krakow with KLM and Dusseldorf - Moscow with Aeroflot and they all just accepted the laptop. Took it out of my bag at all airports except Amsterdam. (You don't have to take out your stuff from your bag anymore, you can also bring filled bottles of fluid)

I don't own a MacBook anymore, but I have seen people being asked to shut down their MacBooks during the flight a lot lately. Everything inside Europe, though.

If you haven’t done a fresh install since 2015, I highly recommend it. It will free up a lot of space and generally run better on a drive reformatted with APFS and fresh Mojave.

Yeah I haven’t. Does this mean not to restore with Time Machine? Instead move things over temporarily somewhere else, reformat and reinstall Catalina (I don’t have any issue with the 64 bit limit), then move data back?

That's what I ended up doing. I don't know Time Machine well enough to know if it would free up as much space on your drive.

My friend and I swear by these MBPs, but we disagree on updates I reliably update the firmware because I'm terrified of viruses. He, OTOH, _never_ updates, because he's afraid of planned obsolescence gradually bricking his machine. P.O. is no longer a tin foil hat thing, it's proven. But is he going about it the right way?

This article is utterly fucked on my phone. Content disappearing right off the edge of the viewport that you can’t scroll to.

Surprised - I thought it was going to be about MBPs that can run Mojava, the last good macOS. It's my understanding that new hardware isn't (generally) compatible with older OSes. Apple killing my legacy (32-bit) apps officially ended my love-affair with macOS - typing this on a Ubuntu laptop.

Your understand is incorrect. Catalina runs perfectly on my 2015 rMBP and can run on machines as old as MBA 2012.

Apple has been notifying developers for 3 macOS versions that 64bit applications would be deprecated. Do you really want to use software that a developer can't take the time to update it having several years notice?

In any event progress marches on. Apple isn't shy advancing their hardware and software deprecating old code. That's how the state of the art advances.

Funny that Apple is almost alway correct when they make these sorts of decisions.

>> Apple has been notifying developers for 3 macOS versions that 64bit applications would be deprecated.

And for 3 MacOS versions I’ve said when they enact this is when I jump ship.

>> Do you really want to use software that a developer can't take the time to update it having several years notice?

Yes, because I would like to use software I paid for.

Certain music plug-ins, utilities and games I have purchased won’t work.

The update removes value from the OS - greatly.

Your question effectively asks if you’d like to continue using something you paid for just because it’s several years old. Let’s say the company just went defunct so an update is out of the question, yes, if I paid for that software I’d still like to use it.

I will be hackintoshing, buying a Lenovo and gradually start my move to Ubuntu.

A windows version of that is a Razer Blade 15.

If you don't need the GPU another good option is the Dell Latitude 5400 (2019). I am loving the hell out of my higher tier model (8565u, 32gb ram, 1tb nvme).

Yeah it's a business laptop and not very pretty but that just means you can literally repair any part on it with only one or two sized Phillips head screwdriver. No having to remove fragile ribbon cables to upgrade RAM like on the razer blade :|.

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