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Comment by proveanegative | Hacker News Reader

I have question related to this issue. Which MacBook model, new, refurbished or used, should I buy if I want it to last as long as possible and be useful for doing OS X-specific programming tasks?

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2010 MBP were very good, 2011 MBP had the issues highlighted in the article, 2012 MBP seem to be ok.

2012 Retina MBP are generally good but have some known issues (eg LG display losing pixels). Mine's currently getting a bunch of things fixed which will probably end up being a new keyboard, logic board, and another LCD.

2013-2014 rMBP seem to have the 2012 issues fixed.

Airs are ok so long as you don't intend on flogging them. They can have overheating issues too.

I have a 2012 MBP (non retina). Never ever had any problems with it at all, runs cool and I compile all day long (C++). Not much gaming going on, but when I do (under Windows on it) it goes mental with the fans. It is the top i7 one with the dedicated nVidia GPU in it, but I have no complaints about it (so far).

EDIT: I must also state that it has a plethora of ports on it that are lacking on the retina models. Gigabit ethernet (with AVB for audio, hurray), Thunderbolt (or Mini DisplayPort for driving a screen/TV with audio over it for HDMI too) FireWire (for audio interfaces), two USB3 ports, SD slot, mic input, audio out (headphone or optical S/PDIF), button to indicate amount of battery remaining (so you don't have to turn it on to find out) and a DVDR/CD drive. Can't beat them in my opinion.

I chuckled observing the MacBook Air user with his bag of appendages for ethernet and powering a display. Sort of defeated having the super slim device!

Any that fits in your budget.

I've been running on MBPs since 2008 and never had one give up. (My oldest one still is running as a test device).

Girlfriend has a 2008 MB that I bought off Ebay, other than the hard drive dying (and giving me ample warning and time to replace first), it's had no problem. Since it's limited to 4GB RAM, it isn't really ideal for development, but she runs Photoshop and Illustrator on it (albeit, a bit slow for my taste).

I personally own a late 2011 MBP (same as the article, I believe) with 8GB RAM, also no problems, running a pretty standard development set up.

I have another 2012 MBP through work which is a bit beefed up, though still nothing fancy. Also no problems. Also manage a couple of 2010 Mac servers there which have been running steady since late 2010.

Oh, and none of these have SSDs. So, say what you will about non-SSD, they work well enough for development.

All in all, have to agree -- whatever fits your budget, at least in my personal experience, will work pretty well. I know that people do certainly have issues with them occasionally, but when I compare my luck with them to my luck with various other brands (Compaq, Dell, etc), they've lasted significantly longer with few or no problems.

If that's a 2008 MacBook that you have, it should be able to (unofficially) take at least 6GB RAM. I have a 2007 MacBook with 6GB RAM and I've never had any problems with the RAM upgrade (running Lion & Mountain Lion, at least). Try looking up your model number in the small print here:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/MacBook/DDR2/

I'd be interested in this as well - has Apple fixed this heat issue in the 2012 MacBook Pro (non-Retina) models that they still have on sale in the Apple Store?

I'm going to say MacBook Air - it runs cool equipped with solid-state components and integrated graphics. Whichever one you choose, make sure you get the SSD storage option, as it will run much cooler and simply perform better.

It amazes me that Apple still ships computers with spinning hard drives in 2014, let alone a laptop.

I have hard drives fail on me and SSDs fail on me at work. It is far easier to get data from a hard disk in the case of failure, which is why I still use disks at the moment. Of course, backups are a necessity in all occasions but I would rather trust a spinning platter than can be taken out of a defective hard disk (with a bust circuit board) and put in another disk than a bunch of chips on a board.

Anecdotal, but I've bought refurbished stuff a couple times and had to repeatedly replace logic boards and other parts. I probably wouldn't do that again.

Counter-anecdote-- my 2010 Macbook refurb is still running swimmingly after a couple upgrades.

I heard from my repair guy that the models after 2011 are much harder/more expensive to upgrade and repair.

As long as possible? Run OS X in a VM.

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