About to pull the trigger to replace my 13" i5 Toshiba laptops

I have a couple of i5 Toshiba Portege R835 laptops. I bought them used for good prices and have been pretty happy with them. Magnesium alloy case, fairly light, etc. A good value at the time.

But one of them has a noisy fan, both of them max out at 8GB of RAM, they don't have lighted keyboards, and in general it's time to move on.

We've got 3 MacBook Pros here - a couple of 2012 and one a little earlier. They have been good machines. They max out at 16GB, and the CPUs are a few generations behind, but they are generally fine and can run macOS Mojave. Newer MBPs have soldered RAM and some have glued-in HDs, so the mid-2012 is the last of the easily-upgradeable ones.

We're on Win10 at work, on a Domain that does snooping and updating in the background at weird (and usually inconvenient) times. There are noises about Win10 being locked down even more in the future (but no comparable noises that I've seen for Linux or Macs). We've had Macs at home for years, and J has been using a Mac for decades, but I've never used one as my primary machine. I'm going to see how it goes here at home and consider moving to a Mac at work. LInux is still too big a jump for me at present.

I've thought about putting together a frankenclone macOS box here at home, but everytime I look at TonyMac it still looks too scary for recent, fast hardware. I don't have time for another time-sink at the moment.

MacOfAllTrades has i7 2012 MBPs in "Excellent" condition for $650. Expedited shipping brings the total to $1334. 90 day warranty.

16 GB x 2 + 1 TB SSD x 2 from Amazon = $574. (+ tax)

Total = $1908 for 2 upgraded MBPs. It would be very easy to spend that much on a single new PC laptop (or MBP!).

My credit card statement just rolled over, so the bill won't be due until December. Perfect timing! ;-)

Just pulled the trigger. We'll see how it goes...

Cheers,
Scott.

And it does a lot with the disk, so an SSD is pretty much mandatory these days.

$650 feels to me like a lot of money for a six-year-old machine, but it's a good machine for its time - all the ports, a still-useful processor, magsafe, etc. All this stuff is still relevant today.

However the 1280x800 resolution would be an instant dealbreaker for me. Can you live with that?

In your position, I'd go for the 2013 model, which gets you a "retina" (i.e. high-resolution) display.

https://www.macofalltrades.com/apple-macbook-pro-13-inch-2-4ghz-core-i5-retina-late-2013-me864ll-a-3/

I can't tell you with confidence that 8GB is enough RAM, or that 128GB is enough storage - but I'd still chance my arm to get the high density display.

Post #425,975 by Another Scott 10/20/18 11:16:41 AM 10/20/18 11:16:41 AM Reply	About to pull the trigger to replace my 13" i5 Toshiba laptops I have a couple of i5 Toshiba Portege R835 laptops. I bought them used for good prices and have been pretty happy with them. Magnesium alloy case, fairly light, etc. A good value at the time. But one of them has a noisy fan, both of them max out at 8GB of RAM, they don't have lighted keyboards, and in general it's time to move on. We've got 3 MacBook Pros here - a couple of 2012 and one a little earlier. They have been good machines. They max out at 16GB, and the CPUs are a few generations behind, but they are generally fine and can run macOS Mojave. Newer MBPs have soldered RAM and some have glued-in HDs, so the mid-2012 is the last of the easily-upgradeable ones. We're on Win10 at work, on a Domain that does snooping and updating in the background at weird (and usually inconvenient) times. There are noises about Win10 being locked down even more in the future (but no comparable noises that I've seen for Linux or Macs). We've had Macs at home for years, and J has been using a Mac for decades, but I've never used one as my primary machine. I'm going to see how it goes here at home and consider moving to a Mac at work. LInux is still too big a jump for me at present. I've thought about putting together a frankenclone macOS box here at home, but everytime I look at TonyMac it still looks too scary for recent, fast hardware. I don't have time for another time-sink at the moment. MacOfAllTrades has i7 2012 MBPs in "Excellent" condition for $650. Expedited shipping brings the total to $1334. 90 day warranty. 16 GB x 2 + 1 TB SSD x 2 from Amazon = $574. (+ tax) Total = $1908 for 2 upgraded MBPs. It would be very easy to spend that much on a single new PC laptop (or MBP!). My credit card statement just rolled over, so the bill won't be due until December. Perfect timing! ;-) Just pulled the trigger. We'll see how it goes... Cheers, Scott.
Post #425,976 by a6l6e6x 10/20/18 1:01:10 PM 10/20/18 1:01:10 PM Reply	Good luck! Updating to SSD drives is really useful! Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #425,987 by pwhysall 10/22/18 2:41:24 AM 10/22/18 2:41:24 AM Reply	macOS lurves de RAM And it does a lot with the disk, so an SSD is pretty much mandatory these days. $650 feels to me like a lot of money for a six-year-old machine, but it's a good machine for its time - all the ports, a still-useful processor, magsafe, etc. All this stuff is still relevant today. However the 1280x800 resolution would be an instant dealbreaker for me. Can you live with that? In your position, I'd go for the 2013 model, which gets you a "retina" (i.e. high-resolution) display. https://www.macofalltrades.com/apple-macbook-pro-13-inch-2-4ghz-core-i5-retina-late-2013-me864ll-a-3/ I can't tell you with confidence that 8GB is enough RAM, or that 128GB is enough storage - but I'd still chance my arm to get the high density display.
Post #425,991 by Another Scott 10/22/18 10:18:43 AM 10/22/18 10:18:43 AM Reply	The LCD is fine. We can plug it into an external monitor if it ever becomes an issue. Thanks.

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