The best Intel MacBook Apple ever made?
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Recently, I went on a 16 day trip, and acquired a MacBook Pro from a friend as part of an unending quest to find a cheap laptop, small laptop that'll meet my travel needs.
/ dmug
If I were rich, I'd probably cart around an M2 MacBook Air and call it a day but as you may have guessed I am not. Instead I'm after the ultimate "Knock around" laptop. This a secondary computer, one if damaged, lost or stolen wouldn't be sorely missed. Thus, the ideal knock around laptop should be above all else, inexpensive, under $300 and probably closer to $200. It also should be small for portability, no larger than 13", and for me, it should run macOS.
I assume pretty much all of my viewers are familiar with these laptops but I decided to give context to the Retina MacBook Pros as the 2014-2015s are among the best of Apple's laptops they've ever made, in a short list of "best Apple laptops" from the last 25~ years, along with the 16" M1 Pro, 12 inch PowerBook G4, the MacBook Pro 2012, MacBook Air 2008.
The most pivotal Intel Mac? | Ultralight MacBook 12"
• The most pivotal Intel...
0:00 Intro
0:58 The Rundown of Retina Macs
3:17 The 13" MacBook Pro 2015
3:56 MacBook Pro 2015 vs MacBook 2017 and Benchmarks
5:25 Upgradeable SSDs
6:16 The cursed Touchbar Macs
6:56 MacBook Pro 2015 Pros and Cons
10:07 But is it beautiful?
12:23 Still usable today!
13:06 ...and it's not expensive
13:36 Thanks!
Credits:
Luke Miani - The Pro Display XDR from 18 years ago!
• The Pro Display XDR fr...
Locations:
Innsbruck, Austria
Val Gardena, Italy
Gimmelwald, Switerzland
Music by Me. - Věda a technologie
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It’s 2023 and we’re still praising the 2015 MacBook Pro lineup. Goes to show why loads of people skipped out on 2016-Apple Silicon. It’s so good I gave mine away to a young family member and he’s still enjoying it all these years later.
There are aftermarket USB-C to Magsafe 1 or 2 cables. I use multiple for years in order to travel with a UBB-C charger rather then the original because the cable regularly fails at the bend relief when tossed into a bagpack. Just be aware that those cables dont communicate USB-C power negotiation to the computer. If its a 65W Magsafe cable (most are) the computer will try to draw up to or a little over 65W weather the charger likes it or not. But with 87W or 96W Apple USB-C charger its not an issue.
was just going to suggest the same. they work fine. I use them with my 2011 and 2015 macbooks
Same here. Buying 85W new apple chargers was getting too expensive for my 2011, so bought one of these adapters and works perfectly with all of my laptop usbc adapters
Oh cool, never thought to search for one.
Good tip and information.
Most appreciated. 😊
.... and mine is arriving tomorrow :)
I just sold my 2015-15". I had it dual booting Monterey and Ventura with OCLP. It's a great machine. The fan noise is a little annoying but it handled everything I threw at it. Glad the person I sold it to can get alot of use out of it.
Yeah, I assume you upgraded to something considerably faster. Any M series MacBook runs circles around these guys. If I were rich, I'd just have a modern MacBook Air and call it a day.
I sold my 2015 - 15" to my buddy as well.
His family is enjoying it just like I did.
I hope they get years and years out of that PC.
I’m still using my 13in 2015 MacBook Pro for graphic design work and lighter video editing. It’s by far the best computer I’ve owned. The trackpad is perfect, there is something about the click and sound that I prefer over even the newer macs (used at work). I think the larger surface makes the artificial click a bit more “robotic”, but I’m nit picking. Also to anyone reading this, do yourself a favor and Listerine your screen to get the old peeling coating off (cool mint is what I used, lol), mine looks pristine and brand new! It’s careful and time consuming work but once it’s done you’ll love it.
My mid-2015 MacBook Pro is still my daily workhorse. After upgrading to a 2TB SSD and replacing the defective battery, it still feels fast after 8 years. Running Windows and Ubuntu Linux in Parallels is faster than my desktop PC. And with OpenCore Patcher, I’m up to date with MacOS Ventura.
Was the battery very difficult to replace? My wife keeps trying to convince me to get a new 14" MacBook Pro, but my 13" 2015 model is still going strong and I have a lot of thunderbolt 3 drives and accessories that I'd have to give up and repurchase. Plus only Intel Macs worth with eGPUs...
@@NeonPixels81It wasn’t difficult but it was time consuming because there are multiple battery packs that make up the full battery. The instructions were detailed and I strongly recommend following them exactly as written to prevent damage to the small ribbon connectors. Don’t try to shortcut the instructions and you’ll be fine.
That’s nice, but do realize that Monterey is the highest officially supported os and still has about 3 years of support. Personally I would just stick with Monterey and use the Ventura patcher once Monterey is out of support.
@@thedeadlygames9716 Yes, this is perfectly acceptable as long as apps continue to be supported under Monterey. Over time, app developers will deprecate support for Monterey so bug fixes and new features won’t be available. Of course, over time apps will drop support for Intel machines entirely so we’re living on borrowed time.
@@NeonPixels81By personal experience it's not hard but it's time consuming mainly because the very strong glue Apple chose to use. Like took me 30 minutes to removed the battery and than it took me easily 3 hours to clean the leftover glue residue.
It would be awesome if someone designed an M1 or M2 upgrade board for the 2015.
I use my unibody mid-2012 15” MBP with an upgraded airport card, 2x SSDs, 16GB RAM, HiRes Display, and OpenCore running Big Sur. The king of TB1, non-Retina, unibody MacBooks.
One day I’ll fork over some $ for a 2015 MBP With the AMD R9 M370X just to add to the collection as the king of TB2 Retina MacBooks.
HiRes Display? Did you dump in a different panel? I haven't paid much attention to the 2012s.
@@dmug the mid-2012 had an option of a 1680-by-1050 “HiRes” display instead of the standard 1440-by-900 one. I managed to find one of those HiRes displays in good condition and swapped out the one on my project 15” with it. There is indeed a surprisingly visual difference between both.
Fantastic video brother. I have a 2015 pro. So I appreciate your appreciation for this device lol
You need more subs and views man! I really enjoyed this video, it was very well made ❤
Agreed! These are still incredibly usable great Macs
I was lugging a MBP daily to the Starbucks near my work for years. I love it because it didn't cost me too much and was able to run all the apps and surf the Internet with no issue. And I don't need to worry about losing that laptop or accidently spilling on it.
These are high quality laptops. The only I did was add more ram, get a 512GB SSD for $40. Got a case so that I don't scratch it up but that add a little extra weight and I heard that it causes issues for the screen hinges because of the weight and not close properly.
I love my 15” MacBook Pro. It was the top specked machine at the time. My wife uses it as her day to day machine for a lot of music and video editing. The only problems have been a failed speaker and a swollen battery which I decided to replace rather than discard the machine. The upgradable SSD is a real bonus. Great machine.
Yeah the “spicy pillow” battery is not fun.
You can actually get USB-C charging cables for MagSafe 1 and 2, the brick just has to be able to support the required PD protocols.
Great video. I’m exactly the same and have an 11 inch 8GB MBA I bought for £200, a MacBook 12 2016 m5 I’ve had since launch and my MacBook Pro 2015 15 mx370x you mentioned how now hit the point where it’s hit knockabout/travel laptop price point. Like you I’ve got an M1 Max but wouldn’t want to travel with it for a holiday.
My sister has this MacBook and she is loving it. The only probem with this is the antiglare coating is coming off easily. Overall it is a great computer.
I built a Frankenstein-ed MacBook Pro 13" Early 2011 with 2012 parts inside. Used to be slow with a swollen battery and a mechanical hard disk drive, but now it's a beast. Maxed out RAM, the wireless card, speaker, and microphone scrapped from a broken mid 2012 MacBook Pro, and a 480GB SSD. It lasted me throughout my final year of high school, now I use it as a portable Minecraft device, and device to dump and edit photos on when I'm away from home, even though my iPad packs more power than my MacBook, but the iPad can't play Minecraft Java, and doesn't have an SD card slot.
What a machine!
Love it.
Had the first Force Touch 13 inch version during my high school years.
Absolutely loved it.
Still have my 2015 13” , it runs a bit warm esp compared to my m1 mbp. However there is something magical about it for sure , that’s why I still have it in my stable
Great video dude. New subscriber ✌🏻
I got a mid 2015 13” pro with 8gb of ram and an i7 for $75, I swapped in a 1tb SSD and have it running Sonoma and Debian 12, I’m sad it’s only a dual core but it runs alright, especially for the price.
I loved my 2015 mpb 15”. Keyboard did have some issues with crumbs etc. Worked for 3 years after spilling a coke on it. 😮 But def not dissatisfied with my 16” 2022 MBP. Now iTunes and music management is a completely different issue. Apple has totally messed up that whole ecosystem. Their relentless greed with app developers is prolly gonna cost security issues going forward. So I wouldn’t be surprised if another actor moves or attempts to move into the niche market that Apple used to occupy.
I have this model and it's running great.
I’m convinced!!
I have the same 2015 13 inch except for an i5 2.7 ghz processor...in prettty good shape and still performs well. Upgraded the SSD and put a new battery in it.
I am using an old 12” MacBook and found it ok - but I did open it up and added thermal pads between the hotter components and the case to help it cool and throttle less.
You know that’s a good point, 2017 starting to be a long time ago and certainly logging up at the thermal paste is probably baked. I think you gave me a video idea. Any recommended pads and which components did you cool?
My company Xapple has a model of laptop based on this design with AMD Ryzen 8000 28W CPUs and RTX 3000 Graphics. It also comes in an 11.6 inch and all components are user upgradeable! It even comes with both an optical drive and floppy drive! There are newer models with 14th gen intel CPUs based on the Apple silicon model case but fully upgradeable
Still using my 2015 even spoiled it with a new battery and an OWC 2TB drive. Mine is the rare Radeon version. Fans do get noisy when running newest photoshop.
Used my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina 15 inch until earlier this year.
Too bad that you could not upgrade the RAM by yourself cause finding a 16Go config for a decent price is not easy (at least in France) and I mentioned that cause I would like to upgrade my mid 2012 MacBook Pro for a Retina.
MacBook Pro Retina 13" 2014 i7 here.
Still a great machine!
I do really miss the glowing apple logo. However, they do kind of also feel like a big sign that says "hey, come steal me!"
I had this 13” the 3.1 ghz i7. used it for years, but staingate was a problem and also the fans became super noisy overtime, even after repasting too annoyingly
I agree with you about 2015 Macbooks. I am broke youtuber who uses an early 2015 macbook air for editing my content. Even though the fans can be loud sometimes, it ia able to do my work!
That exact machine has been my daily driver since I bought it off the Apple refurbished site in 2016. I was looking at the new TB MacBook Pros, but dropping MagSafe and USB-A made it a hard no.
I kept holding off through the keyboard debacle, and eagerly looked forward to the new M1 machines that were rumoured to bring back the MagSafe. “Now I can finally retire my trusty Early 2015”
And then… Notch
Still rocking the old A1502
I used a 2015 MBP 15" for years until a couple of months ago when I switched to an M2 MBA 15". It was a warrior
It's amazing how badly Apple dropped the ball when it came to the touchbar Macs. I had a work provided 2017 15" and didn't even ask to be upgraded until the M1 Pro 16" was released.
I had the 15inch 2015 too. It was awesome. Then the 2017…the keyboard omg so bad. No real ESC button. Then 16inch 2019 i9 and yeah back on track.
Looks like Switzerland/Austria/Northern Italy, hope you had a nice time :) I do still sometimes use my old 2015 MBA but it's screen def makes it feel oder than a Pro. :
Damn spot on, must me someone I know ;)
I agree if MacBook Pro Retina since 2012 was a thing. I feel like I almost everytime seeing that boy 😅
VERY enjoyable History lesson Greg!! and yes i agree. i still favour my 2,2Ghz i7 15" Macbook pro 2015 over the others i have😍💻💻💻💻
Thanks, and yeah, just a great laptop.
I appreciate yopur candor as well as your content Greg. Im typing this on a 5,1 after selling my 16" i9 while it had some value in t last year. Question Doug, I bought and sold a M1 base mini after not liking the speed linited to the 8gb RAM. That experience taught me that we need to buy large RAM for SoC to be a good value. With SoC macbook Airs and M1 Pros coming down on price, What is your selection for a used Macbook anything on SoC? Value and convenience for those of us that just use our notebooks when away from our desktops but dont want to suffer horrible resolutiuon or speed when making minor edits on DaVinci and he like on the go? I'd love your opinion on what is the Macbook for the rest of uswho put our dollars in desktop power? Thank you for everything you do! @@dmug
I just upgraded from my MBP 15" mid-2015 to a MBP 16" M2 Max 2023. The MBP 16" M2 Max is the first Mac I've seen Apple release, that is an actual upgrade from the 2015 series.
Even if there's a lot of the typical Apple BS around repairs and upgrades for the Apple Silicon Macs, having a work provided M1 Pro and a personal M1 Max, they're a return to form. I waited out for a complete redesign and used a MacBook 2017 for 4 years for work and glad I did. I've yet to use an M2 yet but do wish I had the M2's ability to drive 8k as at some point I'd like to just go to a single 8k display.
For some reason I haven’t seen your vids in my feed for a while. I know you did a lot of power Mac videos. Did you ever do any vids on dual booting os 9/x on the ‘unsupported’ macs like the g4 mdd? I’m having a devil of a time getting this to work, even with the macos9lives disc that everyone says works. Can you list some of your linked videos? Thanks!
Same issue
Bought a Max spec dedicated gpu mid 2015 (I belive the only thing that wasn't maxed out was storage since it came with 512gb) back in 2021 for around 600 euros and I have to say it's an amazing machine. Since then I had to replace one speaker (since this models were notorious for their speakers going bad), change the ssd for a much faster 2tb one and change the battery (btw F apple for using what seems to be glue that's used in skyscrapers and airplane windows for holding a laptop battery!!! It took me HOURS, HOURS TO REMOVE ALL THE Residue smh). Only downside is that my display is suffering from the anti glare coating issue that was prominent with these models (thankfully mine is not a bad case of it since it's mostly around the webcam with very little being in the actual screen) but overall terrific machine very pleased with it!!
purchased one with 8g and 2.7mz core i5 Jan 24 off eBay for about $180 with shipping. I put a 1tb ssd in it and it's great.
The last upgradable storage in the Macbook was in 2017, of course it was a proprietary module, but it is easily upgraded
Can’t recall what I said, but if I wasn’t clear the pros ditched the upgradability in 2016, whereas the Air held onto upgradability until the retina models in 2018.
I think there's two ways to grade a "Best ever": from the perspective of present time, or for the specific time that it was sold. Generally, if you look at the perspective a present time, it's usually the current model. If we are to grade based on the present time it was sold, I would say that the pre-retina, unibody MacBook Pros were the best ever made. That's mostly because, they did absolutely everything they needed to do at the time, they did it better than just about anything else out there, and anything better than what came before it, pre-dated the dongle madness that Apple has forced upon us starting with the 2012 MBPs, and all of its major components were serviceable (memory, storage, and battery). I would give the 2012 to 2015 retina MacBook Pros second place, but would want to note that the 2014s and 2015s (and I think the 2013s as well), had major screen delamination issues. The 2015, while being the pinnacle of the pre-USB-C retina MacBook Pro, I've had to have over 100 of these serviced for inflated batteries, and dozens for screen delamination. There is a point at which we were sending at least one laptop out a month for repair.
I still say the king is the 17” 2011 2.2ghz since it has express card / PCMCIA card slot. Can connect add. external display, tempo SATA 6GB, add storage. Also this is dirt cheap now days
Plus you get the last device with a glowing Apple logo, lets goooo
What is that game called? 13:14
The impossibility to upgrade the RAM on my Macbook Pro 2015 led me to completely swap the logic board. For how much I feel infuriated about soldered RAM and about the SSD format, It is surprising how good this laptop and OS still are 9 years after release. I think, it is perfect for students: not as expensive as new ones, fast, has an incredible display and, with some minor tinkering, it can dual boot other OS (if you ever feel the need, MacOS still feels incredible, although there are no longer security updates). The only downside I can think about this pc are the Thunderbold ports the left side, but, I mean, they are there and adapter can be bought.
Personally, I use it for study and programming, but I know about people who still use it for video editing. I don't think I will ever buy another Apple product in my life (as long as I can't easily upgrade RAM or SSD), but as a laptop I can't reccomend this Macbook enough.
In the watch nerd world, this is what we would call a "beater" watch.
9:01 Totally agree with you. My current laptop is an ASUS TUF gaming that is not cheap at all and the trackpad is what you expect for a windows machine, even my girlfriend's 2009 MacBook Pro feels much better and gives you a lot of gestures and control compared to my laptop.
I feel like there has to be a Windows laptop that comes close at this point but I don't handle a lot of PCs and the ones I do, the trackpads are always disappointing, even ones with good keyboards.
The 12in MacBooks were severely underpowered, no matter which year you look at.
Didn’t the 2017 intel chip run hot and thermal throttle really bad!
I’m taking my late 2013 15” MBP and turning it into a server as I type this. Gonna try to upgrade to the latest unofficial macOS I can install.
Should work pretty well with Sonoma, although Monterey is more of a layup
@@dmug it’s on Sonoma now, so far so good. Had to come to Best Buy a few towns over, only place that had Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter. I’ll test the network connection when I get home.
Install Linux on your old intel macs, so much faster and up to date. Got two Mac Pros desktop with 2 Xeons in each, running Linux Mint and Big Linux. Such a relief compare to old now unsupported Mac OSes they were stuck with.
I still use MBP 13 2013 😅.
My daily first computer is a 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro alongside my 2010 Mac Pro. I love it. I changed the battery at Apple one year and a half ago (they also changed the top case/keyboard for free). My screen is losing the anti-reflection layer a little bit, but that doesn't appear when the screen is on. It's a really good computer. It starts to be a bit slow with modern usage (I use voice scripting software - Macwhisper - for documentary film work, which is very slow), but still 100% usable. I will keep using it as long as Apple provides security updates for Monterey. After that, we'll see. Maybe it's time to switch to an Apple M2... Thinking of an M2 15-inch MacBook Air, which is closer in terms of screen size (14 inches is too small, and 16 inches is too big)....
By the way, I heard somewhere that changing the SSD drive of this 2015 MacBook Pro for an NVME can lead to some problems with OS updates... Is that true? Many thanks.
I've heard that too but never had an issue myself. I don't see anything in a quick google search but could be a few models that are problematic.
I had an M1 Air for a bit but needed more than 16 GB of RAM and two displays. Even the M1 Air ran circles around any other laptop I had used. The M2 Air looks amazing and I don't thnk you can go wrong if you don't need more than one external display.
@@dmug I found all the infos in the world regarding NVME updates for the 2015 MacBook Pro. there is an enormous thread on Macrumours forum - Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
There's an issue where the MacOS refuses to install because it can't detect the original drive, but there's a work around. First, don't get rid of your 2015 drive. Install the latest version of the OS with your original drive installed. This will install the necessary firmware. After it's installed, you can switch over to your third-party drive.
I am willing to buy one. I am not a Mac expert. What about the battery reliability for a 9 years old laptop. Is it possible to swap it if needed and at what price ?
ifixit has repair guides, check them as I’ve yet to swap the battery on this, MacBook Air 2015 and it took only minutes. As far as price, check, the usual places like amazon.com or local e-trailer.
Can you post where you got the adapter for the m.2 on the macbook?
Amazon or Newgg there a bunch of them search ngff to m2 adapter
Thanks! @@dmug
The non-Touch Bar MacBook Pros from 2016-2017 have replaceable SSDs. They're proprietary, but replaceable.
If you are comfortable desoldering and reprogramming the NANDs then sure, step 8 and 9, as the controller and the NANDs are separate
www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+MacBook+2016+Teardown/62149
Except for staingate
that is what we call a throwbook
How and where to buy MacBook retina with touchbar cheapest price refurbished😅
eBay? Facebook Marketplace? Craigslist (Does anyone still use it?) Last I checked the Touchbar Macs were still floating around $50-75 above the 2015s although I bet now they go for $300 for the low end models.
And it also supports 3 external displays
W youtuber!!
watching this on a 2012 MacBook Pro retina
Nice, I had a 2013 MacBook Pro Retina so I never really used the 2012. I assume it's still holding up fine?
@@dmug yep just needed a ssd upgrade and still surprisingly the og battery hasn't bloated and like can sleep for days in a row and work of battery doing daily for like the entire day
the i7 early 2015 13'' has gone rare and more $$ on eBay. hmmmm. ;).
I imagine that has to do with more popular youtubers like Luke M than me.
I finally snagged one, 120$; not bad. @@dmug
I don’t understand why apple phones don’t come standard with a Apple light up logo
2012 macbook pro is my knockaround....
Yep, I imagine that's going to be the more common answer and it's the other loved Intel Macbook since so many people ended up ditching the optical drives for a secondary HDDs and later SSDs. The biggest thing working against them (besides age) is mostly the displays became soooo much better when they went to Retina displays that it's hard for me personally to go back.
I'dsay that 2008-2012 stretch is still the best era for the Macs.
@@dmugI still use an i5 2012 with 2tb (2- 1tb) SSDs and 16gb ram. It runs Ventura through oclp, and Windows 10 in boot camp. Still very capable
@@dmug Very true ! Hey ...you ever set up a raid 0 array with your old MacBook pro ,taking out the optical drive ,and using 2 SSD's ? I bet it would scream ! Should I try it ?
@@memsom Cool ! Are your drives in a raid 0 striped array ?
@@LukeSchneiderEWI RAID0 is basically unsupported for a boot drive under modern macOS, you can get it to boot or at least on Mac Pros but it basically breaks if you update macOS. Not really recommended.
please DO talk about non-removable storage on current Mac models (and how its beyond inconvenient,... its unethical!) We need to spread the word about this... thanks!
Oh boy, do I ever… my two biggest videos are about that.
Lenovo x270 is awesome
i have a 370 Yoga, also an early 2014 and a 2020 Macbook Air.... Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga is just so much better in pretty much every aspect.
I’m at the group of folks who actually prefer the 2015’s keyboard as I just migrated from one of these to the 2021 14”. The 2021 MBP just feels too shallow and table-ish to me, while the 2015 sported the right amount of travel with pretty good response time. I wish they never abandoned this amazing design.
I had some distance going from the dreaded butterfly to the MacBook Pro m1 scissor, so I think the transition made me prefer the tighter new keyboard to the older 2012-2015s. It’s a pretty mild preference though. I imagine had I not had the butterfly for years I’d been less enthused by the new keyboard.
Iphone since Iphone 8 are overly overkill
Nonsense the best intel MacBook Pro had the 10 generation Intel in the 2022 MacBook Pro 13" is the best intel MacBook ever made. And that did not come in a 16" form factor.
First
Well I watched for the title, yet you just makes an history of the Intel macbook which we already know! Cool to credit @lukemiani as he does make cool videos for years now. Intel macs were a mistake but the best one is 2012 model! That's what you should tell in this video. For sure now they are cheap to buy and you can still upgrade them but you can't go higher than 16gs of Ram which is nowadays not enough. SIlicon Macs are what macs was and should be but yeah it's solded...
wsg im subscribed