Ranking EVERY Intel MacBook on how long it will last. 

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

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.

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.

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.

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 RU-vid 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.

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

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

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.

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

my 2010 iMac is running windows 11 as my gaming machine to this day.

Excellent content

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

Been binge watching all of your videos. You definitely deserve more subs. Any chance of doing a video on what pre-M1 MacBook is best for Windows gaming?

I have a 2012 mba and you were pretty spot on about how it will last lol, I use it daily on boot camp for work as an engineer even and I can run some heavy projects in autocad with no problem, I'm quite surprised how long it lasted, although from time to time it stops working and randomly comes back to life after a few days lol

Great video!

My 2013 15" MBPr is still going strong, now serving as my home server in my garage with a couple DAS from OWC holding my Lightroom photo library and and a few other drives holding my home videos and movies.

*Watching on a mid 2015 15" MacBook Pro*... Love watching this- thank you! I really do love my Mac. The only reason I would need to get a new one is if this one just didnt function correctly any more- I dont do anything intense these day, just basic browsing and watch copious amounts of youtube! However, I am concerned that it will no longer receive security updates from around October this year (I think!?). When the time comes, would like to attempt OpenCore, but that makes me nervous and there art any videos demonstrating updating a 2015" MacBook Pro specifically, if that makes sense (I think this machine needs to grab the kdk directly and plug it into the router or something .... edit, just checked and i dont think my machine does. Mine is a MacBookPro11,4) and it just makes me nervous in general! Thank you so much! Loved this!

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.

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.

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).

Great video.

I have a 2017 Air 13” i7/16gb/512gb. I bought it new in 2018 from their old stock knowing they’ll never make a better laptop again and at least this one is serviceable. It still works 7 years later and has very low battery cycles. I installed 11 over the entire SSD. When I can’t get parts for it anymore, I’ll upgrade to the Framework.

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

Have the base varient 2019 13 inch MBP and glad to stay its going strong...

Thank you for making this video. I'm still holding onto my water damaged 2014 Macbook pro. It doesn't work. I have to get it fixed. I miss that machine....

I have the 2020 13” mbp with the high wattage i5 and 32gb ram with 512gb. Machine is incredible. Runs bootcamp and honestly never had any desire for any M series just yet. Maybe an m6

I have a 2013 MacBook Air, been using it with mavericks till now with chromium legacy (yes, that’s all u need to make mavericks usable), but I am going to upgrade to the 2013 pro since it will be very usable with OCLP

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.

Familiar MacBook Air design was introduced in 2010 during their October event. They also showed a sneak peak of Mac App Store and OS X Lion during the same press event. MacBook Air was originally introduced in 2008 as a first MacBook to introduce “unibody” design. But in 2010 design was changed. It no longer had sliding out door for usb port like original MacBook Air in 2008. So since 2010 up until 2018 MacBook Air did had same design. On 2018 MacBook Air was finally updated with retina screen (took them awful long to do that). The same MacBook Air design since 2018 was used for their very first M1 machine (+ at the same event they introduced M1 MacBook Pro 13” although they also still continued to sell intel based MacBook Pro 13” with 4 usb-c ports right along with it)

im currently using a mid 2014 macbook pro 13 inch and its actually awesome

I'd suspect a lot of the GPU issues on older Macs are related to the thermal paste applied on manufacture disintegrating after a decade or so of use. Thermal paste starts to fall apart after about 6 years. Other aspect not covered in this video is the various revisions of the butterfly keyboard. In either 2017 or 2018 it was redesigned with a barrier to stop debris falling into the key switches, which had caused all the issues on early versions of the butterfly keyboard. As a boring individual who used to build & sell intel NUC hackintoshes, I'd also like to see more attention paid to speaker quality in MacBook reviews generally. A 2019 16 inch and the earlier 15 inch models (or any 13 inch macbooks) are totally incomparable machines when listening to music or watching movies.

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).

Great video! Intel mac's are unfortunately on the countdown the day M1 was announced. Looking forward to more videos!

Very interesting video

Got Big Sur running on my white macbook 2010 unibody using opencore. 2.4ghz Core 2 duo with 8gb ram. Works reasonably well for browsing and watching videos. Programs (Chrome, zoom etc...) runs faster if I load everything in ram with tmpdisk.

Still remember my first Mac was 2011 and it dead due to graphic. Still remembered a lawyer from which states I forgotten. He launched lawsuit on Apple. Some got reimbursed some can send to nearest Apple Store to get repaired.

14:40 you forget to mention that a lot of m1 with 8gb dies because apple decided to share the ram when it gets full with the ssd storage chips. However the SSD lifespan decreased by up to 10x more and that happend on a lot of machines where the ssd storage chips are failing.

I'd love to see a desktop version of this! I have a 2014 Mac mini and am still using it as a secondary machine to do long-term projects alongside my M1 Pro 16"

I am dual-booting Linux and macOS 12 on my MacBook Air 7,2 and so far Linux runs like a DREAM on it

2013 macbook pros are the best option to buy for regular use or a 2012 retina

All seems to make sense, my 13' 2012 (1tb SSD +16gb ram) is fine for simple tasks, but recording and editing in the daw stops working after a dozen of tracks and final cut just takes forever to bounce a small video...I don't see it making to 2025 unless just using for browsing

i use a 13inch 2012 mac book pro running mac os ventura and windows 10 with a 500gb ssd, this is my first mac book pro. i am 14 by the way so i think it will last for a long time to come even if in the future i just use it as a windows 10 machine. the only downside is that the battery has 460 cycles.

i got a 2019 16 inch pro and im running linux on it, its a gaming beast but i got the 4gb of vram option so that is limiting me a bit. Also really want to upgrade from 16gb of ram to 32gb and upgrade my vram to 8gb but well its apple

The 2017 12” MacBook is still the perfect MacBook. So extremely portable, and runs Windows well on Bootcamp. The i5 and i7 models are pretty fast still for basic office tasks and even iMovie. Should last for another two years, until 2026. I hope they release another super portable MacBook by then, they could easily have fitted a 13” screen in that magical tiny chassi.

Going to buy 2019 mbp 16 inch i9.confused if i should take 16 or 64 gb ram.i want to use it for normal daily tasks,video editing,using bootcamp windows mainly for gaming like gta,valorant,lol,minecraft etc., what ram option would you recommend?

my dad still uses his 2008 macbook and is working just fine but my 6yro windows starting to slow down really bad

I'm glad my 2015 15" MBP still has good things to talk about.

I am having early 2008 macbook running snow leopard i don't use it and i upgrade to macbook pro 2012 both are 13 inch as you said sonoma will be it last update for 2012 model so we can have up to 2026 security updates only.

My mid-2019 15-inch MacBook Pro with an 8 Core i9 processor is still going strong. I replaced it last year with a 14-inch M2 Max MacBook Pro. Comparing the two Macs, their performance on most tasks is comparable. The M2 Max is a lot more powerful, but the Core i9 can still handle graphics and processor heavy tasks very well. If I had not bought the M2 Max MacBook Pro last year, I would still be OK. Maybe Apple will stop supporting my Intel MacBook Pro when they release the next macOS this year. I have renewed the AppleCare on it twice so it's still under warranty.

I am using MacBook Pro Touch Bar edition bought in 2018 February and still using battery is gone using through plug

i have a 2009 macbook pro 13" and its only really good for doing legacy things which is why i got it. even though it has alot of support with opencore legacy i installed big sur just to see how it would be. aside from basic web browsing its almost unusable because half of the CPU alone is being used to just render the desktop. not only that it gets hot quick even with the fans at max speed. so yeah dont recommend a 2009 unless you need something cheap that can run mountain lion

Which one is better? Air 2015 or 2017? What do you think? With the same 8gb ram / ssd 128gb 👍 thanks in advance, your content is so great since the timeline is really easy to understand 🙌

Brother I’m planning on getting the last intel, (2020 mackbook pro 32gb ram/ 512 or 1tb ssd, i want to buy because of the intel so i can run the windows os on that, planning of using it for 3 years and later switch to a high performance Microsoft laptop, I currently use the surface book 3 which i bought immediately it came out, but it’s running so slow when I’m multitasking,, i think the mac pro 2020 will be cool, i do not like mac os that much, or you suggest i get the m2 or m3 mac

Are you saying that air 2017 will last longer than air 2018? Because right now i’m thinking about buying one of them. Thanks for the video! :)

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.

I use a 2009 white plastic Macbook for day to day web browsing etc. Its patched to run macOS Sonoma, has an SSD and 6GB RAM. Runs fine. Not fast, but for basic tasks it's fine.

Forgot to mention teh speakers, just want to add that the speakers in M1 air is... something. I mean its crystal clear but the low bass are so low i need an eq to balance it out and it would still sound inferior compared to MacBook pros.

I would argue that the 2011 MacBook Pro was still very upgradeable. I had 512gb SSD and 16gb of RAM installed since 2015 and it is still plenty quick for moderate tasks. My daily, until I get an M chip MBP, is a 2018 and the 2011 can keep up with 90% of normal workloads.

I am still using my 2014 macbook Air

Watchinh it with my i7 2011 mbp pro (ps: the gpu is working fine. No problem at all). It comes with dual graphics. If the main dies...you have the intel integrates to expand the lifetime of the machine. It is one of the best.

Made me grin to see a clip of my 2016 MacBook Pro video in there!! Awesome content; I thoroughly enjoyed this video and think you have a definite knack for understanding these Macs. I just had a 2016 Pro 13” and was running Sonoma with OpenCore on it; and it was a pain with the base 2.0GHz cpu and 8GB RAM. I needed to wait a couple of minutes after boot up for it to be truly useable; and that wasn’t fun. I think these MacBooks run a lot better when they’re running the OS Apple officially supports; which makes sense. Thanks again for the great vid!

I run an i5 2012 unibody 13 inch macbook pro on windows 10, with an ssd and at least 8Gb of ram. The laptop is HELLA zippy, i'm even confident to get windows 11 on it once theres enough optimisations! Amazing buy, feels like it will last another 10 years.

My 2011 15 inch MBP is still chugging along, GPU still without a glitch! I guess I just got super lucky, or I managed to use it without overheating it...😅

Intel macbooks are definetly quite a weird thing, I have an macbook air 2017 with 8 gigs of ram and an 128gb ssd, sadly it died on me last month (it won’t boot on, some call it the black screen of death) and I sadly can’t play most of the old save files I have on games there (especially gzdoom), for now I sadly have that macbook air just siitting on my shelf (it’s the only pc I have sadly)

I'm thinking of getting a Mac Mini 2018 for 250. Worth it?

The switch to Intel CPUs made me buy my first Apple Laptop in the late 2000s. Several Apple-specifics made me return to Windows. Just to return to an M1 macbook air in 2021. That CPU was a real game-changer. I would even buy a recent mac mini, they are amazing value for the money. But I just don't need it, it actually makes me sad....

Apple upped the game with the in house chips....the intel ones just weren't anything special except for build quality. The 2015's are ones that come to mind along with a 2017 non touchbar model that you can still upgrade somewhat.

I would like to try using a macbook, but I already have an EliteBook 840G5 with more i/o, which I don’t really want to sell. But can’t justify spending a lot of money for the comparable performance with 840g5. What a fucking “first world” problem)))

2019 16" user here, guess this machine will last until 2026

I had a '19 base model Pro and it was a damn oven... 1400€ msrp

I liked the silver bezels

Hi, thanks for your useful comments! A neighbour of mine is selling a Macbook Pro 13" from 2011, High Sierra 10.13.6, Intel HD 3000 512Mb, 2.3Ghz Intel Core i5, 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3. Selling for 150€ (the battery needs replacing). I'm thinking of buying a cheap computer for the kids, to start learning to type and do research on Internet. I'd like it to last for a few years. Do you reckon this would be a good buy? thanks so much for your help!

Do a video on surface laptopa in the same format.

I have a 2015 11-inch MacBook Air with 4GB of DDR3, and a 2.7GHz Core i5. It's not bad, but I really want a brand new M3 Pro MacBook Pro.

Watching on a mid 2012 15" unibody patched on sonoma.

dude... my maxed out 2015 MP 15" has no chance of 2026. That thing was shitting itself trying to play any RU-vid videos in 2021. My M3 Max 16" doesn't even put off heat compared to that 2015 MP.

I'd much rather get a ThinkPad T480 for $200... Upgradable to 64GB RAM and has quad-core processors in a 14" chassis. Indestructible compared to macbooks, even more upgradable than a Framework 13, has official Windows 11 support (if you're into this), and can be turned into a Hackintosh to run macOS (if you're into this [2]). Heat is not a problem, and the battery life is fantastic due to extended batteries.

FYI your silent tactic of showing your cat on the video to attract subscribers just worked

I bought a 2017 macbook air, it is my fisrt macbook, I'd say I'm comfortable with it, I only need it for college tho, so I think I'm gonna upgraded it to Ventura and call it a day till 2025 then get rid of it

Respectfully, the problem with this type of video is "usable" is too subjective. Example; I'm watching this vid on a 2009 iMac patched to Monterey, which I keep in my kitchen and use daily. RU-vid is LITERALLY all I use this computer for, but as it does the job so effectively I expect I'll be able to keep using it for another 5+ years... maybe more. I enjoyed the video, but I think a definition of 'usable' should be made at the beginning, for context. My two bits.

Well, Macbook pros with M chips will last as long SSD lasts in them. If SSD is smaller i believe that will be shorter than bigger SSD.

I think that you give too much importance to having two or four cores. Being a newer generation its more important (per example, most of the time i5 6XXX dual core > i5 4XXX four cores). Good video anyways, lets see how my base mid 2015 mbp works in some years. I only use it for streaming services and light college documents so I think I'll be fine (the screen, design and keyboard are georgeous).

But, Intel macs can do something that these M1 macs can't, and that is boot into other operating systems like windows and linux, so these macs aren't obsolete when apple will pull the plug on intel support. If the M1 ever gets dropped from support, it's going to be way harder to install another operating system on those, just like iphones and ipads . . .

As a 2020 macbook air user, its pretty funny to see us forgotten by everybody. Anyway yeah it will probably last until around 2026-28

Still using my (late) 2015 Macbook Air with 8 gb ram. Can’t believe this is the basic option sold almost a decade later. Its about to die from overheat but it had a good run! Excited to upgrade to M3!

PCs have been able to compete with Macs quite effectively though

What about imacs?

im using a 2010 15 inch

Ah yes the "you have around 5-6 years" That is the issue I guess with MacBooks. They can last long, longer then they can last functionally and updatable. Leaving a laptop stuck in time.

I have a 2020 13" i7 MacBook Pro and it's getting unusable already. Because macOS Sonoma is a F-CKING BUGGY MESS ON INTEL. I switched back to Catalina wich runs fine, but now Mac OS always bugs the fk out of me to upgrade to Sonoma. I get a notification every single day. Tim Cooks Apple is a user experience nightmare.

Only Intel Macs worth using now are the 2012 Unibody MacBook Pros, because they're dirt cheap and upgradable/serviceable, and the 2013-2015 MacBook Pros because they can still offer a decent value for the price. I'd avoid everything Intel from 2016 until 2020, they're not worth the time because they're not cheap enough, have shit-tier keyboards, the 2016-2018 ones are on the same performance level as the 2012-2015 Macs, and the 2018/2019 15" & 16" ones that are faster have such bad thermals they'll die an early death anyway, and they'll still be beat by a base M1 in most tasks. Aside from the 2012-2015 MacBook Pros which can offer a good value, I would just skip straight to an M1 or later since these seem to be the second coming of the golden era of MacBooks, especially the original M1 versions. The M1s were the last MacBooks that did not use serialized parts and can still be repaired fairly easily. Starting with the new 14" & 16" M1 Pro/Max models most of the parts are tied to the SoC they were shipped with, so swapping parts like screens and whatnot will cause you to have missing features and general weirdness due to it not being serviced by Apple. I'm actually using a 14" M1 Pro right now and if it dies outside of my warranty period (which ends in July 2025), I will not be buying another Mac even though I love this one a lot, it's not feasible to repair the M1 Pro/Max & M2/M3 machines out of warranty.

Amazed that you think the awful 2015 12” retina MacBook will last into 2025, despite it being slow and having SSD failure and awful, unreliable keyboard.

So, a Macbook M1 would last forever?

well i just wanna say fuck you for not doing these kind of great content earlier ; could have saved tons of time googling and money

Please please please don’t recommend retina 2012s, they have failing logic boards

Just rip off the screen and your headless Mac won't run too hot

m1 may not last as long as older macs 2030 is a long time for hi thruput on soldered ssd and ram the older mac intel macs with soldered ram have much lower writes/reads over 1 year

10 years before a evolved every generation MacBook Air/Pro are obsolete a past to future next 10 years never exist a last MacBook M1 still obsolete after 4-5 years then a discontinued or almost economically MacBook SE reduced 12 inches screen and battery long life 14 hours srill same than M1. If future MacBook, iMac or Mac Studio/Pro will be development again processors a new chip M4 or more to beat rivals Snapdragon 8/12 Gen notebook PC after 2030 more chips more thinner extract sizes "14 to "16 a d gamer 17" or 19" without weight more batteries over 24 hours (Its a record Guinness best battery Nokia 1100 limited 3-5 days)

linux will make them last much longer

Great video!!!