Should i Buy 2012 Macbook Pro 13inch or 2016 Macbook Pro

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Dear Experts,


One of my colleague is selling 2012 Macbook Pro 13" for $1000 with following configurations:

MBP 13 Mid-2012 (covered by Apple Care through January 2018)
16GB RAM 512GB SSD and 2.9GHz i7 bought new last year(2015) from Apple.

I was initially planning to buy Macbook Pro 15" which comes to $2999 as this is first time buying the Macbook as i want to switch from PC to Mac

Please post your suggestions and recommendations.
It would be great help to make a right decision as am not expert in this area

Thanks in advance
Coolchap
 
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Hello Coolchap, welcome.

As always, the first question would be, what do you want to do with your Mac? While we await that information, here's a few thoughts off the top of my head.

I have a bias for used machines, especially if they are from a friend. Your friend has already tested his machine for a year and would have likely found any problems with it by now. Assuming they are not selling to you to escape some problem, that's good news.

You shouldn't automatically assume that a new machine will be more reliable than a used one. I own Macs that are still going after 20 years, and I've had new ones die a few months out of warranty. New or used, getting a new Mac (or any other brand) is a roll of the dice crapshoot. Thus, a cheaper machine that has been tested over time by someone you know and trust seems quite appealing.

If you use your computer primarily for email and web surfing, an even cheaper older machine may be an even better choice. As example, you could buy six $500 Macs for the price of one new one at $3000. If one of the cheap Macs died, you could simply toss it and fire up the next one, and you'd still be saving tons of money. Thus, six used Macs is a much safer and more reliable choice than one new Mac.

If you buy a new Mac you'll have an Apple warranty, and Apple seems pretty good about honoring them. But the warranty covers only parts and labor, and not your time. You may never need the warranty, or you may buy some mystery problem that requires 7 trips to the Apple Store to resolve, and there's no way to know which ahead of time.

If you need to do cutting edge work of some kind, that may rule out used Macs altogether. In that case you'll want to be very informed about what your cutting edge work requires in the way of hardware. A $3000 Mac will likely be plenty for the vast majority of projects.

Tell us what you want to do with your Mac and that will help us give you much better advice.
 
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Hi Coolchap, and welcome!

Ormond makes some good points, but I'd like to offer my perspective.

First, as Ormond so correctly points out, it is important as to what you want to use your Mac for. There are a number of models to choose from.

Secondly, I have always purchased machines new (the same with cars), and knock on wood, have never had any issues with new models. And it is critical that one takes care of such machines. For Macs, that is both from a hardware and software perspective. For cars, of course, keeping the car clean and in good mechanical condition (and doing as much of that yourself as possible) is wise.

Third, I do think I would recommend buying so many machines for a cheap price, so as to have a number of them for backups in case one fails. Myself, I would much prefer that the machine last me quite a while.

Fourth, it is important to remember that no matter which Mac you buy, you must do backups to an external device, and perform disk cleanup, maintenance, and repairs on a periodic basis. Too many folks live in a dream world and expect Mac to never need any of that. Well, they are just asking for trouble. And i can tell you from direct experience that doing backups and disk "stuff" is both productive and rewarding. And, the machines will last you a long time by doing that.
 
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Hi Coolchap, and welcome!

Ormond makes some good points, but I'd like to offer my perspective.

First, as Ormond so correctly points out, it is important as to what you want to use your Mac for. There are a number of models to choose from.

Secondly, I have always purchased machines new (the same with cars), and knock on wood, have never had any issues with new models. And it is critical that one takes care of such machines. For Macs, that is both from a hardware and software perspective. For cars, of course, keeping the car clean and in good mechanical condition (and doing as much of that yourself as possible) is wise.

Third, I do think I would recommend buying so many machines for a cheap price, so as to have a number of them for backups in case one fails. Myself, I would much prefer that the machine last me quite a while.

Fourth, it is important to remember that no matter which Mac you buy, you must do backups to an external device, and perform disk cleanup, maintenance, and repairs on a periodic basis. Too many folks live in a dream world and expect Mac to never need any of that. Well, they are just asking for trouble. And i can tell you from direct experience that doing backups and disk "stuff" is both productive and rewarding. And, the machines will last you a long time by doing that.

Thanks Ormond and honestone for your great comments,suggestions and questions

I have two major requirements here and trying to fit this Mac purchase to any one of them

1. Personal Use : For Personal Emails,surfing,Financial/Monthly Expenses tracking, paying credit cards and keeping all personal sensitive/confidential informations etc.,
2. Professional Purpose : I want to spin up multiple VMs to run some different flavor of OS like Linux,Ubuntu,Windows and run some heavy duty database(Oracle) and other applications as i do this on my Lenovo W510.
I was even thinking of setting up ESXi servers at home to spin up multiple VMs to suffice this purpose, but it appears to be cost me around 4 to 5k.

I do take frequent backup of my personal laptop to 2 different External Hard drives as i have encountered many disaster recovery situations on my PC and had lost many data too.

I may be wrong that MAC is completely safe,secure with very less maintenance unlike PC needs lots of Anti/Mal Virus softwares and needs more maintenance
So, Experts like you guys need to help me with more clarity and details on Mac World.

Thanks again
 
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Thanks for the informative response.

For your personal use requirements, either machine should suffice. But for your Professional needs, you might want to consider a more "robust" machine, like an iMac or an (expensive) MacPro.

While Macs are not as prone to virus attacks (as long as you are careful), they are still machines, and need maintenance. I myself perform daily disk cleanup, and more extensive weekly disk cleanup, maintenance, and repairs. And there are some excellent third party products that are great for that.

Finally, it's definitely encouraging that you see the need for backups. You have 2 choices on Macs with that: use Time Machine that comes with the Mac OS, or use a third party backup/cloning program like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. Those last 2 products make bootable backups, which makes recovery fast and easy.
 
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Thanks for the informative response.

For your personal use requirements, either machine should suffice. But for your Professional needs, you might want to consider a more "robust" machine, like an iMac or an (expensive) MacPro.

While Macs are not as prone to virus attacks (as long as you are careful), they are still machines, and need maintenance. I myself perform daily disk cleanup, and more extensive weekly disk cleanup, maintenance, and repairs. And there are some excellent third party products that are great for that.

Finally, it's definitely encouraging that you see the need for backups. You have 2 choices on Macs with that: use Time Machine that comes with the Mac OS, or use a third party backup/cloning program like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. Those last 2 products make bootable backups, which makes recovery fast and easy.
Thanks Honestone

Could you please share tips on daily disk clean up and maintenance and repairs activities
Also, Let me know what is your take on buying this 2012MBP for $1000? Does it make sense or worth for money? Or you recommend to buy new MBP 2016?
 
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1. Personal Use : For Personal Emails,surfing,Financial/Monthly Expenses tracking, paying credit cards and keeping all personal sensitive/confidential informations etc.,

As you probably know, this part can be done on a 5-10 year old Mac for a couple hundred bucks tops. One plan could be to buy a cheapo used Mac just for these routine tasks, and see how you like it before spending more money.

2. Professional Purpose : I want to spin up multiple VMs to run some different flavor of OS like Linux,Ubuntu,Windows and run some heavy duty database(Oracle) and other applications as i do this on my Lenovo W510. /QUOTE]

I don't understand this, so will defer to others here.

I may be wrong that MAC is completely safe,secure with very less maintenance unlike PC needs lots of Anti/Mal Virus softwares and needs more maintenance

For what it's worth, I've been using Macs for 20 years every day, heavy net use, never installed any kind of virus protection, and never had a problem. Having said that, now I'll probably be taken down by a virus tomorrow. :)
 
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Thanks Honestone

Could you please share tips on daily disk clean up and maintenance and repairs activities
Also, Let me know what is your take on buying this 2012MBP for $1000? Does it make sense or worth for money? Or you recommend to buy new MBP 2016?

Glad I can try and be of assistance.

For my daily disk cleanup tasks, I immediately delete EMails I no longer need., and given that I use Outlook 2016, by pressing Shift and Delete when "deleted" EMails are shown, I can have them deleted permanently. Most EMail programs do not actually delete EMails immediately, so I do not know how to have them permanently removed with other EMail clients.

When I download an update for a piece of software, I make sure to delete the prior version right away, as I no longer need it.

For my weekly disk cleanup/maintenance/repair tasks, I first use the excellent freeware program Onyx to 1) Repair Permissions, and 2) run its useful cleanup tasks. Then, I launch TechTool pro and run a number of its useful tasks, including 1) tests for Volume and File Structures, 2) Surface scan of my internal drive (SSDs for both of my machines), and 3) Volume Rebuild. That program also has Volume and File Optimization features, but that is not recommended for SSDs.

There are two other, worthwhile Disk Maintenance/Repair programs that do a good job: Disk Warrior, and Drive Genius. It is actually wise to have two of those programs (out of TechTool Pro, Drive Genius, and Disk Warrior).

Given that you have some "heavy" professional requirements, I would not recommend a laptop. But for just personal use, either MBP you want to buy would suffice.
 

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