Why I'm not buying the most powerful MacBook Pro anymore
In 2012, I bought the most powerful model of the 15-inch MacBook Pro because I knew its Core i7 processor would keep up for several more years than a MacBook Pro with a less powerful Core i5 processor.
The concept is called "future-proofing." Basically, I buy a device that's way more powerful than necessary for my current needs in anticipation for the future when operating systems and apps will require more horsepower.
And this machine is truly a monster, especially after I replaced its slow old hard drive with an incredibly fast SSD drive and upgraded its RAM from 4GB to 16GB. My plan worked. My five year old laptop still runs incredibly well, even by today's standards, and I have no need to spend a couple thousand dollars on a new laptop. In fact, I could probably squeeze out another couple years out my trusty old 2012 MacBook Pro.
But future proofing has one big drawback.
You see, I don't really want my five year old MacBook Pro anymore; not when I see all the cool new and improved features on newer models.
Here's everything I'm missing out on because my old MacBook Pro is too powerful to upgrade:
My 2012 MacBook Pro is a hulking beast.
YouTube/gmodertomThe mid-2012 15-inch model of Apple's MacBook Pro looks and feels like a brick compared to the mid-2017 MacBook Pro. It's almost an inch thick and weighs about 5.6 pounds. That used to be fine for packing and traveling back in the day, as it was pretty normal for a 15-inch laptop to be so big and heavy. Today, however, it's no fun packing such a heavy machine and carrying it around.
Compare it with today's sleek, slender, and lightweight MacBook Pro.
AppleThe 2017 model of Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro is just under 0.60 inches thick, and it's more than two pounds lighter than my MacBook Pro at just over three pounds. It's still no featherweight, but it's a lot more portable.
The screen on my old MacBook Pro is awful by today's standards.
My MacBook Pro was the model right before Apple introduced its sharper and clearer Retina displays for its MacBook Pros. That means my old MacBook Pro has a 900p resolution, which looks positively blunt compared to Apple's sharper 1600p Retina display.
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Apple's Retina displays also output much better color than the older non-Retina displays. After using a Retina MacBook Pro for a while, I came back to my old non-Retina MacBook Pro and found the colors to be washed out and lacking contrast.
At the end of the day, my old MacBook Pro's display is fine, but the more recent MacBook Pro's Retina display is very nice.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider