Peter, I run a 2011 MacBook Air with 4 GB RAM but it has a SSD and is very good with Sierra and all its tasks. Change the HD to a SSD (and update the RAM), it will make the MBP very fast and responsive. It will be the best $250 you will have spent on a computer in years. You should consider getting a 500GB SSD and not upgrading the RAM if the cost gets too high. I’m guessing that a 2011 model may soon be abandoned by Apple in a future Mac OS update, maybe 10.13 or hopefully 10.14.
robin > On 1 May 2017, at 6:11 pm, Peter Crisp <[email protected]> wrote: > > HI there, my son James is finding his MBP is quite slow when doing high > demand activities, video and photo editing etc. He is also in Y11 and finds > his MBP lags behind peers in a classroom environment but I don’t think it is > any or much slower than a late 2011 MBP would be if it were straight out of > the box today. His HDD is less than half full, running Sierra 10.12.4 and > 2.4GHz intel core i5 4GB ram with 500GB HDD. > > I am thinking there are two paths to take but financial impact will be > significant in deciding what to do. Either a later model MBP swap which is > faster than current item or an SSD/ram upgrade for his 2011 MBP. I've > researched a bit and figure for ~$250 I can fit a 250GB SSD and 2X4GB Ram > cards and this will bring it to a good speed level I think. But this will > still leave it as a 2011 MBP. > > Does anyone have any recommendation of what later model MBP I might target > that will give equivalent speed to my proposed upgraded 2011 MBP result? > > > Peter Crisp > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
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