Apple Macbooks

magpieant

magpieant

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Hi guys.

As a windows user, I'm just after a bit of advice.

I have been offered a pretty cheap (but relatively old) Macbook.

The specs are as follows:-

2.1ghz intel core 2 duo
4gig of RAM.

I'm hoping to be able to run an older version of Lightroom on it (version 3 ??).

at present, it has OSX 10.5.8 (leopard?) on it, but the seller needs to do a clean install and is talking about lion or mountain lion.

Can anyone advise how well these specs would handle Lightroom and also what OS I would be best getting stuck on it ?

Thanks in advance.

Anth.
 
What's the order of the release of os ?

Also, what's the differences between them ?

Thanks again
 
  • Cheetah
  • Puma
  • Jaguar
  • Tiger
  • Leopard
  • Snow Leopard
  • Lion
  • Mountain Lion
  • Mavericks
  • Yosemite (announced this week)
I think Snow Leopard was the last version to officially support the Core2Duo processor. I don't know what version of Lightroom will work with it. 3 will work on Snow Leopard, possibly 4, but I don't know about Leopard.
 
How cheap is cheap? If there are 3 figures in the asking price, I'd pass...
 
;)

Cheap enough NOT to pass!

So, would people say that Lion / Mountain Lion is a decent (and recent) enough OS to get me through ?
 
Yes, absolutely. Whilst apple love to harp on about all the 200 new features they seem to add to each update, there really are only a few that you would actually benefit from.

The difference between lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks is pretty small and not enough to worry about.

I have used all of the OS's since leopard and they are all good enough to use.
 
I have one of those era MacBooks. I didn't think much of it. The base model MacBook Air is now 750 quid.....

Check the battery as they fail and deform.

Mine still has leopard on it as I can't find the snow leopard upgrade disc I got and there is no migration path to lion from leopard. You can only update to lion from snow leopard.

I'd pass. A cheap new windows laptop will probably last you longer.
 
Thanks everyone for the good, informative replies.

Now I just need to source a cheap copy of Lightroom 3 (or 4 if it'll work!).
 
Srichards - seems our posts crossed .....

£750 for a base model air is still a HUGE amount more than I'm getting this for.

I already have a nice windows (i5, 6gig) laptop - just thought i'd have a play around with apple as never used them before.

Surely a clean install could get a new OS on though ????

Battery life is decent enough (2-3 hours).
 
Lightroom 4 needs 64 bit from what I've read. Think the core 2 duos are only 32?
 
The ram can be upgraded to 6gig max.

Not really looking to upgrade or spend too much on it - just a little project / experiment into using macs really.

An older version of LR would be fine to play about with - and it should run LR 3 easily enough I think ??
 
I wouldn't waste your money to be honest, it's quite a low spec. The old core2 models certainly struggle to run cs4 at work and have all now been retired.

Lightroom isn't memory intensive so upgrading that won't speed it up. Processor speed would be more beneficial.
 
As long as you don't expect much from it and its under 100 quid its ok. There are issues with these as the cases crack and they go mad and overheat / run the fan for no reason while they're asleep too. For light use like web browsing and that kind of thing they're fine. I'd try running the supplied iPhoto and see how it copes before buying Lightroom.
 
Christ I missed the lack of pro.

Yes every one I've worked on has had the problem of the wrist rest edge breaking away. And yes as someone said earlier the batteries are prone to failing spectacularly (kaboom).

Yes they run hot, normally the thermal compound has degraded and the stupid design single input/exhaust vent gets clogged.

On the bright side their stupidly easy to strip down for parts :D
 
Older Macs can still be effective tools. I use an older early 2008 15" MacBook Pro 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (pre unibody) with 6GB RAM and a 500 GB 7200 rpm HD and Mountain Lion, it runs Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CS6 quite adequately. It's capable of running Mavericks, but if it did it would likely take a small performance hit. Windows 7 runs well too under boot camp.
 
If you're willing to maintain them (like I say, thermal comp and vents, maybe new fans due to worn bearings, hard drive at that age may be close to death) then maybe.

Personally I'd save the ops cash and put it toward something more effective.
 
Last edited:
neil_g said:
Christ I missed the lack of pro.

Yes every one I've worked on has had the problem of the wrist rest edge breaking away. And yes as someone said earlier the batteries are prone to failing spectacularly (kaboom).

Yes they run hot, normally the thermal compound has degraded and the stupid design single input/exhaust vent gets clogged.

On the bright side their stupidly easy to strip down for parts :D
Click to expand...

Apple used to replace the top cases for cracking for up to 5 years from the original DOP, but thats finished now. Removing a few screws and using an old credit card to release the top case gives access. Then it's dead easy to remove 6 screws, lift off the fan and heatsink, clean out the fluff between the fan and heatsink and replace the thermal compound. All batteries are consumable devices and will fail in time, but very few split open or bulge when they fail. The old 17" MacBook Pro's were the worst for that.
 
I've got a 15inch early 2008 MacBook Pro, 2.5 Core Duo and 4GB RAM, it's running Mavericks fine, and although I don't generally use it for processing, LR runs fine.
The only thing I changed was to install a SSD in place of the hard drive, and put the old hard drive in place of the CD drive.
 
Cheers guys - great answers!

I'll be looking to put an ssd drive in too - watch this space as I may be asking for your help!

Cheers,

Anth.
 
As always it depend on what you expect from an laptop,and how much pp you expect to be doing,a new mac laptop don't come cheap :)
 
Would i need a hard drive caddy if I am just replacing the original hdd with an ssd and not touching the optical/DVD drive?
 
I've just retired my late 2008 Unibody Macbook for speed and aging issues. While it would run LR5, it did get very laggy at times, even with 8Gb RAM and an SSD. Interesting comment about the thermal paste - I shall have to investigate because it has recently been hammering the fans compared to how it used to be.

In terms of OSX versions - IMO - Leopard (10.5) was really good - Snow Leopard (10.6) was Apple's Vista, and despite using the version 6 months after release it gave contnual problems with wireless connections, output to an external monitor and a refusal to print, so bad that I had to return to 10.5. Never tried 10.7 Lion. 10.8 Mountain Lion was excellent, and as solid as Leopard. 10.9 Mavericks used about another 700Mb RAM and was a bit laggier and slower than Mountain Lion, although *some* reported it being faster. It also indexes the entire file system including all external drives when you first install it, which will make you wnder why your machine is sweating hard when it should be idling to begin.

IIRC the factor that prevents Mountain Lion & later being installed on older machines is the graphics capability, and older chipsets aren't compatible.
 
ive seen a few where the thermal comp has turned crumbly (like any other old machine really). the fans in the old plastic model certainly have a rather useful gap between the fan blades and casing where dust can build up.
 
Cheers ancient mariner - am i right in thinking this machine would handle mountain lion though ?
 
If it's a 2008 Macbook Pro then according to what you posted it should run the latest verson. As neil said, it will be slow for recent software, but I'd expect OK performance with software that was current when the machine was new.
 
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