Loving the MBP
 

Following on from threads in the Hardware section, I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying my "new" (secondhand) mid-2012 MBP. (It was only manufactured 10 months ago and had 2 cycles on the battery!)

It's the last "traditional" Mac laptop, with a DVD drive, FireWire, Ethernet; and you can open it up and add more memory and change the drive easily. It's also got USB 3 and Thunderbolt, so it bridges new connections and old nicely.

I've maxed out the RAM to 16Gb and swapped the HDD for a 480Gb SSD. It's now lightning fast. I found the HDD a bit slow (after getting used to an SSD in my old 2009 MacBook). But now I'm pretty confident that it can handle anything I throw at it for several years to come.
TBH, the standard 4Gb is not quite enough, particularly as the graphics needs up to 1Gb. 8Gb is probably enough for most uses, given Mavx's memory management; 16 is a big jump -- but you can never have too much RAM, as my grandmother used to say.

It's also got an SD card slot, and I've bought a 8Gb fast SD card to use as an installer image for OS X. That fits in my Mini, too.

Battery life is phenomenal -- Im getting at least 7 hours, which is double my old MB. The screen is shiny, but compared to the old matte screen of my MB, the colours are much more vivid. I don't have a problem with reflections.

I've rarely been so enthusiastic about a computer. I don't think there's anything more that I could wish for in a laptop!

Think you made right move...we had a long winded discussion regarding this.
I like mine a lot too with its 512SSD and 750GB HDD. I have a ton of parts for it too and can fix most of it myself. As i said in other post we have been buying a lot of these Unibody versions.

It did not cost that much really either compared to what i would have had to shell out for a Retina. ie. 50% of cost once i had bought all the extras i would have needed.

Yes: Apple don't offer 16Gb of RAM, but BTO 8Gb with a 512Gb SSD would take it to over £1600...!!

I got the RAM and SSD from Crucial for £339. (Pro tip: once I had been to the Crucial website a few times, I started to get adverts in Facebook from Crucial offering a slightly better deal than standard! So lots of FB refreshes to get the right advert, and then click the link!)

Crucial have a cookie on me that give me a discount anyway ;-)
I don't use Facebook.

When i priced up what i would have bought it came in at £2800 inc VAT
Then i would need to add a Caldigit thunderbolt station for sanity
http://www.caldigit.com/thunderboltstation/review.asp

I got my 2012 MBP for £1200 inc VAT ( my suppliers do like me ;-) but took my SSD from old laptop and put in new one. I had a small SSD knocking about to put in old one.

Nice. Can you recommend any "value" Thunderbolt-connected external drives (not the huge RAID really expensive ones)?

Ben if your not going to do a RAID or SSD there is no benefit of TB/TB2 over USB3. The first implementations of USB3 could only do around 100Mbs. Most now do 250Mbs-400Mbs, depending on the enclosure.

Naturally it would also take more then a couple of regular HDs to go past what USB3 can handle. Then of course two we could have a long conversation regarding Speed vs Redundancy.

From a value perspective I believe Segate has the cheapest TB enclosures that they sell only with their drives. Other choices are Lacie LBDs and Caldigit

And of course very happy your enjoying your 2012 MBP, it is what I too intended to do.

That's good advice. I've been pleasantly surprised with USB 3 performance on my WD Passport 2 GB USB powered drive. I'm an old FireWire dog, and I wasn't expecting that kind of performance.

I'd expect to see some eventually, but the low cost single Thunderbolt external drive doesn't seem to exist yet.

Interesting. So TB really is only of use for hubs and massive RAIDs on the way to a monitor?
As a fan of FireWire, I've seen that FW can be faster than FW800 -- there is FW1600 and FW3200 (according to Wikipedia). Not sure what hardware actually capable of that.

What with Apple's 30th anniversary, I might just run down the list of Macs I've owned:
Mac IIsi
PowerMac 7200
PowerMac 7600
iBook G3
iMac 2006
MacBook 2009
Mac Mini 2012
MacBook Pro 2012

We have indeed come a long way. My current computers have 2000 times the memory of my first.

Its not that TB can't be used with virtually anything. Its just that TB tends be more expensive and there is still less to choose from. The TB cable alone can cost as much as cheap enclsoure that factory WD, Seagate, drives etc come with.

You woould need array of at least a few drives or an SSD to outrun a USB3 interface. FW never came in anything higber then 800, the spec was created, just never commerically produced that i am aware of.

A while back I was lucky enough to work in IT in a Mac based division for a large company. So I've had daily driver experience with a number of Macs. My 30 years of Mac experience… I had a few years where Windows and Linux/UNIX (Gentoo, SuSE, FreeBSD) were my daily environment, but I came back to the Mac for good when the Intel models hit. An Intel Mac with lots of VMs is a geek's dream. :)

• Macintosh 512k (Fat Mac)
• Macintosh Plus*
• Macintosh II
• Macintosh IIx
• Macintosh SE
• Macintosh IIcx
• Macintosh IIci
• Macintosh SE/30
• Macintosh Portable (the suitcase)
• PowerBook 170
• PowerBook 180c
• PowerBook Duo 270c (with docking station)
• Quadra 900
• Quadra 800
• PowerBook 540c
• Power Macintosh 6100/60 AV*
• iMac G3 (charcoal)*
• PowerMac G5*
• Macbook (black Core Duo)*
• iMac (Core Duo)*
• Macbook Pro (Early 2011)*
• Macbook Pro (Late 2013 retina)*

(I've personally owned the models with an *)

Overall on most OS the user interace has not kept Pace with monitor resolutions. Back in the day a 21 inch monitor was driven at a resolution of around 1024x768, now if your lucky a 13 inch display is driven at 1200x800 not counting Retina pixel doubled displays.

My List:

Macintosh 512K
Macintosh SE/30 (with Internet card installed)
Mac 7100/66 -- used as a router/server
Beige G3 (later upgraded to G4) -- replaced the 7100/66 as my server
PowerBook 3400c -- still runs, makes horrible noise starting up
B&W G3
Power Mac G5 -- still runs, though rarely
MacBook Pro 17"
IMac 27"

I still have the SE/30 in operating condition running Sys 7.5

What's the best SSD for this model and source of such these days? OWC? Crucial? Other?

I installed a 240 GB OWC Electra 3G SSD in my MBP. I also bought the toolkit they advertise and an enclosure for the hard drive I removed which I use for backup. The SSD really speeds up the MBP particularly when compared to the 5400 RPM mini drive it comes with. Installation is nicely explained on the OWC web site (look for your model in the OWC Install Videos). I also bought a package of little plastic cups intended to hold medications and arrayed them on my desk so I could deposit the screws removed in each step and keep track of them. Assembly then just requires emptying the cups in reverse order. Having the backup on the external enclosure before you install the SSD makes it easy to clone back to the SSD so you're up and running right away.

I think either OWC or Crucial will do fine. I've got my 480Gb SSD from Crucial, and I can't fault it.
Using Blackmagic Speed Tester, I get high 500s MB/s for the Crucial SSD, which is about 10 times faster than the original HDD.

My old OCZ Vertez in my 2009 MacBook still got around 200MB/s, and that's roughly what my Fusion drive tests at, though I suspect that figure is likely to fluctuate higher and lower, depending on what you're doing.

So I need to compare OWC and Crucial for price plus shipping then.

Whilst OWC service has been faultless, I have had 2 of their SSDs fail at just over the 3 year mark.

Of course, they could well come from the same factory and/or I have just been unlucky..

We use crucial mainly but my super pros have samsung 840 pro.

Which is better and who supplies the Sammys please?

I see that Crucial are Much cheaper than OWC.

Is their service good?

Too much generality
 

Every manufacturer makes multiple devices and price points....

Samsung has come out with its 840 Evo line that is quite competitive with the best of the best including the 840 Pro but comes in around .60 Cents US a GB versus around $1 a GB for their Pro line and other top end drives. e.g. 500GB is around $300, 750GB is $400 and 1TB is around $500.

What is the Catch. For a performance perspective there is not one. Otherwise warranty is 3 instead of 5 years. The 750 and 1TB do not appear to be available in samsung's pro line, thigh others make them. These drives also use TLC (Triple Level cells). Versus the more common MLC (Double level in most consumer drives). In theory might have a shorter life.

Keep in mind over provisioning which may or not make a drive faster effects capacities offered from all, e.g. "500GB Drives" range from 480 to 512GB and really deliver that size not like regular drives where its raw capacity. I always can use a littler extra head room.

There are many good brands. There is a wide range of performance. You can look that up on MYCE.COM and many other places.

Macsales has always had good service and fairly good products. They do have two levels of Drives performance wise but there still a little pricey.

Can not tell you what to buy. First I would decide how much capacity you need with a good amount of head room. What performance you need. Is the drive going in a Sata3 system that take full advantage of best, e.g. almost any mac made 2011 or newer.

Great info, thanks for sharing.

Apple say that the mid-2012 MBP only supports 8Gb RAM - is that correct?

No it supports 16GB.

http://www.datamemorysystems.com/app...mory-upgrades/

In US $85 vs $158. I would go with 16. Or at least use 8s one a time, you would 10 with existing 2 an 8, though matched pairs of of same are best.

Is it possible to tell from the serial number which model a given MBP is?

I have been offered one at a steal of a price, but the guy is away. He says he bought it in Feb 2012. Is that the same model as in the OP? I do have the serial number here.

The date is enough to age it. That would be a 2011 model, as the newer ones were released in mid-2012. The 2011 has USB 2, whereas the 2012 ones have USB 3.

There are a number of websites where you can enter a serial number and get info about the hardware, not least of all Apple's own:
https://selfsolve.apple.com/

Could try https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do
Or get the model identifier and check with mactracker

Do not forget about Apple's Refurbished site on its site and also its sister site on ebay. Even new Mid "2012 new" aka 2013 New Classic Non Retina 13s are a pretty good deal if its feature set meets your needs. I would avoid the 2011 Model because USB 3 is much better for external storage. Of the top of my head do not remember other differences but likely the Integrated Video was improved again and a small refresh of the CPU.

Older than the model in the OP then. OK, shan't bother.

That said, I'll keep an eye open for that mid-2012 model, as it sounds like it will be an ideal mid-level machine for some years to come.

I would try and find the 2012 Mac Book Pro Unibody ( the last ones ).
We have been buying them up lately as they are amazing machines.
We get them in the range of £900-£1300 in my money depending on build.

Was that late 2011 MBP a Retina then? My MBA 2011 is sold at a great price and I have been offered the 2011 for equiv: £375. Good buy?

None of the Unibody MBP are Retina. There are Build to order options for Matt/HI res screens but these again are not Retina models.

Mactracker is a great source for all models.

As we have said the 2012 MBP the the best of the Unibody MBP and £375 is a good buy.

I'll take it then. I can get 16GB of RAM for equiv: £120, so it can sit on my porch for morning work. ;-)

Do you remember what kind of battery life the 2011 had?

Before you buy ask them for model identifier of machine.
Yes 16gb is happy days as would an SSD
I would expect 3-4 hrs on light use and 2 hrs heavy use on battery of that age.
You may need a new one at some point

I have the RMA SSD sitting here, as yet not installed in the Mini. Is there a better SSD I can get for my 2011 mini these days?

I tend to buy Crucial or Samsung Pro/EVO drives.

Two things:
Firstly, the 2011 model doesn't have USB 3. Apart from that, it's still a great machine, with FireWire, Thunderbolt and Ethernet and DVD, etc, etc.

Secondly: the battery on those is fairly easy to replace, if you have the right screwdriver. It uses a Y-shaped screwhead, but there's only a couple of screws and then you just take it out. I got a genuine new Apple part from eBay for £30.
I'm getting 6 hours on average usage. It's the same battery model.

Picked the machine up last night. It's a bit of a lump, but it won't be travelling much, so no bother really. Really enjoying the screen size and it's in pristine condition.

It's still on Lion, so MavX d/l now. Über slowly. The previous owner fitted a 750GB drive, so only some more RAM needed now.

@benwiggy:
I don't have that driver in my toolkit. Does it come with a new battery, or is it a separate purchase?

You can get the screw drivers on Amazon end elsewhere for around $7. There called Tri Wing. They are also often described as being for a Nintendo.

Are there any high-quality aftermarket batts for extended life?

I believe the short answer is No. If anyone had good ones would be Macsales, they do not seek for machines newer then 2009, non unibody.

Amazon has many.

The only real question is one of risk of the battery doing harm. I think I would stick to OEM. There are pretty good review on there though.

I just checked the batt with Coconut and it is in excellent condition and has only done 39 cycles. Amazing. Assuming Coconut is reliable.

The guys I bought from didn't sell a screwdriver with it, though some people are bound to. It was an eBay shop selling nothing but genuine Apple batteries straight from China. (From the look of it, I'm confident that it's a knock-off from Apple's supplier rather than a counterfeit.)
I bought a "MacBook Pro" screwdriver kit of c. 32 pieces for £5, also feeding my eBay addiction.

Anecdotal evidence suggests you should stay away from third-party batteries.

Conconut battery is very reliable. Some of the information can also be found in System Profile > Power.
I would be more concerned by the Current Capacity. I put in a new battery because although the machine is less than 12 months old, it had only done 3 cycles and the Current Capacity was 90%. Modern batteries tend to last longer if they are used regularly. If you keep your MBP plugged in all the time and never let the battery run down, that's not going to do it any favours.

The capacity was listed at about 200MAh under its max.

I got one of those batts from China for my last MBP and it crapped out after a few weeks. Looked totally kosher, but...

I usually cycle my batts in all devices from 0-100% once a month when I remember, which is most months. I can't believe that my old iPad Mk 1 is still charging to 100% and running really well and it's four years old. Wifey watches her crappy Thai soaps on it every day, so it's getting thrashed and apparently thriving on such usage.

RAM and a few trinkets ordered, so looking good, except that Crucial only ship Fedex and that means that the Customs will be all over it like a bad rash. :-(

After a couple of days on light use (Safari, Mail, Preview and odd tasks including 15 minutes of Youtube), I can report getting well over 4 hours, so looking good so far.

Just fitted the OWC Electra 3G SSD and 16Gb RAM to this late 2011 MBP.

Very fast operationally, but boot seems a tad laggy. 52 seconds to a password dialogue and 15 seconds to useable thereafter.

That, I might add, was without Mail opening at login. Mail delays that much more. All in all, it seems to be a very capable Mac for the equiv: USD$ 1100 overall cost.

It's still a lot slower at boot than the old 2010 MBA 11" though???

You would have been better served for max speed with a Sata 3/6G, which itself comes in two speeds from Mac sales. 2011 Macbook Pros come with Sata 3/6G interfaces. You put a Sata 2/3G.

I will stop watch more precisely for you later.... But my 2010 which can only do Sata 2 starts up from the Apple Bong (previously having been shut down as opposed to restart which I believe is faster) in under 15 Seconds to sign in and about 4 seconds more to the desk top.

I have OCZ Vector which is in the same ball park as the Faster of the Sata 3 6G from Macsales.

I neglected to mention other factors could be at play boot up wise like directory issues, etc.

Indeed, but I was specifically advised that it probably wasn't worth it, given the kind of apps I use on a daily basis and the 6G cost significantly more.

The boot time is good for shits and giggles when a PC-using friend is visiting, but it's far from critical and what I have now is really snappy, with the exception of the lumbering carcass, a.k.a. Mail.app.

Speaking of which, the MailMate trial never did expire.

Actually the lower end Sata 3/6G electra is basically the same price as the Sata2/3G. The Mercury extreme I agree is about 1/3 more. If it is working for you and your happy that is all that matters.

That's it. I got a good deal on the machine according to agentx and benwiggy, so I didn't mind spending a bit, but how far does one go on a relatively old machine?

Newly minted, latest version and I might have splashed out, but I've got a great machine here for the money spent, so all good.

Boot time is not entirely HD driven. Several radios have to power up and search for a connection and the System take some time getting settled. In my experience, getting connected is where the time is spent rather than reading code from the SSD. Mail is even worse, spending entirely too much time shaking hands with the provider and waiting for it.

You mean Mail.app?

I trimmed the login items and now it's 11 seconds to a password dialogue and the same again to functional. Not bad for a 2011 machine.

I just noticed(!) that my SSDs are in fact 6Gs.

Yes. Mail.app is an abomination.

My 17" MBP (2008) is still brisk enough to be useful though I rarely reboot it. I'm contemplating installing an SSD in my 27" iMac as well. Given what I do with them, I'm much more inclined to upgrade my machines than I am to buy a new one although I do lust after an Air. A 17" MBP is heavy. Mine is on its second battery.

I turn my machines off due to the temperatures here. That and electric storms.

Are you going to fit that SSD yourself?

I did with the laptop, but I'm having second thoughts about the 27" iMac. Having read the on-line instructions on how to do it, I'm not sure my arthritic fingers and mild tremor (at 77 these come with the program) will permit. I've found an Apple certified dealer in town who'll install one in an hour for $75 Cdn (not including the cost of the SSD of course).

Vis-à-vis turning off my machines, Halifax has cold winters so houses are heated to about 20ºC and, with the exception of a hot humid spell in August, summer temperatures generally stay below 25ºC. I've been to Thailand, however, so I know what you're talking about.

I actually bought a new HDD for my old 24" iMac and it remains unmolested in it's packaging. It does look like a swine of a task AND TTP6 seems to have sorted that machine out and it is still running well in my daughter's purview a couple of years later.

yes not for faint hearted !