Question I'm shopping for a cheap refurbished Macbook Pro: what minimum specs do I need for my uses ?

[monge89]

Hey all,

I've never used Macs before, but I'm about to buy my first Macbook and want to start out with something cheap and see how it works out for me (also on a budget). I'm planning on buying a refurbished Macbook Pro from Newegg and want to make sure the one I choose can handle the applications I run, while at the same time not overspending. I'll be using it for web browsing (I tend to have a lot of tabs open, which has been causing my current Linux machine with 8GB RAM to constantly freeze), movies, and other all-purpose daily driver stuff. I tend to run a lot of apps at once, but none of them are very demanding of resources. So I think the RAM and the SSD size are most important considerations. I don't need a very powerful CPU. No gaming or graphics stuff, so GPU doesn't matter. And I prefer a bigger screen, so going with 16". I'm thinking this one should be sufficient:

https://www.newegg.com/p/2SN-0001-035N3

Are there any potential issues with these specs, for my intended uses? They have more powerful options, but don't want to pay for power I probably wouldn't use. As I'm new to the Mac scene, any advice from the knowledgeable folks around here would be much appreciated.

 

[Ralston18]

This:

"I tend to run a lot of apps at once...

Check the memory recommendations for the apps that you run.

Most software manufacturers provide some information regarding memory requirements in the form of minimal, recommended, and best.

If you "run a lot of apps at once" you certainly do not want minimal and should get as much memory "best" as you can afford.

That said do look at the other hardware recommendation provided by the software manufacturers.

E.g. what they recommend regard CPU and drive sizes.

And remember even if more "powerful" than what you believe is needed that can easily change with some future app that is added or an upgrade to an existing app.

 

[monge89]

This:

"I tend to run a lot of apps at once...

Check the memory recommendations for the apps that you run.

Most software manufacturers provide some information regarding memory requirements in the form of minimal, recommended, and best.

If you "run a lot of apps at once" you certainly do not want minimal and should get as much memory "best" as you can afford.

That said do look at the other hardware recommendation provided by the software manufacturers.

E.g. what they recommend regard CPU and drive sizes.

And remember even if more "powerful" than what you believe is needed that can easily change with some future app that is added or an upgrade to an existing app.

Thanks so much, that's very helpful. I'll check on memory recommendations. I think 16GB should be enough for me. But then I thought 8GB would be enough when I bought my current laptop, and I ended up running through that pretty quick. Maybe I'll go for 32GB to be future-proof.

But the one I linked to has 16GB, and the price is right. It has a Core i9-9889H CPU, which should be more than sufficient, and 1TB SSD. So I might go for this one, if it's still available when I'm ready to buy in a week or two.

Another question is, any issues with this particular model year of the Macbook Pro, that I should know about? Like, has the screen and/or sound improved a ton since then? I don't have to have the latest thing, so if the improvements have been incremental I don't care. And it's running macOS 10.15 Catalina, which is pretty old. Can this be updated, and if not will the OS version be an issue?