How long does a Mac usually last?

[Argi]

One could say that if you're only using OSX on it then it'd last longer than a PC because you wouldn't be able to play games which require good hardware. If you're running windows and playing games you're better off building a PC yourself.

[this thread is ollld btw]

[Asharae]

Im still rocking my Macbook White that I got in early 2008. It still serves me fine and does everything I need it to. I still want to upgrade to a Macbook Pro though so I can get my hands on a dedicated graphics card.

But apart from that it has done everything for me without a slightest hitch!

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

My girl's brand new CD/DVD (the latest MacBooks) already starts to make funny noises and I'm not talking about the system check when starting but about noisy cracking, motor sounds and other funny stuff while reading a CD. I browsed few articles and found out it's all about the cheap Ma****a drives they install - they're all crap.

Edit: M A S H I T A is not a dirty word, what's with the auto censoring?

'Sh?t' is a bad word, thus censored - even when it's part of a word.

On-topic: I have a 20" iMac from January 2008. It still works fine, and I have no intentions to replace it yet. Perhaps when new Macbook Pros are out.

[.Neo]

Still pretty satisfied with my 2009 Mac Pro :p

[Stephen Veteran]

may one point out that this thread is about 2 years old :p

[Growled Member]

I guess you Mac guys are still using the same computers after 2 years? :p

[nihal]

my MacBook's 3 yr anniversary will be complete this august ;)

solid machine

[Howling Wind]

^ If its not broken why fix it?

I don't know if this applies. But as far as laptops go (in my experience.. save for a few problems they had) apple's laptops don't seem to suffer heat damage. And my MPB gets HOT during video cutting because of the aluminum. I just keep reminding myself that instead of it being trapped in by plastic, its escaping through the metal. Fans are really quiet under normal use too. I guess in my experience as far as laptops go, Apple's computer seemed to keep themselves cool very well.. unlike HP and Dell models I have owned.. And dust isn't really a problem either. I guess it depends but when it comes down to taking care of it... I would say its about the same.

As for all in ones... its obvious apple makes the best of those... they started the whole thing anyway. I never used a Sony or HP all in one though so I'm not sure how noisy they are.. how vents are placed and stuff like that. But iMacs are very quiet fan wise.. only problem is the HD in older models didn't like the heat too much =/

Not sure if they got that fixed or not. My dad's iMac (one of them) is a 2006 intel core duo (the white plastic one) and it works the same as it did when it was new. But he has upgraded the ram.

[Nicole D]

I know this is an old post but I found this forum while doing some Google research since I am going back to Mac next week.

I purchase my first Mac (iBook G4) in early 2003. I went all out since I was just atarting college, graphic design major, etc., etc. My Mac withheld the uttermost abusive relationship. Long atory short - I retired my Mac in 2007 (late) when the keyboard was missing a FEW letters (my own fault - don't ask...), ad the monitor was 1/2 way falling off at the bottom bevel hook-type plastic. Otherwise.... my machine NEVER let me down. I did not want to retire my best friend, iBook. She was with me for about 4 years. She still works and I will use her from time to time.

Since 2007 I have purchased a total of 5 WINDOWS LAPTOPS (2 Dell systems around $800-1,000; 2 HP systems @ $700ish; and 1 Toshiba @ $900)

My daily activities include blogging, web design, online classes (college grad student and other certifications), and running an e-comm business. Since I am a web designer with her own firm - I NEED A RELIABLE SYSTEM!

Windows is trash. I should not have to purchase a new laptop every 6-8 months. I used to spend over $2,000 on Windows at each purchase but lately I realize there is NO reason to do so. Lifes rule in general is you get what you paid for. This rule does not seem to apply with Windows. Pay $500 or $5,000 -- same system, same lagging, same crashing, same screen of death.

My Mac did not fail me in 4 years (AND STILL GOING STRONG)!!! I am VERY excited to spend $3,000 next week and be done with it for a few years. I used to have laptops for so long that I would develop a relationship (of sorts...). Lately I can barely get used to the USB port spots before it's time to lay the new laptop to rest under my bed (laptop graveyard).

Yes, Mac is expensive but it is a worthy investment. Consider how much money I have spent in the past 3 years versus a Mac.

WINDOWS: (3 years) Aprox. $4500 (plus a huge headache, screaming, loss of files, time, and had to go shopping five times--- 2 of which were emergencies and I had to locate a store open late at night)

MAC: (4 years and still going strong) -- $3,000

Apple is not stupid. They price their systems high because they realize you won't have to replace your system as often as Windows. Consider WHY it is possible to buy a laptop at the same price (or lower) than an iPad.... The lifespan of a Mac is nearly 4-5x that of a Windows system.

All I know is that I have been a ****ed off woman for the past few years and cannot wait to get my beautiful new Mac. I use my laptop for nearly 12 hours a day and Windows just can't keep up. I was unable to purchase a Mac because I was pregnant than unemployed due to discrimination on the job.... but hey - that settlement check and other factors are now making it possible to pour $3k into a laptop and I'll NEVER EVER EVER go back to windows. I'd rather go out of business than use Windows again.

I promise anyone with doubts ..... once you go Mac, you'll never go back (and if you do because of money issues - you will find yourself choosing Mac over food shopping one day).

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Above post.

I got my Dell laptop with Windows XP back in about 2002. That thing lasted me for about 5 years, and in fact the only reason it didn't continue to serve me was because some d*** broke in to my house and stole it.

My MBP is going to be 3 this year I think. It's still going strong.

My point is, it's not necessarily down to the OS or model as to how long it will survive.

Either way, I'm glad you're looking forward to your next purchase. After getting used to the different way of doing things, I've never thought twice about my decision. :)

[xxxxxx.xxxxxx]

just to add my penny's worth,

I have a Macbook 1,1 (early 2006) still running, was released with 10.5 and its now running 10.6 with no problems what so ever.

Before my Macbook i owned a iBook G4 12" (late 2004) my father has that one now and its running without any issues at all with Tiger (10.4)

Before that iBook G4 i owned an iBook G4 12" 1st revision (Oct 2003) running Tiger (10.4) that one is with a friend and is still running :)

So in my experience, my Mac's have lasted 8 years :)

[edit] just noticed that this was an old thread >.<

[Edrick Smith]

I grabbed a PowerMac G4 (the Original one) That turned 11 this year. It was sitting at work for god knows how long. I powered it up last week and it booted faster than any Windows Machine I've seen. Still works like a champ aside from the fact that it's the G4 processor so that kind of kills it.

[CPressland]

Hmm, lets see..

I have my MacBook mid-2007 which is running fine and still as fast as the day I got it.

I also have 5 eMacs burning rubber and kicking arse on Leopard that are able to handle just about everything I throw at them.

But my MacBook Pro 2010 is the real champion, I've yet to get that CPU running at a good 400%, it's the most powerful machine i've ever used.

My Mid-2009 iMac is the only letdown here, albeit it does it's job fine... I don't know, I just don't like him... he's slow.

[Melfster]

This thread should closed. Macs and PC last equally long. I am writing this post PC laptop from 5-6 to years ago. Still works fine its running windows 7. I have hackintosh desktop that boots OS X snow lep and Windows 7.

[Elliott]

I've had this 27" iMac for a little over a year now. I think I'll easily get three more out of it, especially with the SSD I installed. This thing is a workhorse.

[sc302 Veteran]

I run mainly PC's, very few *nix, and even less apple products. Anyway, I have a P3 866 running apps at home on a windows xp and have so since about 2003 so going on 8 years now. I use it as my daily computer when I want to sit in front of something and works fine as a web browser, print server, ftp server, and the occasional document creator. It needs a defrag every now and again and a reboot every time windows pushes out updates but other than that it is a solid machine that runs 24x7x365. Learn to not do stupid things with your computer and it will last you, the hardware is pretty much the same between apple and windows so if it is going to fail on an windows platform it will fail on a apple platform. The difference is, right now anyway, when you download stupid files because you don't want to pay for or don't have the money to pay for something and they imbed a windows based virus/malware/rootkit you won't be effected by it. I have many windows 2003 servers that also have been running for years, but no one has access to them to do stupid things on.

[.Neo]

Beyond a premature catastrophic hardware failure, how long any computer lasts has purely do to with the tasks you're performing on it.

[SaltLife]

His question was not if a mac will last longer or even implying that it would.

He simply wanted to know what to expect in the software cycle of things. He was concerned because he had found himself upgrading various pieces on his windows machine to suite the.application demands and was questioning what this was like with apple products.

Of course this thread is very old at this point and a lit of things have changed but either way unless you require the latest and greatest software applications and bleeding edge technology as long as the hardware doesn't have something faulty with it-it should do you just fine.

I've had my mac mini late 09 and it has been fine thus far. I may consider upgrading the HDD only for superficial reasons but it is an upgrade.

Either way the OP hadnt made this topic bc of some mac vs pc hardware but as a software cycle and upgrade needs in the apple ecosystem.

[Xtreme $niper]

His question was not if a mac will last longer or even implying that it would.

He simply wanted to know what to expect in the software cycle of things. He was concerned because he had found himself upgrading various pieces on his windows machine to suite the.application demands and was questioning what this was like with apple products.

Of course this thread is very old at this point and a lit of things have changed but either way unless you require the latest and greatest software applications and bleeding edge technology as long as the hardware doesn't have something faulty with it-it should do you just fine.

I've had my mac mini late 09 and it has been fine thus far. I may consider upgrading the HDD only for superficial reasons but it is an upgrade.

Either way the OP hadnt made this topic bc of some mac vs pc hardware but as a software cycle and upgrade needs in the apple ecosystem.

Agreed.

The only reason why I upgraded from my 2006 MacBook 1,1 was because I was running all kinds of intense applications on it and was stressing it out endlessly with the software that I was required to use at my job. If I wasn't virtualizing an entire development environment on my machine, I could still be using that laptop to this day. Though, in hindsight now that I'm running 8GB of RAM on an i7, I have absolutely no idea how I ran my work software on a machine with 2GB of RAM and a Core Duo.

[threetonesun]

If it weren't for the Power PC to Intel switch, I'd still be using my Mac Mini from 05. Great computer.

Now that they're building Macs around Snow Leopard, I think they're a little more future proof. They did come a bit underspecced on memory a few years back, and there was a low limit as to how much they could read. My old Macbook only took 2.5GBs, I ended up selling it for a new MBP that came with 4GB and takes up to 8GB. I think at least 4 is good for any modern operating system.

[team_NOOB]

Well I'm still using my Mid 2008 MBP and have had no issues except a I had to replace the HDD. But that was becuase I upgrades the HDD myself in the first place to a pretty crap hdd so that was my fault.

Also it's a general rule of thumb that pretty much all macs are able to handle future releases of the OS. So this helps in the fact that knowing your mac is not going to be unsupported so-to-speak.

So the life span of Macs are pretty long term. As with any computer the better you look after it the longer you will have it.

Give it a good clean every now and then. You could even go as far as formatting it too say every 6 - 12 months.

Hope that helps.

[deactivated_]

Well, my Dual G5 2.4 Ghz Mac Pro with 12 Gb RAM is apparently too outdated to run 10.6... so I guess Apple tells me when my hardware is outdated.

[+StevoFC MVC]

My iBook is almost 7 years old now. Still running strong.

My 24" iMac is a piece of garbage and is sitting in the spare bedroom unplugged.

[DeadEndAccount]

I have a question for all you Mac fanatics out there, and that is how long do you usually keep your Mac (hardware) before upgrading to a newer model?

In the "PC" world, I have found myself upgrading hardware every 6 months to 1 year, however I am not certain of how such an upgrade cycle works when it comes to the Apple platform due to different system requirements by software applications and such.

The specifications to my Mac are in my forum signature. Also, here is some background particulars as to what I do with my Mac:

• Listen to music (iTunes library, radio streams, etc.)
  
• Watch videos (DVDs, on-line streams)
  
• Photo editing with iPhoto '08 (considering purchasing Aperture 2 for my computer in the weeks ahead)
  
• Image editing (currently using Pixelmator 1.2, which I feel is a great piece of software for the price)
  
• Recording and editing audio using GarageBand (this also includes podcasts)
  
• Browsing the internet (using Safari 3.1.1 currently)
  
• Instant Messaging (I use Adium 1.2.5, which seems to be a fairly solid release and includes all of the features that I need in a client)
  
• Managing contacts, appointments, and e-mail (as you guessed it, Address Book, iCal, and Mail are working away perfectly for these tasks)
  
• Programming (currently learning the UNIX terminal and all of the associated commands, I use TextWrangler for any shell scripts, etc. that I have created)
  

I would really like to know how long my MacBook Pro will last me for these tasks and for handling upcoming software releases.

Thank you everyone in advance for taking the time to read this thread (and hopefully, reply!) and I hope you all have a great day ahead. :)

Difficult to answer really; personally for me I'll be purchasing a new MacBook Pro and iMac mid to end of this year when the Sandy Bridge based computers are released by Apple. Here is the 'Sandy Bridge' information from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)

1. Details of Sandy Bridge became available prior to launch. The specifications were reported to be as follows:
   
2. Processing cores might feature Hyper-threading and/or Turbo Boost Technology depending on market segment, as with current Core i-series Nehalem-Westmere processor generation.
   
3. Standard CPU clock speed rated at 2.2 GHz to 3.4 GHz for variants. With Turbo Boost Technology enabled, up to 3.8 GHz clock speed can be achieved.
   
4. Integrated graphics core running at 650 MHz to 850 MHz. With Turbo Boost Technology enabled, it can achieve up to 1350 MHz clock speed.
   
5. Processors will feature different amounts of L3 cache on models in order to differentiate products among different market segments.
   
6. 64 KB L1 cache/core (32 KB L1 Data + 32 KB L1 Instruction, 3 clocks) and 256 KB L2 cache/core (8 clocks).[4]
   
7. Up to 8 MB shared L3 cache (25 clocks) on a ring bus to be shared with the integrated graphics core.
   
8. 256 bit/cycle Ring bus bandwidth. The ring bus connects the cores.
   
9. All processors will feature a 64-byte cache line width.
   
10. Decoded micro-op cache and enlarged, optimized branch predictor.
    
11. Improved performance for transcendental mathematics, AES encryption, and SHA-1 hashing.
    
12. Thermal design power (TDP) of products are rated at 35-95 W for desktop variants, and 18-55 W for mobile variants.
    
13. Dual-core and quad-core processors will be available at launch, with six-core and eight-core processors planned for future release.[5]
    
14. Improved memory controller with maximum 25.6 GByte/s bandwidth supports DDR3-1600 dual channel RAM and two load/store operations per cycle.
    
15. x86 peak performance with AVX, per core: 30.4 DP GFLOPS at 3.8GHz — 8 DP FP per clock (without AVX: 15.2 DP GFLOPS per core at 3.8 GHz — 4 DP FP per clock).

'Sandy Bridge' pretty much marks a whole new start that breaks with the past in much the same way that Core 2 was a big leap over the first Core. The focus isn't so much on the 'raw performance' but the features which the processor provides that speed up specific areas and its almost a certainty that in the future you'll see Apple take advantage of those features in the hardware as more technologies introduced in Snow Leopard such as OpenCL in Lion. So you're probably asking what does that mean for me? basically in a nutshell you're best to wait till 'Sandy Bridge' MacBook Pros appear and then purchase one - if you purchase one you'll find that at the very least you'll get a good 4-5 years out of it. The computer world isn't like it was 10 years ago where you would purchase a computer and in 3 weeks it was already out of date - these days the computers are so fast, the technologies included with them are so advanced that the longevity of a system these days is a lot better than it used to be.

As for me, both of my system are Core 2 - if I upgrade them to 'Sandy Bridge' or 'Ivy Bridge' based computers I'll be able to get at least 4-5 years out of them and find they're still very useful by the forth year.

Btw, I just had a look further down and it is estimated that we might see 'Ivy Bridge' appear as early as the second half of 2011 so if there is a move by Apple I wonder whether they'll wait for the die shrink so they have power/performance advantage but I guess that won't hold off a refresh if they've got something planned for April this year. From what I understand OpenCL will be layered on top of AVX so even if Apple went down path of using Intel's integrated video card - all is not lost given that the comparison between a AVX based OpenCL versus a 'GPU based' OpenCL the AVX came out a head with lower power requirements.

[zeta_immersion]

let me put it this way ...

i have an Ibook G3 (PPC - 500Mhz, 2 USB, 128 ram) since 2001 and works fine ... I use it mainly for msn/irc chat as it cannot handle flash or today's webpages very well (cpu is too slow)