I'm thinking of buying a MacBook or MacBook Pro. I don't want to spend the money to get the newest model. I need to spend as little as possible so I'd like to know which of the older OS's I can get to keep me current and still be useful for a few years.
Which Operating System to Get
- Thread starter eschwartz
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- Your Mac's Specs
- 2011 27" iMac, 1TB(partitioned) SSD, 20GB, OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan
You might want to keep this site handy so you can check the specs and their capabilities:
Mac Specs, Prices, Answers and Comparison @ EveryMac.com, Est. 1996
Going back as far as 2006 - 2007, most can run SL 10.6.8 which is the earliest I'd run and it's getting crippled with some stuff, and some of that era can only run up to Lion 10.7 which was gad awful, otters can run up to the current OS X but may need RAM added and ML 10.8.x was nice and still fully Apple supported and Mavericks 10.9.x added some more features if you needed them, and each newer OS X tends to need a bit more memory to run which may be an additional cost — if it can even be added.
So still lots of choice out there, and if any old unit only has 10.6 installed, you'll need to buy the later ML 10.8.x (or Lion 10.7.x maybe) from Apple for about $20.00+. Lion to ML to Yosemite is free.
Have fun…
Mac Specs, Prices, Answers and Comparison @ EveryMac.com, Est. 1996
Going back as far as 2006 - 2007, most can run SL 10.6.8 which is the earliest I'd run and it's getting crippled with some stuff, and some of that era can only run up to Lion 10.7 which was gad awful, otters can run up to the current OS X but may need RAM added and ML 10.8.x was nice and still fully Apple supported and Mavericks 10.9.x added some more features if you needed them, and each newer OS X tends to need a bit more memory to run which may be an additional cost — if it can even be added.
So still lots of choice out there, and if any old unit only has 10.6 installed, you'll need to buy the later ML 10.8.x (or Lion 10.7.x maybe) from Apple for about $20.00+. Lion to ML to Yosemite is free.
Have fun…
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- Your Mac's Specs
- 2017 15" MBP, 16gig ram, 1TB SSD, OS 10.15
Your post is a bit confusing. If you're thinking about getting just about any Apple computer from at least the last 5 years…all of these computers can run the latest Mac OS version. If this is the case…then the OS is not the limitation.
Only if you were thinking of purchasing something older than these does the OS version question come into play.
- Nick
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- Your Mac's Specs
- 21" iMac 2.9Ghz 16GB RAM - 10.11.3, iPhone6s & iPad Air 2 - iOS 9.2.1, ATV 4Th Gen tvOS, ATV3
My sons 2008 Unibody MacBook is running Mavericks no worries. Still gives you the Mac App Store, and thats really all he needs.
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