Macbook Pro needs REPLACING - serious COMPETITION - which one?

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My Macbook Pro is from mid 2015 and it's already struggling with things big time and, as Black Friday is fast approaching, I am thinking to upgrade.

A few of my friends asked if I would consider windows, and said how much cheaper they are, and I am having second thoughts.

Here are the 3, I am considering:


Macbook Pro 15" - i9,32GB RAM, ProVega20, 1TB SSD - £3,834

Lenovo ThinkPad Extreme Gen 2 - i9, 32GB RAM, Nvidia 1650, 1TB SSD + Multi-Touch Screen + Wifi 6 support - £3,096

HP Spectre x360 - i7, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 1650, 1TB SSD + Multi-Touch Screen, Wifi 6 support - £1,799


I am going through a lot of courses now, learning video and graphic editing as well as doing a fair bit of LIVE streaming and will be using some device for NOTE TAKING (OneNote). When I had a little play with Lenovo's touch screen on a laptop, I expected it to be poor, but it was actually good!


An Ipad Pro 11inch is ANOTHER £1,100 on top of a Macbook.


So a top spec Macbook Pro + Ipad Pro would cost me nearly £5,000, what seems absolutely INSANE. No touch screen of WIFI 6 on MACs, that seems just crazy to me in this day and age.


The only reason why I am even considering is because I also have an iWatch & iPhone XR. I don't quite know if I could even control devices and do "screen mirroring" and "Clipboard" between an iphone and a windows laptop or TVs.


Is there anything "pro macs" that I am missing here?

What would you do??
 

krs


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Can you elaborate exactly where and how your 2015 MBp is struggling and the exact specs of the unit you have.
Have you taken a look at Activity Monitor to see if there is an app that is consuming too much CPU resources?

I had a big slow down with my 2012 Mini a few days ago - when I checked activity monitor, Firefox was taking more than 100% of the CPU time.
I shut FF down and relaunched it, Mac sped right up
 
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2.2 i7, 16gb 1600 ram... intel iris pro 1535gb graphics... just using Facebook is difficult. I tried to do a webinar once and LIVE stream it onto facebook and it wouldn't even turn on.
 

krs


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Your MacBook should be able to handle the tasks you describe so far without any problems.
The trick is trying to figure out what causes the issues - with the facebook live stream it could be the Masc, the internet connection or the website itself, just looking at big chunks.

I would test the Mac separately first without any connection to the net.
Maybe members here can recommend one of the many general Mac tests available - I have never used any other than running Disk Utility
Maybe run Onyx (which I only used once)

In any case - my message is - unless you do a large amount of HD video editing and need those tasks to be completed quickly, you should be fine with the Mac you have.
I usually get a new Mac because there is some software incompatibility and the Mac I have can't run the software I need to run - I have never upgraded because the Mac was too slow or struggling.
Whenever I have run into a "slow Mac" issue, it was some app gobbling CPU cycles or once I ended up with an application that generated huge amounts of log files that I ran out of hard disk space.
 
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Your MacBook should be able to handle the tasks you describe so far without any problems.
The trick is trying to figure out what causes the issues - with the facebook live stream it could be the Masc, the internet connection or the website itself, just looking at big chunks.

I would test the Mac separately first without any connection to the net.
Maybe members here can recommend one of the many general Mac tests available - I have never used any other than running Disk Utility
Maybe run Onyx (which I only used once)

In any case - my message is - unless you do a large amount of HD video editing and need those tasks to be completed quickly, you should be fine with the Mac you have.
I usually get a new Mac because there is some software incompatibility and the Mac I have can't run the software I need to run - I have never upgraded because the Mac was too slow or struggling.
Whenever I have run into a "slow Mac" issue, it was some app gobbling CPU cycles or once I ended up with an application that generated huge amounts of log files that I ran out of hard disk space.

Well, Chrome browser is consuming a lot of processing power, but I am not going to switch to safari.
 

krs


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There is no need to switch to Safari.
I personally use Firefox.
But I just tried Chrome - it shows %CPU at 0.6% with some Chrome Helper apps at 8.1 and 8.8%
What numbers are you getting when you say "a lot of processing power"?
If I sort by processing power and if I get a lot more than 10% for any one process continuously - I would check into that process in more detail.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
MBP 16" 2023 (M3 Pro), iPhone 15 Pro, plus ATVs, AWatch, MacMinis (multiple)
The amount of CPU a browser will take is also dependent on the website it it trying to display. Anything with moving ads, graphics will take more CPU. "Quiet" URLs should take very little. And the more tabs open the heavier the load.
 

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The amount of CPU a browser will take is also dependent on the website it it trying to display. Anything with moving ads, graphics will take more CPU. "Quiet" URLs should take very little. And the more tabs open the heavier the load.

Yes - absolutely.
But a mid 2015 MacBook pro "struggling" when just trying to stream doesn't sound right at all.
I just wanted to get an idea where the problem might be.
The better way is some sort of benchmark test where one can check a specific Macs performance vs what it should be for that model.
I just didn't want to recommend one since I have never tried any and have no first hand experience with them.
Maybe another member has a recommendation.
Maybe something like this:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Retina Mid 2015) Benchmarks
- Geekbench Browser
 
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The problem with benchmarks is that they tend to be theoretical. The issues described by arthurzee all seem to be more related to a dodgy internet connection (Slow Facebook, can't stream a video conference) than any slowness in his Mac. Like you, I think the Mac he has should be well able to do what he says he wants to do. Don't know why he doesn't want to switch to Safari, it works well in recent implementations, but that's a personal preference. it should work just fine with either browser if the connectivity is there.
 
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I agree with all the posts about your 2015 - it should be handling what you are doing with no problems so something is going on.

But if you want to replace it the only contenders IMO are he Macbook Pro or the Lenovo. I have had too many HP's in my office with issues well... they don't build them to last IMO.

It really depends on what you really want. It you are into video and photo editing I am guessing you are working with the Adobe CC apps. Adobe runs well on either platform but most people who work with it professionally will use a Mac. I have found Adobe runs smoother on a Mac - and I have it on both a Mac and Windows 10 machine.

If note taking with a pen on a laptop or iPad is essential then the Lenovo makes more economic sense - if you can put up with the mandatory intrusive Windows 10 updates. I personally am still a pen and paper person when it comes to taking notes so a touch screen does not appeal to me. I have tried various ones over the years and ended up back using paper notebooks.

For what it's worth I would look into seeing if I could get the 2015 running better. But if you decided to replace it then I would head for the Macbook Pro you listed. I like the fact all my apple devices work together. As for WiFi 6 - that is very new and the boost in speed and network capacity will be at the routers. Your laptop having WiFi 6 capability will most likely not show a speed boost until WiFi 6 routers become more prevalent.

Just my 2 cents!

Lisa
 

krs


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The problem with benchmarks is that they tend to be theoretical.

I was under the impression that I can run a Geekbench 5 test on my Mac and then compare it to see what "score" others have for the exact same model and if too far off the norm, then do some more investigation.
I signed up for Geekbench to actually tried that myself - then couldn't quickly find a "test button" or something like that....and then came across something that sounded like they wanted me to pay $99.- to do the test.
Are they kidding???
That was the end of that for me.

Agree that the one issue that is mentioned relates more to upload speed to the net, but I anted to make sure everything on the MBp is up to snuff.
Any way to test that in a general fashion?
I think a general generic test would be handy for many members as a first step for troubleshooting a "struggling Mac"
 
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Well, etrecheck (EtreCheck) will do a pretty good assessment of a Mac. Not a true stress test, but it will evaluate what's going on and show what may be bottlenecking, if there is anything there.
 

krs


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Thanks Jake.

I had actually used EtreCheck back in 2016, but just kept the report at that time.

I must say I like the app - probably one that the OP should run to see what comes up.

I just ran it and I have, OMG, 162 32-bit applications on the Mini.
But otherwise everything looks good
 
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Most of those may be in backups, or Apple apps/components that are replaced by new files in Catalina. To get a better count, disconnect all backups and run etrecheck on just your native machine. Or get Go64 and run it against your internal drive.
 

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I only do backups using SD or CCC, no TM - and those drives are connected but not mounted.
I just ran Go64 (thanks, hadn't heard of that either) and it shows 293 32-bit and 376 64-bit applications on my internal drive.
That includes of course all the Apple apps that will be replaced automatically but it may also give me an incentive to clean up my apps.

However, I'm now wondering why the number of 32-bit applications reported by EtreCheck and Go64 are not the same - or at least numbers relatively close
One says 162 32-bit apps and the other 293 32-bit apps - makes no sense to me

PS: Looking at the list in Go64 closer, I think what happened is that when I upgraded to new Mac hardware and software, the older versions of an app didn't automatically get replaced when a new version was installed.
For instance, I have two versions of Garageband, Version 5.1 which is an application in a folder called "GarageBand" and that folder is in the Application folder and also Garageband version 10.2.0 which is directly in the Application folder.
I see that quite a bit - iPod Updater as well, I have both version 4.2 and version 4.4, both in the iPod software updater folder
So thart might eplain the vastly different count.

But I also see a number of apps that I use and that will probably never be reworked to a 64-bit version.
So I may need to keep a Mac that will be able to run Mojave.

But we're getting way off topic as far as this thread is concerned.
 
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If you look at Go64 results, it shows components that are inside an app that may otherwise be 64-bit. I have one, SilverFast8, which hs in it drivers for a slide scanner I have. The scanner driver is 32 bit, while the rest of SilverFast8 is 64 bit. It runs under Catalina until I try to scan a slide, at which point the 32 bit process fails. The scanner vendor is working on a new driver, which is nice. But Go64 flags the driver as being 32 bit, while SilverFast itself is 64 bit. That may explain some of the difference for you.
 
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Why not keep the MacBook Pro you have now, and just get the iPad Pro you want?
 

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I am running a 2015 13” MBP as my primary device and have nil issues with similar tasks on macOS 10.15.2 Catalina. I'm with everyone else here, before spending a lot of money on a new laptop I'd be looking at why your present device is not working as it should.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac-Forums
 

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