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gyus

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 26, 2007
36
3
My specs
2015 13"MBA (7,1) 2.2Ghz
8Gb RAM

I'm currently running Catalina and wanted to upgrade to either Big Sur or Monterey. I understand that this MBA is pretty old, but financially, I have to hold off on upgrading my hardware. I use it work, mainly running office apps (Zoom meetings, spreadsheets, web browsing). Battery life is OK running Catalina.

I accept that a newer OS (on an older machine ) is always going to slow it down and make it run a bit warmer- but which OS would have the least impact? Searching the forums on this question tends to focus on newer machines so it's a bit frustrating. I've read reviews stating that Big Sur is a more mature and updated OS so it runs similarly to Catalina, meanwhile Monterey has bugs that slow it down. Others state the opposite- that Monterey is actually faster, so skip Big Sur.

Can anyone give me some advice on which one to upgrade to considering the age of the MBA?
 

jameslmoser

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2011
697
672
Las Vegas, NV
Big Sur runs well on my 2012 Retina MacBook Pro, but I don't use it for much anymore. It won't be getting upgraded to Monterey because it has Nvidia graphics that won't be supported without fixing it after every update.

I am avoiding Monterey on my other machines because it just seems like a dumpster fire. The 12.3 release finally released what they were suppose to release with it initially, so I'm going to wait until they have time to work on some of those bugs and then update when they release macOS 14. =)
 

LaEnsalada

macrumors member
Dec 26, 2020
30
8
I have a mbp early 2015 with the base configuration. Monterey runs better than Big Sur ever did: In Big Sur animations were choppy almost all the time, but in Monterey they fixed it
 
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cognus

macrumors member
May 1, 2012
75
2
Texas
gyus did you ever get happy with this? I have same vintage early-2015 mba 13 but weaker: 4GB, 128GB.. I would be happy to upgrade to a faster drive if could get clarity on one that would work with either/both Big Sur and Monterey, but I fear Monterey would just be unusable with such specs... Any update would be appreciated
 
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gyus

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 26, 2007
36
3
gyus did you ever get happy with this? I have same vintage early-2015 mba 13 but weaker: 4GB, 128GB.. I would be happy to upgrade to a faster drive if could get clarity on one that would work with either/both Big Sur and Monterey, but I fear Monterey would just be unusable with such specs... Any update would be appreciated
I can give you an update. I've installed Catalina->Big Sur->Monterey.

I didn’t notice any significant degradation in speed or battery life in Catalina or in Big Sur. System bugs that were present in Catalina carried over to Big Sur. Opening apps did slow a bit in Big Sur.

However, Monterey was a mixed bag. The bugs I referred to had been fixed (thats great!), but simple tasks like browsing the web and office apps now cause the my MBA to become slightly warm (sometimes the fan even turns on at times). This drains my battery (what I have left of it) faster. Opening apps has become even slower in Monterey and the overall “snappiness” of the system has decreased. Can I still use the laptop - yes, but is it unnoticeable when I'm working- no.

My recommendations are to stick with Catalina or Big Sur.
  1. If you have less than 8GB of memory you're going to swapping large amounts memory. Even with 8GB, at the end of day, I get a large amount of page-outs, although I have to admit the mac memory compression and management system is pretty good.
  2. If you don't have a T2 chip
  3. already have a weak battery
 

Isamilis

macrumors 68020
Apr 3, 2012
2,188
1,073
I can give you an update. I've installed Catalina->Big Sur->Monterey.

I didn’t notice any significant degradation in speed or battery life in Catalina or in Big Sur. System bugs that were present in Catalina carried over to Big Sur. Opening apps did slow a bit in Big Sur.

However, Monterey was a mixed bag. The bugs I referred to had been fixed (thats great!), but simple tasks like browsing the web and office apps now cause the my MBA to become slightly warm (sometimes the fan even turns on at times). This drains my battery (what I have left of it) faster. Opening apps has become even slower in Monterey and the overall “snappiness” of the system has decreased. Can I still use the laptop - yes, but is it unnoticeable when I'm working- no.

My recommendations are to stick with Catalina or Big Sur.
  1. If you have less than 8GB of memory you're going to swapping large amounts memory. Even with 8GB, at the end of day, I get a large amount of page-outs, although I have to admit the mac memory compression and management system is pretty good.
  2. If you don't have a T2 chip
  3. already have a weak battery
Thanks and appreciate for sharing this. I am in similar situation, and have been disappointed with Big Sur's performance. I thought Monterey is better than Big Sur, but it looks it's not. My issues in Catalina is its upper keys (media, brightness, etc) in new Magic Keyboard didn't function at all.
 

pullman

macrumors 6502a
Feb 11, 2008
754
117
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Curious to know if Monterey 12.4 has made any difference here? I have a 2015 11" MBA (2,2GHz i7) with 8GB. I tried Big Sur a while back and got quite a bit of fan usage, even with simple tasks like running Notes. I held off on Monterey because of the rumoured bricking of old computers. But how is it now?
 

Fozamo

macrumors member
May 21, 2011
98
39
Santa Monica, CA
gyus did you ever get happy with this? I have same vintage early-2015 mba 13 but weaker: 4GB, 128GB.. I would be happy to upgrade to a faster drive if could get clarity on one that would work with either/both Big Sur and Monterey, but I fear Monterey would just be unusable with such specs... Any update would be appreciated
i have the same model as you and Monterey runs fine, same performance as Big Sur. my advice is to upgrade.
 

pullman

macrumors 6502a
Feb 11, 2008
754
117
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I also bit the proverbial bullet and upgraded my 11" MBA (i7, 2,2GHz, 8GB). Monterey definitely runs better than Big Sur did. Battery life is about the same as I had on Catalina and it also runs as smooth as Catalina did. The one tiny thing I have noticed is that opening various Sys Prefs panes take half a second longer than on Catalina. I have not noticed that the computer would run the fans more or that the computer would get hotter than it did on Catalina.

Overall I'm very happy that I upgraded, though I am still unhappy about some design tweaks, like the hideously ugly folder icons in Finder, the completely incomprehensible decision to grey out time and date when Don't Disturb is on and that they've removed the flags from the input sources menu bar item. The latter two go against Apple's design ethos imho.



gyus did you ever get happy with this? I have same vintage early-2015 mba 13 but weaker: 4GB, 128GB.. I would be happy to upgrade to a faster drive if could get clarity on one that would work with either/both Big Sur and Monterey, but I fear Monterey would just be unusable with such specs... Any update would be appreciated
 
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ernieH

macrumors newbie
Nov 7, 2014
6
0
Early 2015 13" MBA/2.2 GHz/8 GB/500 GB......upgraded from Mojave to (currently) Monterey ver 12.4. Apps take a little longer to open, but no real deal-breaker issues....though I don't often have more than a few apps open at any one time. MBA does run a bit warmer than with Mojave...did an SMC reset and it helped, but just a little. Curiously, I notice the increased warmth not-so-much while in use but, rather when it goes to screen saver and all apps (except message) closed (goes to blank screen after 10 min per settings). I just close the lid if I'm not going to use for a while...no issues there.

I have the final Mojave clone I used in case I want to go back, but I'll leave it alone for now.
 
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Isamilis

macrumors 68020
Apr 3, 2012
2,188
1,073
Early 2015 13" MBA/2.2 GHz/8 GB/500 GB......upgraded from Mojave to (currently) Monterey ver 12.4. Apps take a little longer to open, but no real deal-breaker issues....though I don't often have more than a few apps open at any one time. MBA does run a bit warmer than with Mojave...did an SMC reset and it helped, but just a little. Curiously, I notice the increased warmth not-so-much while in use but, rather when it goes to screen saver and all apps (except message) closed (goes to blank screen after 10 min per settings). I just close the lid if I'm not going to use for a while...no issues there.

I have the final Mojave clone I used in case I want to go back, but I'll leave it alone for now.
I installed Big Sur in my MBA 2020, tried to use it for my work for about 6 months, until I finally gave up and downgrade to Catalina (couldn't go back to Mojave, MBA 2020 minimum is Catalina). It's like having a fresh air after months of work in narrow room, lol.
 
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