Help Macbook Air 2015 vs Macbook Pro 2011

[Reflej0]

I have a limited budget AR $ 30,000 (US $ 400) and I was thinking of buying a Macbook.
The options they usually offer are:

• Macbook Pro 2011 4-core 4GB / 8GB Ram SSD disk and 6750M video card.
  The state of the battery depends but between 500 and 1000 cycles.
• Macbooks Air I5 with 128GB SSD of 2015 or 2014 but with 4GB Ram (no seller offers 8GB) for that price.
  The battery usually ranges between 400 and 800 cycles.

I would go for the Macbook Pro but I discovered that it is not compatible with Airdrop because it has Bluetooth 2.1
I also know that installing Catalina is a rare procedure.
So my question is, can I get a good experience with only 4GB of Ram on a Macbook?
The budget is limited so I can not look for other alternatives, but a Mac Mini 2011/2012 (I would consider this option if Macbooks are very bad options).
Thanks for the answers.

 

[firelighter487]

DO NOT BUY THAT MACBOOK PRO!!!!

DON'T

the gpu in that model has a lot of problems and it will fail and then you have a bricked machine. stay the hell away from it.

also it's not supported anymore and you will be stuck on High Sierra.

keep looking until you find an Air with 8gb of ram or a 13" macbook pro of 2013-2015. the 13" 2012 pro will also do but the screen is really bad by todays standards. if you can afford a retina macbook pro 13" then go for that.

 

[Reflej0]

DO NOT BUY THAT MACBOOK PRO!!!!

DON'T

the gpu in that model has a lot of problems and it will fail and then you have a bricked machine. stay the hell away from it.

also it's not supported anymore and you will be stuck on High Sierra.

keep looking until you find an Air with 8gb of ram or a 13" macbook pro of 2013-2015. the 13" 2012 pro will also do but the screen is really bad by todays standards. if you can afford a retina macbook pro 13" then go for that.

Thanks for the answer, what problems do you have specifically or is there a link?
The Macbooks Pro 2011 looked very tempting even without knowing that they had failures, I did not like that it does not have Airdrop and that Catalina is installed alternately (unofficially).

 

[chrfr]

Thanks for the answer, what problems do you have specifically or is there a link?
The Macbooks Pro 2011 looked very tempting even without knowing that they had failures, I did not like that it does not have Airdrop and that Catalina is installed alternately (unofficially).

Don't buy the 2011 Mac. If you search these forums for 2011 Macbook Pro GPU failure you'll find many posts about the problem.

 

[firelighter487]

Thanks for the answer, what problems do you have specifically or is there a link?
The Macbooks Pro 2011 looked very tempting even without knowing that they had failures

just google 2011 radeongate and you can see the faillures. stay away from it and buy something else.

a 2012 MacBook Pro shouldn't cost much more, and it doesn't have crippeling gpu faillure and it supports catalina natively. although there is no telling if it will support the next macOS so i'd recommend buying something a bit newer.

a 2014 or 2015 Air with 8gb of ram or a 13" macbook pro from around the same time with 8gb of ram would be very nice if you can find something like that. don't buy an Air with 4gb of ram, macOS and 4gb of ram isn't pleasant.

 

[theluggage]

Just to re-iterate what everybody else has said about the 2011 MBP: Just say no.

I bought a 2011 17" MBP when it was new - and got 7 years of use out of it with one mid-life failure and free 'repair', so I'm not too unhappy. However, the GPU gave up again a year or so ago and, with the repair program ended, it's off to silicon heaven.

I wouldn't spend money on a second hand one.

 

[firelighter487]

Just to re-iterate what everybody else has said about the 2011 MBP: Just say no.

I bought a 2011 17" MBP when it was new - and got 7 years of use out of it with one mid-life failure and free 'repair', so I'm not too unhappy. However, the GPU gave up again a year or so ago and, with the repair program ended, it's off to silicon heaven.

I wouldn't spend money on a second hand one.

you can "repair" it by stting an EFI variable that forces it to run on the iGPU only, so if you still have it that might be worth doing. but yeah, don't buy one lol.

 

[macintoshmac]

I had a Late 2011 MBP 15 inch with 6770m GPU. It served me well, I got lucky with it. But, towards the end, I used to see a lot of random shutdowns and when restarted, I would see this was the graphics. Do not go with the 2011 MBP. That MBP is a ticking time bomb.

See if you can find yourself an MBA 2017. It will feel faster than the 2011 MBP and work well without any deal-breaking issues.

 

[Reflej0]

Seeing all the answers, I will definitely not go for the Macbook Pro 2011, thanks n.n.
I will surely go for the Macbook Air i5 13" 128GB 4GB, I know it is something poor but I do not want to spend more, and in Argentina it is the maximum that is reached for $ 30,000.
I have a Mac Mini 2018 i5 256GB 8GB so I already know what a "good user experience" would be.
The 2012 Macbooks Pro are quite far from priced and come with poor (but upgradeable) configurations i5 4GB 500GB HDD (No SSD)

 

[theluggage]

you can "repair" it by stting an EFI variable that forces it to run on the iGPU only, so if you still have it that might be worth doing. but yeah, don't buy one lol.

OK, I'd already done that, so I exaggerated its death a little bit, but the result is not anything that anybody should pay money for.

 

[firelighter487]

OK, I'd already done that, so I exaggerated its death a little bit, but the result is not anything that anybody should pay money for.

oh right. yeah, you shouldn't buy one.