How well does Monterey run on an Early 2015 13" MBP?

[izzy0242mr]

Just curious about people's experiences. I'm still on Mojave—wondering if I should upgrade at some point.

Not interested in hearing the typical security concerns—I'm just talking about in terms of performance and features; is it worth it, in your experience? I do have an iPhone.

 

[Brian33]

Monterey is running fine on our Early 2015 13" MBP (8 GB RAM, 256 SSD). No performance problems, though it's lightly used (spouse's email and browsing, mostly). iCloud syncing working fine.

One thing to note: It had been my daughter's, running Mojave. I completely wiped the internal SSD device and did a fresh install of Monterey from a USB stick. Afterwards, I used Migration Assistant with a High Sierra backup of our Early 2011 (!) MBP, copying settings, user accounts, data, etc. It's running well.

(I'm not saying an upgrade from Mojave would have been a problem, though -- it just had a bunch of stuff on it we didn't need, and I felt better getting a fresh Monterey on it, though I think just a regular upgrade from Mojave would have worked fine, too.)

Is it worth going from Mojave? I don't know -- I was quite happy with that OS, too.

 

[Jac Robinson]

Thanks for the feedback Brian. I am also using the same model on Mojave, and am wondering if Monterey is that much better. I am especially interested since this is the last officially supported release for this model Macbook Pro.

 

[izzy0242mr]

Monterey is running fine on our Early 2015 13" MBP (8 GB RAM, 256 SSD). No performance problems, though it's lightly used (spouse's email and browsing, mostly). iCloud syncing working fine.

One thing to note: I had been my daughter's, running Mojave. I completely wiped the internal SSD device and did a fresh install of Monterey from a USB stick. Afterwards, I used Migration Assistant with a High Sierra backup of our Early 2011 (!) MBP, copying settings, user accounts, data, etc. It's running well.

(I'm not saying an upgrade from Mojave would have been a problem, though -- it just had a bunch of stuff on it we didn't need, and I felt better getting a fresh Monterey on it, though I think just a regular upgrade from Mojave would have worked fine, too.)

Is it worth going from Mojave? I don't know -- I was quite happy with that OS, too.

I haven't used my iPhone-Mac features extensively, but do you know if they are noticeably better/more substantial on Monterey as compared to Mojave?

 

[Brian33]

I haven't used my iPhone-Mac features extensively, but do you know if they are noticeably better/more substantial on Monterey as compared to Mojave?

Sorry -- I can't really say. Mostly my spouse uses that machine, though I occasionally use it. I haven't noticed any additional iPhone-to-Mac features.

 

[Brian33]

Thanks for the feedback Brian. I am also using the same model on Mojave, and am wondering if Monterey is that much better. I am especially interested since this is the last officially supported release for this model Macbook Pro.

I haven't really noticed that Monterey is any better (I was quite happy with Mojave). But, I believe there are quite a few security fixes Monterey that weren't (and won't be) fixed in Mojave. That was some incentive to upgrade, for me.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

I also have an 8GB Early 2015 13“ MBP that runs Monterey. It works fine. The machine is my secondary working device, so I use MS Office and several browsers for browser-based software. Because of the working environment, a supported OS is important to me.

I had been stayed with Mojave to the close, and then did the jump to Monterey. Surprisingly, no big thing. Looking forward to using the MBP until fall 2024 when Monterey probably phases out - maybe then there will be the 15“ MBA I immediately would buy

 

[StevenGeorge]

Hello! I have a 2015 MacBook Pro 13” 2.7GHZ i5 with 512GB SSD and 8GB RAM. I bought it used with Catalina already installed on it. I ran with that for a couple of years and just last week upgraded directly to Monterey. For quite a while I was skeptical about upgrading to an early Intel MacBook like mine. But eventually I figured out by now most of the bugs have been worked out. Cut to the chase I am relieved and happy at the same time. I’ve had no problems with Monterey, it is just as fast and snappy as Catalina maybe more so. I give it 2 thumbs up! HTH

 

[Jack Neill]

My 2.7/8/2TB Early 2015 13" was on El Cap when I bought it a few months ago, I went to 12.2 I think right away and everything was fine but lately after 12.3 and .4 it was getting slow and slower and my watch quit working or was really hit or miss, I was just living with it and assumed it was just this normal for this book. I have 12.4 on my M1 and on my Late 2013 iMac working perfectly. I decided to drop my 11.6.7 image on it to compare and I have to say its a lot smoother and my watch works again. I also am using 3-4GB less memory and its about 25F cooler when idle. I still like Monterey and will keep it on my other machines but I might have had a bad install that just got worse. I am going to stay on the coast and stay out the city for awhile on this machine and see how it goes with 12.5.x