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now i see it

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jan 2, 2002
11,241
24,228
I haven’t searched this forum -
Is Big Sur ok enough by now to install on a 2016 MacBook? (8 GB RAM, 500 GB storage, 1.2 GHz dual core M5).

it’s currently running macOS Catalina perfectly with zero issues.

Any problems with BigSur?
I know I can’t stay on Catalina forever.

thanks.
 

dmr727

macrumors G4
Dec 29, 2007
10,641
5,718
NYC
I recently installed it over Catalina on my 16GB 2015 MBP and wish I hadn't. It works fine, but it's noticeably slower. Even launching a .jpg in Preview takes a second or two when before it was pretty much instantaneous. Safari 15 is *much* slower, but that's not necessarily Big Sur's fault.

Anyway, I upgraded just to get a feel for Apple's new UI since I'm thinking of replacing my MBP - but if I intended to hold on to this machine I would roll it back to Catalina. I don't mind the look of the new UI and everything is working fine, but feature wise I'm not seeing anything here that's worth the performance hit.
 
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spainbran

macrumors member
Sep 20, 2021
74
50
Depends on what you want:
It works fine!
It has some overhaul on the UI side, people like it or not!
The "new" file system structure is a fail (an MB PRO is not an IPHONE) and is the reason for the slowness and huge updates, ...
It brings all the latest security fixes
It works with most of the current software

For the optimisation part it will be on Monterey, hopefully.

If you you have not upgraded yet, I would wait till a 12.1 release.

My system:
1634407249679.png
 
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DenisK

macrumors regular
Nov 6, 2008
183
33
I have a 2019 MBP with 32 gigs of ram and an older MBA, both on Catalina. I won't be touching Big Sur precisely for reasons above, I like when stuff just works. When I hear that there is a new OS which brings speed improvements while retaining the making sense part - I'll give it a try, but I imagine that will take another year or two, which is fine by me. I work on these and just don't have time or interest to become a part of their "focus group."
 
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spainbran

macrumors member
Sep 20, 2021
74
50
Stuff works, that is not the problem of big sur and above.
Having to remove the security constrains to get rid of studendt, change an icon, ..
Well Apple is at win7 at the moment.
 
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