Macbook Pro lifespan

[zeppelin68]

I am about to buy a Macbook Pro but I'm wondering how long it will last. My ibook G4 is incredibly outdated now, and 2500 is a lot of money to spend. My main concern on how future proof it will be is the 8600gt. Will it last about 4 years?

 

[amoda]

Depends on your usage. If you're going to be using it in 4 years time to surf, msn and write essays then yeah...it'll probably easily do all that. If you're going to try and play the newest 2011 games on it then no...it'll fail miserably.

 

[hi-there]

I am about to buy a Macbook Pro but I'm wondering how long it will last. My ibook G4 is incredibly outdated now, and 2500 is a lot of money to spend. My main concern on how future proof it will be is the 8600gt. Will it last about 4 years?

It is a difficult question you are asking... even people did answer your question with their opinions, there is no way of knowing what they are saying is 'correct'. Only time will tell. Having said that, it is best time possible to buy MBPro as it just had an update and the GPU (as you pointed out) was also updated. Something new will always come out... can't avoid that.

Another factor to consider is what sort of applications are you running that will push the MBPro to the limit? Again Adobe apps have just been updated too so I can not imagine a major update requiring considerably more powerful computer in the next 2 - 3 years (even 4).

EDIT: Amoda beat me to it.

 

[Sopranino]

I am about to buy a Macbook Pro but I'm wondering how long it will last. My ibook G4 is incredibly outdated now, and 2500 is a lot of money to spend. My main concern on how future proof it will be is the 8600gt. Will it last about 4 years?

I have found that an upgrade cycle of around 3-4 years seems to work quite well. At the end of 3.5 years the updated software that I run will still work reasonably well.

I've been on a PB G4 for about 4 years, the lower memory slot has failed leaving me with a maximum of 512 MB of memory. It still runs the latest editions DAW software without any problems showing until I start dealing with multi GB sound files. (then it's the spinning beach ball problem)

Based on my personal experiences, and anecdotal evidence from other people that I know, your new SR MBP will still be capable of doing about 90% of what you need in 3 years. I can't speak about games---I don't personally spend much time gaming.

Sopranino