ML on Core 2 Duo Macbook Pros

[sshhoott]

This is a general opinion based thread on the performance of OS X 10.8 ML on your Macbook Pro with a Core 2 Duo Processor. Understanding that many of Core 2 Duo users will be upgrading directly from SL, you can also compare ML with SL (I am upgrading from SL as well).

Please talk about these things in your response:

Overall, is ML snappier than SL or Lion?

Are the animations smoother (such as changing desktops, notification centre, Mail, Safari tab view animation, including scrolling in ALL apps)?

How's battery life with light usage or heavy usage compared to SL or Lion?

Any little bugs or annoyance you've noticed (such as WiFi problems)?

Did you clean install or just upgrade?

Which Mac model are you using (I use MBP 13 2010)?

Do you use HDD or a SDD?

Any other thoughts?

My motive to start this thread was so other older Macbook Pro owners can know if upgrading to ML would be optimal, especially knowing that older machines are likely to have more problems (as they did with Lion). I was one of those people who reverted back to SL after annoyances of Lion. Thanks your contributions.

 

[mikeo007]

Would love to know as well. Lion was a disaster on my 2010 Pro, hoping that ML will return performance to the snow leopard level.

 

[MasterHowl]

I have a mid-2009 MacBook Pro with a Core 2 Duo Processor.

I upgraded to Lion this time last, right over the top of Snow Leopard (didn't bother with a clean install). I've done the same with Mountain Lion.

Mountain Lion is definitely snappier than Lion! I didn't see much of a difference between SL and Lion, so I can safely say it's faster than SL too. Safari especially... it's like a whole new web browser! I know it's a running joke on these forums to say "Safari feels snappier", but it really genuinely is a lot lot LOT faster. Amazing really.

Animations butter smooth on my machine. I notice leg on animations when the iTunes visualiser is running in the background, but not otherwise. See the screen shot tomorrow for my graphics information!

My battery life has been shocking for the past 10 months. I think it's a hardware problem more than a software problem for me... so I can't comment!

I've been using ML for the past 4 hours and have only come across one little annoying bug. When typing a note on my Mac, the typing curser randomly disappears when it's "syncing", as if I accidentally clicked out of the window... I'm guessing it'll get ironed out in 10.8.1 (hopefully!).

I think I already said, but I'll say it again... I just installed over the top!

I'm using the HDD that came with my machine all those years ago... the only thing I've done is upgraded the RAM from 4GB to 8GB (did that just before Lion came out).

All in all, I'd definitely recommend upgrading for anyone with a mid-2009 machine, so it follows I'd also recommend an upgrade for anyone using a later one.

£14 well spent!! Any other questions feel free to ask!

 

[Rideherhard]

Lion worked great on my C2D but ML doesn't seem any faster than Lion but I did notice a snappier jump from SL to Lion. So far I haven't found any bugs on ML and working smoothly. Install of ML was better than Lion I remember Lion was running the fan pretty hard, this didn't happen with ML. I have HDD and my computer is a late 09 13" MBP 2.26ghz, and I did a upgrade install no clean install and I didn't do a clean install with Lion either and I have no problems yet but kinda young to say this just yet as I've only had a few hours with it.