What new features will I get on a MBP 2015?

[tranceking26]

I'm guessing a lot of newer features like live text require an M1 series Mac.

So what exactly will I get if I upgrade from Mojave to Monterrey? I can't seem to find out.

Also will a MacBook Pro Early 2015, with 8GB RAM, run Monterey okay?

 

[gilby101]

I'm guessing a lot of newer features like live text require an M1 series Mac.

No, live text works on my 2016 MacBook.

Also will a MacBook Pro Early 2015, with 8GB RAM, run Monterey okay?

If your MBP runs previous macOS okay, then it will run Monterey okay (maybe a bit more responsive). I hope your SSD is not 128GB or you may be battling to remove enough files to make space for the install.

So what exactly will I get if I upgrade from Mojave to Monterrey?

See https://www.apple.com/macos/monterey/features/, https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/macos-10-15/, https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/macos-big-sur/, https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/macos-12/

But also slightly better memory management, security and other bug fixes, expectation of future bug and security fixes.

You may also see some new bugs, though I have not found anything important on my Macs.

You may need to upgrade some of your apps. Catalina and particularly Big Sur introduced new under the hood features and restrictions. Monterey upgrade is much easier from that point of view.

If it were me and needing to upgrade by 3 versions, I would do a new/clean install - backup the old, erase the disk, install Monterey and then apps and recover documents.

 

[tranceking26]

Thank you for such a helpful reply.

 

[dmr727]

I had an early 16GB 2015 MBP before upgrading to my M1 Air, and I found Catalina to the last version of the OS that ran well. Responsiveness took a really big hit under Big Sur, and that was with a clean install. Monterey did improve things somewhat, but had I not gotten my MBA, I would have rolled my MBP back to Catalina.

Perhaps you won't be bothered by it, but I wasn't too happy with the resulting performance. As mentioned earlier, just have a good backup, do a clean install, and see what you think. If you're happy, reinstall your apps and documents from the backup. If not, maybe give Catalina a shot and leave it be. You'll still have plenty of usefulness out of it before Apple stops the security updates.