The original MacBook Pro SUCKED!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ค. 2024
- Today's video is sponsored by SoftwareKeep! Check them out and use code LMYT20 for 20% off! softwarekeep.com/?...
Many of us assume that the Steve Jobs era was the peak of innovation, but today I'm going to show you why the original MacBook Pro, even though you can still use them today, is actually pretty bad! Under Jobs, the MacBook Pro had one of the worst records for reliability, and despite the low prices these 2008 and prior MacBooks command, you should probably steer clear...
time stamps
0:00 Intro
1:44 The first MacBook Pro had major issues
5:00 Later versions were also bad...
5:45 Pre-unibody vs Unibody MacBook Pro
7:34 Graphics failure on MacBooks before 2012
9:40 using a 2008 MacBook isn't great...
10:50 Closing thoughts
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I’m SUPER excited to announce that the day after WWDC on June 6 I’ll be hosting a special live podcast and even with Noah Rubin, Sam Kohl and Jon Prosser to talk Apple announcements, do some giveaways and games, and more! Brought to you by CleanMyMac X, Genius Bar Goes Drk tickets are on sale now!! Head to geniusbargoesdrk.com!!!
Hi Luke, loved the vid! What do you use to edit your videos? Just wondering as I am trying to start a YT channel
I gotta thank you soo much Luke,
I recently purchased a "flashy folder" 2013 21.5" iMac with a slightly chipped screen on the bezel for $50!
Turns out it has the MTO optional i7 4770 cpu and GTX 750M gpu!! I got it local from the original owner because it's stock PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD apparently failed when they went to wipe it before sale!
Woot Woot!
Sooo....
I had to completely gutt it, replace the NVMe SSD, max out the 8gb of ram to 16gb, and also added a 500gb SATA SSD for extra storage.
It's currently running Catalina super duper snappy! I am very pleased with the project to say the least.
All for just an overall $90 total investment, and while I intentionally wanted to eventually sell it?
I'm really hard pressed to just go ahead and keep it strictly for audio production (I'm also a musician).
Anyway, I wouldn't of even attempted something like this if not for your superb and inspiring content, and well also OWC's tutorial vids. Ha!
Thank you Luke!
P.S.
If you are ever wanting to dive deeper into vintage Mac content?
I have an original (RevB) Bondi Blue iMac, a G4 tower w/ (gynormous) beige box apple external storage, a G5 tower w/ 20" cinema display (the display stays here tho ha!), and a late 2008 iMac w/ 6gb ram that I was about to a SSD upgrade on for my son : )
Literally all living within my hallway closet! Bwahahah!
Cheers from North Carolina!
☺
Surprised you didn't mention that the very first MacBooks had 32-bit Core Duo CPUs, which is probably the most crippling issue, even if you want to install Linux on them.
Some facts
Core Duo. That's a name I haven't heard in a long time.
I was surprised he didn't mention that, either. I found one in an e-waste bin and thought it would be a fun project to put Linux on it, but I had forgotten (or probably just never realized) that these original MacBook Pros were 32-bit.
Currently playing around with one, it's a pity really because it looks brand new... but yes, 32bit only and 2GB RAM max, plus the horrible ATI x1600 that even Windows refuses to work with. With a lot of trying and failing various OSes I managed to get Windows 8 with Bootcamp drivers onto it as the most bearable system, with a SSD it even feels kinda nice as long as you just do very mundane things. But TH-cam is already too much for that poor GPU and the crippling RAM. Serves basically as an iTunes radio now for listening to podcasts and audiobooks... there's still a fairly recent and usable iTunes version for windows 8 32bit, definitely better than the vintage version you get for the max supported macOS.
Or the fact that the 2007 ones were equally useless as they are hardware limited to El Capitan because the T7xxx CPUs do not support instruction sets in later versions, thus locked to 10.11 while 2008s are able to happily go to Ventura, albeit slow as fuck
As a collector, I would say the Titanium PowerBook G4 is a way more attractive device
I agree, it’s very unique
@@lukemiani Yes I buy in Ebay in 2022
@@lukemiani I also upload content but on another topic
0fcourse
Yes Design is so great. But it's so freaking slow. You cannot do anything with that. I tried it.
I will say one thing, unlike the 2011 MacBook Pros, the 2007 and early 2008 models got a proper recall for the GPU issues they experienced. If you can find a recalled 07/08 Pro, their GPUs are replaced with a revised model, and the issues of graphical artifacts or no boot are completely fixed. The only way I’ve found to tell the difference is if they have a green sticker in the RAM bay, or if the GPU die has a 603 or 604 model number, vs. 600, 601, or 602.
That's all down to nVidia - nVidia had a problem, they fixed it, done. Apple replaced boards free of charge for four years I think, maybe longer if you pushed them. AMD NEVER released a fixed version of their crappy 2011 era chips. So Apple board swapped with replacements which would eventually fail. Poop.
Honestly it blows my mind sometimes to thing that the original iPhone was concurrent with Mac OS X Tiger and the Pre-unibody MacBooks. The iPhone lives in the 3GS Snow Leopard era in my mind and its hard to believe that some people were setting up iPhones on those MacBooks running Tiger
I remember setting up my 3GS on a white, plastic MacBook with the Intel Core Duo processor. It didn't even have the core 2 duo, it was the original core duo model. It's amazing to think that when that computer was brand new, it was the fastest computer my high school self had ever used.
As someone who also remembers that time, it wasn’t that out of the ordinary here in NZ; mostly because when iPhones started to become prevalent, a lot of people were still rocking the first-gen 15" MBPs.
My mom STILL uses her 2010 15 inch MBP she bought new as her main laptop. She uses it at least 2-3 times a week with a light workflow. I swapped the 320 gig HD with a 256 gig SSD and upgraded to 8 GB of memory back in 2016. It has 86% battery health and about 350 cycles on the ORIGINAL battery. That thing is a solid performer. I could honestly daily drive it for school related work myself. Quite impressive.
I had the 2007 15" and went through 4 logic boards, all due to the 8600m failing. The upside is back then the service at Apple stores was so good that you could just walk in with a broken computer and walk out with a new one 10 minutes later.
I still use a 17" Early 2008 MacBook Pro CTO on dosdude1's Catalina Patcher every day for writing HTMl. I'm triple booting Catalina, Leopard, and Windows 7. It's honestly a still a beautiful machine, and loads of fun. However, it is a little long in the tooth and the new design language for the Apple Silicon Macs is a compelling upgrade...
(posted on a Early 2008 17" MBP)
Time to upgrade that garbage
apple needs to make an 18" M3
these machines are awesome !
yo 17 inch? If only the specs weren't so ancient
@@emilsecker7881Bro shut up if it works it's good
The worst thing about the first ones was the terrible high pitched whine produced by something in the power regulation. It affected every single one that crossed my work desk, and it drove me batty.
Oh boy. I bought an early 2006 15 inch model produced around the keynote announcement and it was quite the nightmare. The MagSafe connector got so hot that it caught on fire, so that was fun. These things were kind of rushed, leading me to believe that the Intel transition was not really planned at all. One of the funniest design flaws was that all of the early launch units had bent lids that did not shut properly. Even in Apple's promotional photos from the website had a slight bend on the lid.
I have that too and still up and running but you have to ventilated it with an electric fan because it's so very hot.
Bought mine brand new in June 2006. Retired it in 2021 when a flower vase spontaneously exploded and dumped a cup of water between the bezel and LCD, murking up the bottom third of the screen. Still runs though.
So yeah, Snow Leopard was its last update. And I regretted ordering the “glossy” screen the instant I unboxed it. But at some point my Logic/Garageband setup got so crazy I dreaded rebuilding it on a new system, so I was like, “Oh well, I’ll use this till it dies…”
There’s no describing the abuse and indignity that machine has suffered. Here’s a random example: being left outside in a thunderstorm for HOURS.
I brought it in.
Turned it sideways so the water would POUR outta the case.
Disassembled it completely. Toasted it. Applied the appropriate greases and pastes. Reassembled and pressed the power button…
BONG.
And this happened TWICE.
Even the Superdrive still works.
(For comparison, my 2015 MBP got lightly drizzled on ONCE, and was neveragain the same.)
What sucks most about the 2006 Macbook Pro?
It wont frickin DIE!
I have one of those 2006 models, bought for 10 euros half a year ago, been in daily use since that and still works perfectly! Even the GPU still works and I even managed to get Windows 7 fully working with driver support. Seems that I got lucky. I want to also point out that Windows 7 on the Macbook Pro is much more stable for me than MacOS.
How’d you get windows on yours? I’ve been trying for years and still can’t get it to work and I have a late 2006 17” if that helps. And Dang good job keeping it going.
@@Wolfy28 If I do remember correctly, I used a burned Windows 7 disc to install Windows, and then I used drivers which I found under the description of this video: th-cam.com/video/idvjCiAd6go/w-d-xo.html
Then I found the GPU drivers from a sketchy website I can't find anymore (The reason I downloaded drivers from a sketchy website is, that the normal drivers wont allow to install in Windows and you have to use a patched version of the drivers to make that work). And that's pretty much it.
One of the downsides I have discovered is that the Function keys don't work (They don't work as in the keys themselves do work, but you can't change the volume and the brightness etc).
Also I want to point out for clarification, that I have a Late 2006, 15 inch Macbook Pro with the ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 graphics card and I'm not dual booting, Windows 7 is the only OS that I have on there.
I hope this helps 👍
@@Whitecat372 I'll try to get it to work and thanks for letting me know. I'll try to remember to send you my results. Thanks again.
I hope your replaced the thermal compound
@@kirishima638 if your talking to me I haven't yet but I've cleaned the cooling system and removed as much dust as possible.
Most people don't know that the earlier pre-unibody MacBook Pros are essentially plug and play with the 2008 top case (where the trackpad is attached), I put one on my 2007 and it's great!
I was given a 2006 Core Duo Mac Book Pro and it had the black screen at startup, and no external video, I looked up how to repair the issue as at first I thought it was a bad display inverter, but one video I found stated to bake your Mac in the oven to reflow the GPU, so I did that and got it working again, at least for about six months, my second bake lasted about 4 months. Then I saw a early 2007 Mac Book Pro on Ebay, , but it looked like some one sat on it, the display was cracked, and the frame bent, bidding started at 99 cents, and I won the auction with a 99 cent bid. I was able to repair it by using the screen and inverter from the 2006 Mac Book Pro to get it working, and I still have it. It also came with a good battery.
Having a chat with you about all MacBook models, pros, cons, would be super cool and interesting, and it's a topic I'll never find anyone else to talk with. For most of the people, they're just computers, but for the true Apple Fan, they're an evolution cycle and a crucial piece of history.
had the late 2008 model 2.5/2gb/512, my favorite MBP design by far especially in that final iteration....such an industrial look esp the power button as mentioned, speakers were amazing and the newly added LED and multi touch trackpad were welcome features
I recently received my nephew's old mid 2007 MacBook Pro non unibody and I considered fixing it up since it is beat up and is missing a battery but Iight as well buy a good condition one for cheap. As a fan of old vintage Apple products, I always liked the designs of these 2006-2008 non unibody MacBook Pro as well as the G4 MacBooks.
I had an early 2008 15” for 6 years. It had 2 logic board replacements and 2 screen replacements under AppleCare and the only original part is the keyboard and case bottom. It ended up really slow and when the hard drive went I replaced it with a 13” Retina in 2014, which was a solid and unproblematic machine that my Dad is still using (though that’s also had 2 screen replacements due to delamination and a battery replacement
YES I had a late 2008 17-inch MacBook Pro and here's what I LOVED about it and miss: the keyboard! That silver keyboard, for me and my typing style, was a perfect-feeling input device. I could type so fast and so accurately on it. Unibody went for that black keyboard that was never as good. Plus, it had the front-loading super drive and firewire... as a beginner (Final Cut Pro 4) video editor, it was all heaven. I couldn't care less about graphics cards, etc. I wish I had it back just for the typic experience. And with (as. you mentioned) Snow Leopard, I never had a glitch. Ahh, those were the days!
My first-gen 17" MBP was crap. The battery was already swelling when I took it out of the box and the hard drive crashed in the first week I had it. The GPU ended up killing the machine. Oh and back in those days a ton a software wasn't updated to run on Intel and ran in Rosetta which was very slow. Also the 6 bit dispay had terrible colour accuracy.
I paid $2700 for the 17” MBP in November 2007 and it died by winter 2011. The battery swelled, the power brick broke, and then finally the display cable connection to the logic board broke. It was a great computer until it suddenly wasn’t and then it was utter trash.
I have a 2008 MacBook Pro running El Capitan and it's still perfectly usable today. In fact I used it until a few months ago to edit and upload almost all of my videos (upgrading it with 6 GB of RAM and an SSD helped with that) and now my dad uses it to do Zoom with his cousin in Australia, and it still works fine for that too. I now use a 2008 iMac which is equally obsolete but is equally obsolete but has a slightly faster CPU and a much larger full HD display. It's also still running El Capitan.
I grabbed a 2008 MBP in near perfect condition, replaced the HD with a SSD, maxed out the memory, and installed High Sierra, and later Mojave, and for the most part, it's a very decent laptop for basic tasks, including watching video. I also had fun pushing the laptop to the limit by installing Big Sur via OCLP and although it was barely useable, it did work (which is quite remarkable for such an old machine).
@@NRGYit uses sata not ide
Been dailying a mid '12 unibody since release. Besides some upgrades, it's needed some repairs. The original hard drive went bad, replaced the track pad, it's on its 3rd battery and just today replaced the WiFi antenna.
I do some 3d modelling, mainly Fusion 360. Takes a few minutes to start, and runs ~ok.
More than anything I'm just curious how long it will last. Been debating whether to do a workaround to get newer OS versions. Since Luke is a Unibody evangelist, I would love to see what solutions he'd try.
I've got a old (donated) unibody and I use it as a DJing machine, doesn't need to be hugely powerful, and the only thing needed as far as parts was a new battery (the original battery had become a collection spicy pillows due to overcharging and had buckled the case bottom). Was also recently given one to fix, and that had just an issue where the SATA cable was shorting out on the case, causing intermittent disk problems. One piece of insulating tape later, and a fresh install and she was good to go back to her owner.
I had a pre-Unibody... suffered 2 motherboard failures. I replaced the second failed one with a faster 2.6GHz board. I actually chose this over the Unibody back in late 2008 because I preferred the matte finish display and the overall silver look and I saved like $250. The backlit keyboard was beautiful. Currently typing this on a failed GPU 2011 MBP, but this thing just keeps holding on. Idk about real-world performance over PPC though. Before my 2008 MBP, I had a dual 1.25 G4 MDD and that thing smoked it in my usage.
I have an early 2009 Macbook Pro but because I was using the Ipad so much I forgot the password and I have tried every thing on line to get it to let me access it and can't.
Oddly it will let me on as a guest.
But how to get it to work again so I can use it to show my videos while I am doing them live on OBS on my Silicon M1 Mac Min & Logitech camera eludes me.
By the way I can still do videos on my Iphone 7 with no problem and have recently.
I had a 2008 17” and it was great at the time. Sold it and got scammed, water under the bridge. Got a newer unibody 17” 2010 and it’s been my favorite laptop. Going to keep it forever even if it dies.
I had one and it suddenly died! I got the unibody one 15” and it got stolen with only two months of use. I still remember them both fondly😢
I was using a Mid 2009 13" Macbook Pro 8GB Ram and an SSD running Catalina with dosdude1's patch right up until January, when i bought an M2 Macbook Air. It does get the job done for basic task's. Has a few bugs though. The computer doesn't sleep when you close the cover. Apple Maps doesn't display properly. And some apps don't start properly(crash) the first time you try to start them. Other than that, its quite usable.
Hello, i ve got an 17 inch 2008 model from my friend for half the current used marked price. I enjoy it, but it has a matrix problem. It is too dull, but not completely, i can use it, but not in light areas. It was sold with high sierra, the problem was there. It is on, i think, second brightness level, i cant ajust it with the built in buttons. I reinstalled to catalina with the patcher, but the problem is still there. I think of three major reasons.
1) Matrix issue, i think i need to change it.
2) Os screen driver, i need to test original El Capitan. But i somehow doubt that is the point.
3) Graphics failure, common for 2007 and 2008 Pro's.
The friend told me another point, but it is too doubtly. The battery is dead and with the new battery the screen brightness could be ajustable. (I have a bunch of old powerbooks, pro's and a1181, working fine without any batteries).
Of course i tried NVRAM and PRAM reset, it didn't work.
Any suggestions, folks? Any help would be highly appreciated, i love this cool machine and want to keep it.
My first laptop / computer was a 2006 macbook pro! I bought it off craigslist around 2009/2010 for $500. It got me through the last few years of high school and early college despite having one of the Core Duo chips. Holy crap those 2 cores got HOT. I bought a new battery for it directly from the Apple Store (take that M2 MacBooks!) and later on the GPU ended up failing, so I replaced it with a Late 2013 15" MacBook Pro. Years later I found a used lower case complete with motherboard and fans for like $30. I swapped over my matte screen, keyboard and HDD just for nostalgia. Today it's hanging out on a bookshelf without a battery, which expanded. The OG MagSafe 85w charger worked great with my 2013 machine (with the adapter) for years, that charging brick just recently died also.
What about if you need software Luke do they give you download for the software to make your own ISO ?
I'll go further, the only unibody models worth buying are the 2012s, because they support Metal. macOS is becoming more dependant on Metal with every new release, and running Big Sur and later without it is very frustrating (lots of bugs, incompatibility with applications like Maps and iMovie, etc).
Also, the unibody models make great homemade routers, probably better than anything you can buy new today. Highly recommend. I put my 2012 to work with that, with the display disconnected (the OS doesn't support screen control). And it has a battery backup, if you run your modem and wifi APs on a UPS, you are golden.
You can use it as a router wtf
Still cranking away on my 2014 MBP. Still hanging out with Big Sur and Apple still does OS updates.
My only laptop is still a 2007 MacBook Pro (2.2GHz with only 128MB of VRAM) with the fixed recalled graphics card. It originally died and Apple fixed it with the new version of the board that solved all those issues and has been working hard ever since. Obvious upgrades done were larger HD's and then an SSD, 6GB RAM etc. As long as you watch videos in 720p, no stuttering issues. I can do everything needed for a basic (excluding major video editing in HD/4K) productivity day, including Affinity apps (latest v1 of course), iWork, and even Zoom or FaceTime calls using 10.11 El Capitan! So I am one of those people. Longest running work computer ever! I don't know anyone using a PC of the same area for all these modern tasks.
My main machine is my 2010 Mac Pro - another great purchase - (can't edit 4K footage etc. on the MBP in a reasonable amount of time) but everyone else in the family is using that 2007 laptop for everything. Uses are endless. A newer laptop failed with the combined audio port, so the only laptop in the house that can even do a proper audio setup is now that same 2007 MBP. It has all the ports, including audio in and out, to do anything you need. Back in the 1990 / 2000''s, that was unthinkable. By the time 8 years went by it was virtually impossible to use for anything remotely modern of the day. Technology changed so fast back then (Mac updates every 6 months or so in the early 2000's), that you were extremely limited compared to the life of a Mac in the last 16 years.
It also looks great because I purchased a plastic wrap for it and installed it ASAP (the latest tech back then). Then replaced the wrap with a new one in 2010 or so. It still has it on it even though it has yellowed a bit. Considering the price I paid refurbished from Apple, it was worth every penny. I plan on keeping it going well into the future.
I've been though all the transitions since the 68K Mac LC 575, so this is amazing to me, how long it has lasted.
I used an Early 2008 MacBook Pro until about 2012. I saw the writing was on the wall for non-retina devices and got the last upgradable MacBook Pro. At the time I was doing IT for schools, got a good edu discount.
Thanks for crushing my dreams of owning one of those for Final Cut Studio and flip cam stuff I had planned.
I had one of these from one of my dads friends for a while and I had to buy a third party battery for it and it worked for about a year then when I tried experimenting with it and booting windows xp onto it the computer suddenly cut off and the battery just straight up stopped working for whatever reason it was the most random thing I’ve ever experienced while working on a computer
I still have a late 2011 MacBook Pro 17” with matt screen! So far no issues with the gpu at all - given it to my parents now & have graphics issues on late 2013 15”. Still miss the 2011 & can’t afford to upgrade to the new series so may ask for the 17 back :)
The graphics issues sometimes have more to do with the gpu manufacturer, dell’s d630 also suffers from it, but I think you can remove its gpu?
In the middle of last year I bought a 2006 MBP with the glossy screen and a 2.16 Duo. I bought two mini-PC cards for it: an SD card reader, and an E-Sata card. I took out the drive (which also had XP on it) and put in a 1TB drive (and added Vista on it). I also bought a new battery. It boots a lot quicker than my 2012 MBP, but then again that has 8x the RAM.
I still use a 2012 13” core duo Unibidy, it’s stuck on high sierra though as the GPU. cant be upgraded. It does have the occasional screen glitch, but works fine with an SSD and external screen. I’d love to upgrade to a newer model but they are too plastic these days.
I recently acquired a mid 2007 15 inch (for $20!!!) and i do enjoy using it and I really love the look! I’m still running mountain lion on it with a lighter version of Firefox and TH-cam playback is smooth! It does get quite hot and I do live in fear of GPU failure but ill enjoy it while it lasts 🙏. (It came with 4gb of ram and an OEM lightly used battery. I installed a 240GB SSD and applied new thermal paste.)
I used to use one of the original core duo macbook pros until 2019. I had linux running on it so it had a modern browser but it wasn't great. To get smooth youtube playback it had to be at around 240p or sometimes 360p. It also ran so hot that you couldn't use it on your lap or else you would be burned and the day before I retired it the fan started making a horrible grinding sound (probably needs a clean or something). Also I got a new battery for it in 2018 and it would only last an hour at best which was pretty much at the point of a backup for when you accidentally knocked the charger.
I remember when these came out, I was working in IT at the time, the first Macbook 15" had 15+ recalls to it and when the corp I worked for at the time had ordered a batch of 100, nearly half were DOA. We were so happy when the unibody macs came out, those old ones really couldn't take abuse/drop damage and honestly they died left and right from hardware failures. The Powerbook G4's that came before it had the same durability problems but at least they were reliable, my 12" Powerbook G4 lasted 11 years before i finally put it out to pasture(covered in stickers and dents), didn't see a single first/second year macbook pro make it longer then 6 in a work environment.
I have a 2006 17" I used once in a while with windows 10 32 bit
the biggest problem is that it can't even take the 3gb of ram which is the maximum for a 32 bit system
it refuses to post with more than 2gb of ram installed
Hi Luke, regarding that Linux build you mentioned - I'd love to see a video where you go over the options on installing Linux on older machines such as this. Maybe we can see you save a "trash picked" Mac like you mentioned?
How about upgrading the old MacBook pro to m1 or M2 innards? Possible?
First of all, NVIDIA made a new revision of the GPU in 2010 that doesn't fail. Somewhat unreliable chips combined with Apple's terrible cooling can only lead to a failure!
Second of all, it will run 1080P TH-cam videos in macOS if you know how to have it do so.
And yes, the design is lovely!
I would really like to get one to perfect working condition. I have a 17" with a perfectly good motherboard with the revised reliable GPU, but the keyboard is dead, and so is the battery... I might restore it as a project, even though I'd like to restore a 15", I have a ton of parts for them except batteries but also I do not have a revised motherboard, so... I'll have to see what I end up doing.
Hey I´m actually still using a Macbook pro 4,1 till today :D I mainly use it for a dj software, which hasn´t high requirements. One helpful thing you can do (and i did) is switching the internal HDD to a SSD. Gives a huge performance boost! You can then pull out the dvd drive and install the old hdd with an adapter as a 2nd internal harddrive for extra storage. Installation is quite easy on this macbook. I´m running Catalina but the CPU and RAM are definetly coming to its limits here. The CPU gets really hot. You could theoretically switch out the heatsink and apply new thermal paste, but for installation you would have to pull almost everything out of the laptop and reinstall it afterwards. For me thats honestly too much work and too much risk to damage something inside. Im at a point there i use this device as long as its running and if it dies, i´m thinking of upgrading to a m1 macbook air. Performance jump from these two devices will definetly be a thing :D Greetings
What's the best browser you can use with the 2008 MBP? I hunted down the last Firefox compatible with it and it's still struggling.
Get the last version of Brave for it as an option but only Opera still supports it in 10.11 in a full up to date fashion. That version of Firefox is ancient and was one of the first to drop Mac OS X 10.11.
I've got a 15" 2008 MacBook Pro running El Capitan. Bought it refurbished from Apple in late 2009 and still "use" it today. I use it to tether my camera for photography and also need it for scanning on my ooooold Microtek Flatbed Scanner, using FireWire and running VueScan software. I know I'm behind the times but for these functions it still works. When it finally dies I'll get a new Mac Laptop. Love your content, been watching for a long time.
oh man, I remember those days, I didn't want to get intel inside so I kept my G4 tower maxed up. I bought one in 2007 to get a laptop but didn't like Lion that Apple thought or wished to replace a computer by having the same os on the phone and desktop but they failed. Then I bought an iMac I still use today..
I had a 2008 for a long time and I absolutely loved it. Hands down best keyboard of any mac. I just got a 16" M2 Pro unit and this machine really is giving me 2008 MBP vibes, which is a great thing.
I have a MBP '07 15 inch on Mavericks and it was running great, til the GPU said 'nah'. It's a shame because I do love the design and think it's a good design, but its time was up. I might fix it someday, but I still have my MBP 09 17 Inch dual booted on Snow Leopard/Yosemite and it's a great device for media consumption. Netflix runs great on it, and it doesn't get too hot compared to what the 07 MBP did (I also have two '06 originals, one of needs a harddrive replacement, and the other is being harvested for parts).
about to upgrade a free unibody I got!!
my 2008 needs a new screen and.. just got it out-- the battery is exploded as well.
Really wish this had half the upgrade capability. love the build, hate the interface.
My partner bought a 2007 MBPro new in ‘07. Had the logic board replaced within the first year. He eventually replaced it with a 2012 unibody MBPro. Still have the ‘07 as part of my collection, while the ‘12 is my mom’s primary machine.
Still have my 2007 15" Santa Rosa MacBook Pro (obviously not my primary laptop anymore). It still boots up!
I used it continuously up to 2015, surprisingly enough. After getting a 2015 13" MacBook, I reloaded the Leopard OS so that it'll retain its old school retro vibe. I plan to get an after market battery for it (they're still out there) so that it'll regain it's 2.5 hours of unplugged glory.
I lost my mind trying to find a white macbook. I just always wanted one and never got one, so eBay made my dreams into a reality...but there was a catch. See, I found a white Macbook 1,1 for $50 at a thrift store. I was stoked! It was a Core Duo and it booted and had a charger: I was certain that this would let me have that Apple love I'd always heard about. But, as soon as I got it home I found out that all the Mac software I had was too old to run on it. I went to eBay to find the right OS for the computer and, horror, the optical drive didn't work! This slowed me down but I was undeterred. I tried every USB CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drive I owned until I found one that worked. Three days of installing software on the thing just trying to get an OS to work left me with OS 10.5. Then, beyond sadness, I ran into a wall of Apple stupidity where none of the installed software actually worked as intended anymore. Safari can't surf the net, iTunes can't connect to the Apple Store, and the system can't connect to my internet because the security protocols for the router are too new! It was a nightmare. But... I was undeterred. I went on eBay and looked up a newer version of the Macbook, this time a 3,1. I was wrongly led to believe this was the last white macbook. I got it and went through the same process of getting it useable only...surprise...even with OS 10.6 it was still a dud. There was no possibility of it being useful for anything...at all. A rational person would have given up...but I am not that person. I doubled-down on the desire for this white macbook and did more research - finding that the 7,1 was the actual LAST white macbook - a unibody. So, eBay again delivered. I got it to install 10.6, then I was able to go through a truly maddening process of getting it to 10.7 - a process, for all interested, which requires you to set the laptop date and time to a time just after when the installer was created...for EACH installer version you want to use...and extract from that installation the installation media which, if you don't, will fail to install! I crept slowly from 10.7 to 10.8, each installation taking about 2 hours. 10.10, 10.11... I bravely tried to jump from 10.11 to 10.13 which was my original destination and, three days later, success! The unibody was upgraded to an OS that was still new enough to allow me to use the App store, Safari, Chrome and even iTunes! It was bliss! Then I decided to upgrade the RAM and HD (to SSD) and replace the battery. I even found some colorful plastic covers for it so that I could have it in pink!
Might just be me, but those keyboards feel a lot better than the unibody ones!
No, I agree. I also like the looks of those. The feeling of the trackpad however not so much. The plastic on mine is fatiguing to use. Also my GPU failed so I will bake it in the oven for 9mins to hopefully resolder it and get it working again. I could handsolder it but that would take too much time for such an old device.
Oh, hope you can get it fixed! I have the older PowerPC G4 version, basically the same machine but a lot less usable as far as processing power and compatibility goes. Trackpad is indeed a bit of a pain to use, though a usb mouse can make up for that.
My cousin bought the original from early 2006 with features that ran her $2700.
It essentially became a brick to her in 2012 after only 6 years of use as 10.6 Snow Leopard became obsolete.
She handed it down to me in 2018 and despite the 1GB RAM I was able to make the thing surprisingly usable with Lubuntu 18.04LTS. Now unsupported again as of 2021, I'm looking for another 32-bit Linux distro, but I might finally put it to bed and focus on seeing if I can put opencore Ventura on my aunt's 2008 unibody Macbook (5,1) that's currently on Mojave
I had a mid-2007 15in and well two graphics card failures and well the hinges were terrible. it lasted 2 years i ended up getting a 2009 13in unibody mbp after the screen snapped off.
@Luke Yes I have the original MBP… a 15 inch model. It is still in operation because I have an old digital video camera that it will talk to so I can upload video. (…and I have a LOT of old video that I need to upload…)
And I have that first 2009 model Unibody, a 13 inch model… and yes, it still works fine.
Both have been replaced by a Lenovo Yoga 920 as the daily driver as too many things I did needed Windows and the upgrade premium for a MBP was WAY TOO HIGH at the time. Interestingly, my 5-6 year old Lenovo ticks along just like those old MBPs…
You mentioned that the battery wasn‘t working on the pre-unibody MBP. These machines throttle down significantly with no working battery present. With a working battery installed, the performance of both machines should be very similar.
Hello, how are you? I would like a mac mini m1, still a surface studio. I think it would be the perfect computer. Do you think you could do something like that in a video?
I bought a 17" Macbook Pro used. Had the graphics problem and Apple replaced the logic board for free. Other than the fact it got hot enough to cook on, it was a great machine. It had the high res display. I travelled with it and had a couple spare original batteries for flights and stuff. And as a photographer it was great for editing and backing up via FireWire to my LaCie rugged drive. Only real issue was the screen bezel/support cracking. I swaped it out twice. I extended the life with an SSD until it just coudln't cut it. Bought a mid-2015 MBP which is still my computer now.
To their credit, in the case of the Early-2008 and 2011 models, the GPU issues were in no way Apple's fault... The chipsets themselves were defective. In the case of the 8600M GT, luckily, by the end of 2008, nVidia released a revised version of the chipset, which completely solved the issue, and are 100% reliable (the revised materials were also used on the 9600M and MCP79 chipsets used in Unibody models). AMD, on the other hand, made no such effort, and as such we are stuck with defective Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx series trash.
In the case of the 2010 15" models though, that WAS entirely Apple's fault, as they failed to spec an appropriate capacitor for filtering of the GPU framebuffer power rail. They can be fully repaired by bodging on a better capacitor.
I got one back in 2015 for my 10th birthday almost exactly 8 years ago. It worked good, and I think it was on snow leopard. One day it showed the 🚫 symbol on the home screen and I had to wait untill my uncle (he gave it to me) to help fix it. Turns out it had problems when he was able to get it to boot ( I don’t remember what was wrong with it), and he ended up recycling it. I got another one a couple years ago with the original box and it was good, it even came fully upgraded for a cheap price. It was ironic because soon after I got it, I saw another one for sale at a swap meet. I used it for a month or 2 because the bezel was already cracked and the screen basically broke.
The only small caveat I would add is that you can have DosDude install a revised Gt8600 GPU that is reliable...if you want to pay for the job. So you CAN have a reliable 2008, it’s just not cost effective to achieve it.
Installed Linux Mint 21.1 MINT on my Early 2008 MB (SSD+6GB RAM). Had to install the WIFI driver and it works very well. Trackpad, function keys for brightness+keyboardlights+sound. Only thing I had to do was install a fan control program so the fan wouldn't start to kick in at max. Its not super fast but way better than any latest OSX release (for this machine with patch). 720p videos on TH-cam in Firefox with almost no fan noise. (my MBPro was already equipped with the new NVIDIA chip)
i had a early 2008 pre unibody 17 inch a few years back it had a awesome screen awesome keyboard great back lighting and great speakers and it looked great. However i tried many different versions of mac os and linux and it just couldnt play videos above 480p and keep up at all what a shame because the design was excellent
I bought the first version as soon as the online apple store opened for sales, it was an upgrade from my 12" PowerBook G4. I kept it all through uni until 2010 when I bought a 17" i7 unibody which is still in existence to this day as my mum's daily driver (with an ssd upgrade and maxed ram)!
I'm not sure what year my one is but I picked up a complete, in-box model that also included the matching (and also in-box) 23-inch cinema display. Lovely items but not something I use.
In fact, I think it might be a 2006 model. It has 256VRAM/1GB and 100GB hard drive. The part number starts Z0DL which I can't find much info on.
I bought the first Core Duo MBP and it was bad. I had to return it because the heat was excessive. I bought the late 2006 C2D and it was better , actually I still have it and having replaced the battery for a new one and the HD for a SSD and it still works great . Changing the HD was a PITA, though.
I still have the first one, also got it 2006. 17 years later, still works though the famous drive noise sounds slow like its dying now on boot. Only problems I had with it back in the day was the keyboard would occasionally stop working (did the coin trick to fix) and the battery stopped holding a charge after 2 years. Otherwise it worked great for the time and I used to play World of WarCraft on it.
i bought a 2009 macbook pro 15 and it was described as for parts but i was able to get it fixed but the keyboard backlight and a motherboard screw stripped i couldnt get it working
Still sitting on my Early 08 MBP from college. I've been struggling to find an actual usecase for it, but it does OK at playing my music library through my stereo! Guess it's a bit bigger than an iPod, though...
Time to upgrade that thing. It’s unsupported
I got my 2008 mac book pro in 2009 and its still working and running to this day. i replaced it with a air in 2015 however it is still fully working
I bought a 2006 Macbook Pro for $15. I got it working just fine with more ram, albeit DDR2, and an SSD. I installed a copy of Snow Leopard and it was working but overheating to the point it was melting some rubber band it has in the back, but after some cleaning it was no longer an issue. It has no battery so performance was slower than normal but I managed to use it for recording music and teaching English classes since the course books were compatible hah
I don't use it anymore since I haven't got the time to play with it but I'm not going to sell it.
I still have my early 2008. It was flawless (after I replaced the board with a slightly upgraded video chip) up thru El Capitan. It’s a 15.4, Core2Duo 2.4 with 4gb ram and a 256 SSD. I decided to try a patcher and Catalina. It was more useful with El Capitan and I lost the keyboard backlight. It’s mostly just a curiosity now. It generally resides next to the old G4 PowerBook, since no one in their right mind would actually want to buy one.
Thanks for this farewell post... to Gen 1 .Finally retired my late 2008 2.6 GHz in 2019 replaced by a mid 2012. Loved that machine! very little issues. One of the biggest drawbacks was the max RAM of 8GB with a little tweeking. Google Chrome is SOOOOO ram heavy it started to effect the performance. My last issue was charging problems that finally made me do the switch. replacement batteries all are crap and the magsafe was not as simple to replace as the 1286.
I had one of these, can't remember which year. I loved it especially the aluminum design and Mac Os
My first MBP was a 15" 2008 model. Still have it. The GPU did die on me after 3 years, but that was fixed for free and it never happened again. It is now obsolete as it can't really do video any more and the drivers for the backlight are failing, but it was a very nice machine to have during university.
I remember having nothing but screen issues with these when they came out. I went from a 12" PowerBook to the early Intel 15" MacBook Pro. Three screens in a row had very uneven backlighting and then two with flickering. After that, I gave up and switched to a Thinkpad. Oh man, that was the glory days of the Thinkpad design. Apple has improved so much since 2006 and Thinkpads have been on a downhill slide. Fun to take a look back on this era.
I have and use a late 2006 2,1 17” MacBook Pro still for media mainly now but was my main till 4 years ago. Still running snow leopard.
I have both a 2008 15” and 17” that I use for photo and video editing still to this day.
I remember using this back when I got a 2006 MacBook polycarbonate. I had to get a repair and the shop loaned me one of these. I thought, and still think, it's one of the most beautiful laptops ever made. Hopefully someone out there makes a tutorial getting an M1 drivetrain in that shell
I had a PowerBook G4 from 2003 and used it until mid 2011, when the second hard drive failed quite quickly and I was getting electric shocks.
i installed catalina on my mid 2009 and it ran fine but some programs expect an intel core i processor and refuse to run with an core2duo
I have one. I love the design of it, and running an older OS X on it can run 1080P videos. The thing gets hot, and don't mean warm either. 10.10 or 10.11 . At work, I have one with old copies of Mac OS on it, and it's pulled out to make a bootable thumb drive of older OS.
I still use my pre unibody Macbook Pro as an iTunes and MS Word machine in my home office. It's basically the electronic combo of a jukebox and a typewriter. The airport card is glitchy at times, but otherwise the laptop is still working fine. Occasionally I even burn a CD 😄 I also still have a working Titanium PowerBook G4, but it doesn't have a designated use anymore [I do miss having the matte screen].
The 2008 15" MacBook Pro was my first Mac, used all the way till 2012!
I have an early 2009 White MacBook (Core 2 Duo 2GHz) w/NVIDIA GeForce 9400M which is I think quite similar to the Late 2008 MacBook Pro. It is running El Capitan. I use it as my print server because my Canon Pixus MP630 just doesn't break and ink is super cheap.Just run Screen Sharing on it to run the old Canaon and with the networking capability, file transfer is easy!
The early 2008 MBP is my first Mac. It had a lot of problems. The fan was replaced, the battery got replaced by Apple twice (then by myself another two times), the display was replaced due to faulty ribbon cable, then the GeForce 8600MGT along with the logic board was replaced. But I love the design. I still turn it on from time to time to just appreciate how beautiful it is. On the other hand, I hate the unibody "panda" MBPs so much that I don't own any of them until in 2016 Apple came with the thinner design and space gray color.
in 2014 I got my first Mac, a 2007 15" MacBook Pro. I used that thing for 3 years, editing 4k video in Final Cut, making music in logic, school work, etc. show me another computer from 2007 that could be used to edit 4k video a decade later
I had a MacBook Pro (Early 2006), which I traded in at a pawn shop for a photo backpack. It held up very well in the two and a half years that I had it as my primary notebook, between 2015 and 2017. I remember using it with Ubuntu at the time, and I also used it until MacOS Lion. But he had some problems with the graphics chip (an ATI Radeon X1600), which I tried to solve and ended up damaging the motherboard. But it was a good notebook, so much so that I took trips using it as a work computer, edited many photos on it.
Not a word on the gorgeous keyboard on the original MBP ... I'd have that on a modern MBP any day.
I had the 2007 15" ... lasted 7 years running Logic Pro in a music setup. Lunched one logic board and two batteries, but no graphics issues.
Honestly, I'm replying from my Early 08 MacBook Pro. I have a 2012 i7 MacBook I never use, I just prefer the look and the feel of my 2008. I have it decked out with an SSD, max ram, the works. I run an app to keep the fans working on high speed so I can keep the GPU cool. I ended up with it nearly new old stock, and it's worked perfect for a few years for me now, The battery even still works. Like you said in your video, these have a very pleasing to look at, and use design language. Going SSD with these increases their usability by a pretty large margin.
I daily drive my 2008. Sometimes it's the only computer I'll use for weeks at a time. If you don't mind a not perfect Mac OS experience then these are actually quite delightful laptops to still use.
I bounce between 720p, and 1080p depending on how hot the GPU is getting, it does both just fine. The SSD got rid of the lag like you showed in your video.