Don't throw away your old MBP, upgrade it!.

I have a Mid-2010 MBP that my kids use for homework, youtube and "stuff".

Back then Apple allowed you to swap out some of the internal components (HDD, RAM, Battery) and perform upgrades. If you still have one of these MBPs it's still worth it to do some small upgrades and get some more life out if.

So far I've done the following 👇

🧠 Upgraded RAM from 4GB to 16GB!
💾 Swapped out the 250 GB HDD for a 512GB Samsung EVO SSD
🔋 Replaced the original battery

The difference in terms of performance is huge, an SSD and 16GBs of RAM are worth it!.

Best of all, it's very simple to do, just open up the bottom cover and swap the parts, just like old times!.

If you need some guides to walk you through it head over to iFixIt, they cover pretty much everything.

For parts I usually compare between MacSales and Amazon. Getting quality parts through MacSales is usually better and not that expensive.

Comments

[Chris C]

Thx Hector.

I love seeing old hardware being reused. Once Apple stops supprorting MBP (I don't know how long they get OS updates)

if you can install Linux on it, there are very Mac-like ones to choose from with good support:

elementary.io

getsol.us/home

[Hector Minaya]

It's currently running High Sierra 10.13.6, it won't upgrade past that.

[Chris C]

I'm not a Mac guy so don't know the exact changelog from Sierra to macOS 10.15 Catalina but I do highly recommend either of those Linux ones whenever support is over.

Elementary is Ubuntu based.

Solus is entirely new. If you still want Ubuntu, you could use the Budgie Ubuntu OS which is what Solus UI looks like.

Cheers