In this post, I will share my first impressions about installing and using MacOS Monterey on my 2015 MacBook Pro. This post is a part of my planned series about making upgrades to computers in the household.
Upgrades to my 2015 Macbook Pro
The series of updates/ upgrades I was making to my 2015 Macbook Pro is complete. Over the past few months, I did the following: a. Replace battery b. Replace speakers (new ones are not OEM, are a bit tinny but they work well!) c. Use a NVME adapter to install a 512 GB M2 drive, later upgraded to a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda. d. Upgrade to MacOs MonterreyFirst Impressions – MacOS Monterrey
I had written this on LowEndSpirit Forum – posting here since that discussion may get buried soon. Also find my ‘mini review’ on battery life that I posted on Producthunt. Literally comparing Apples and Oranges (pun intended) based on upgrading the OS to Monterey on 2015 MBP. This is the oldest MBP which is officially supported. I like that the MBP got 2 more years this way. Based on the below can only expect a cracker of performance on the M1 Pro/Max.- Runs faster – apps opening, responsiveness with 15 FF tabs open- no lag
- Battery life seems to have improved. After 3 hours of “Normal everyday use” fully charged Battery – level down to 62% . Graph: https://ibb.co/kyP6VVJ (100% charged nearly 10 hours ago)
- CPU / battery / disk seem to run cooler, haven’t heard the fan go off even once. (I have a TB of NVMe SSD – on Bug Sur it used to cause some heating issues). Haven’t heard the fan go off even once.
- Will give it some “real world” applications test – Audio editing, Zoom Call, etc… to see what it does. Maybe run a batch process to compress a group of @ 1,000 files I imported form my iphone
Previously I had installed SolusOS (Linux) on this Macbook. I liked it, but the heating issue killed it for me.
Thanks for your comments – I’m wondering whether to upgrade my Macbook pro 2015 (13 inch laptop) – I don’t know how to do the upgrades you refer to like hard drive size and new battery, so will I regret it? Do you think Davinci Resolve video editing will still work on it?
Also, I use a lot of Linux apps (through brew) and wonder if I’ll still be able to.
Thanks!
Same question here… I’m thinking about taking the plunge… Wondering how it works with splashtop, iPhoto library, etc.
ty
Thanks for your question and apologies for the delay in responding. iPhoto library works well. I do not use too many standard Mac apps- but Garageband works fine- a tad speedier in fact, there is no lag on Firefos, or Safari. I switched from Pages to Onlyoffice- that is slower compared to both Pages and Libreoffice. Hope that helps.
Greetings, and thanks for your questions. Macbook Pro 2015 Retina allows replacement of speakers battery, and disk drive- atleast these are the three upgrades I did.
For NVMe you will need a disk drive adapter. You can look up on Youtube (Random search: https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+macbook+pro+2015+retina+disk+adapter) to find one in your country.
Not sure about Davinci resolve, but homebrew works like a charm. I use it all the time myself. With best wishes, Amar