Does your MacBook get sluggish? What does it take?

[bigdad84]

Ive been using an iPad Pro 12.9 in as my casual computing device and am wanting to switch to the new MacBook. But in reviews I've read, they claim that it does slow down sometimes under use. Do you guys notice it? How bad is it? If it slows down now, I don't want to think about how slow it will be in 2 years.

 

[anon(9602380)]

Depends on a couple of things. How full you make the hard drive. What kind of hard drive you purchase with the machine. And the amount of RAM. Any one of these things can slow a computer down in later years. I own a 2010 MacBook Pro that still runs as good as or better than when I bought it. I installed an SSD for my drive, maxed out the RAM and only have the programs I need on it.

I do not store anything on the MBP and anything I do need to file is put on an external drive. If you take my suggestions as advice, a MacBook will last you several years and run very smoothly.

 

[imwjl]

Mine is only sluggish when my other systems would be - lots of resources used, much read and write. It's been fine overall but sites with a lot of flash can hit battery life. My battery life dropped after last OS updates but Flash update was done at same time.

I'm an enterprise sysadmin so probably a power user. I run a Windows 10 VM and have more going on with the system than many seem to think this computer can or should do. It's far more useful and pleasing to use than a tablet. Easier to carry than a Surface Pro. It is a premium price and design machine but so far worth it for the way I work and what I do.

 

[dchandler]

I love my MacBook Pro, it runs so smooth. As long as you take care of it you should be fine. Now there are things you can do to make sure it stay running smooth like check for malware from time to time and make sure you get a solid state drive if your getting an older MacBook Pro.

 

[Evilguppy]

I stopped using my MBA 2012 the day I got my new iPad Pro 9.7. I don't miss it at all.

 

[imwjl]

I believe there are misunderstandings here. The topic is not a Pro or Air model. In a practical sense reasonable amounts of storing data on the system will not make it slow. An iPad Pro is a great product but is not a general purpose computer. The MacBook - thin one - is a really great and capable system as proven by all I do as an enterprise IT admin. Just know it might not be for everyone. Being a general purpose computer so light and thin my case has had the iPad used more as a newspaper or magazine.

 

[farvardinzad]

Isn't the question about the 12 inch MacBook? What does it take to slow it down?

 

[o4liberty]

Going on a few hours with mine and so far its as fast as my pro 13" 2014. Pick it up tonight at Best Buy for 1149

 

[Mac Guy]

My MBr is a 2015, and I got it shortly after they first shipped. I've yet to notice any slowing in performance. Some updates may trigger Spotlight indexing, and packing the drive full of data will slow any computer.

Trying to run a bunch of apps at the same time or something that really hits the CPU would do it, too. But using it for what it's designed for, I've never noticed any slowing.

 

[Matty]

I'm sure some with disagree with me because it's important to have the latest for security reasons and i agree... but if you keep the same OS that your Macbook came with with, there is no reason for it to slow down. What normally happens is, you keep updating the OS which sometimes requires more processing power and slowly but surely the laptop gets slower and then you end up purchasing a new one

The other thing i would advise is, keeping at least 10% of your storage space free. Just helps the laptop a bit. Maybe give it a re-boot every now and then just to clear the memory. NB: this is just my suggestion and you don't need to use it Ive been following this and my Macbook runs beautifully smooth.

 

[imwjl]

No slowing down here. A year later it's still total satisfaction and rarely using the 15 in model.

 

[Eumaeus]

I'm happily using the first-gen 12" retina MacBook. There are only two circumstances, in my use, when it gets sluggish.

One is when it hits memory pressure, which happens when I have a lot of stuff going on… many Safari tabs open, repeated compilation of complex LaTeX documents, Slack, iMessage, iPhotos. "Safari Web Content" is often the culprit here; closing a few tabs helps.

The other is when I'm writing code (these days in Scala) and have continuous compilation going; that, alone, doesn't do it, but if I'm working in a directory that is in my DropBox, the DropBox app will go nuts trying to index and upload the hundreds of files that get re-built with each compile. The bottom of the machine gets very warm, and things get sluggish. The answer, there, is to pause DropBox syncing.

I have used Lightroom on this, with big RAW images from an SLR. It isn't the greatest experience in the world, but once you accept a little pause for adjustments to take effect, it is totally workable.

The size and weight totally make up for these occasional stutters. I love this machine, which won't stop me from getting the 2017 i7, 16gb version this fall.