2016 macbook pro OS upgrade... should I?

[winxmac]

Catalina was a bit of a dud but Big Sur and Monterey surpassed Mojave in performance in my experience with Intel Macs. The only reason to use Mojave or earlier these days is for 32-bit support.

I am about to downgrade my 2015 MacBook Pro from Monterey to Catalina as I am typing this...

It made me think about trying Big Sur on my device since that is so far the only one I have not tried... I have tried Mojave and Catalina on a Dell Hackintosh before and High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, and Monterey on my 2015 MacBook Pro...

Big Sur will be out of support once macOS 14 is released in non-beta form and Catalina is close to a year without updates...

 

[AppleTO]

I wouldn’t suggest using any OS that is EOL and no longer receiving security updates, as you are intentionally opening yourself up to major security vulnerabilities in the OS.

The only exception would be if the machine is a standalone system for a specific function, with no internet connection.

I work in IT, and believe me, it’s not worth the risk… Use a supported and patched OS.

 

[SB1500]

I’d definitely upgrade it.

 

[MauiPa]

I see your MAC can't run Ventura which I am on. runs fast and flawless for me. It was same on my older Mac with Monterey. I always take the whiners and complainers with a huge bag of salt, they never seem to have anything they can point to other than just "bugs", and they never do any debugging, so their comments are meaningless to me. Like I said, I keep a clean install with every major upgrade, don't let any crapware on my MAC and I have not had any problems. I suspect those who do might need a clean install and to remove some legacy garbage, but hey, what do I know, except my Mac runs great and that is what I do

 

[Frazzles]

I have a late 2013 15” MacBook Pro (i7, 16 GB ram, graphics card) that runs very well on the latest macos with opencore legacy patcher. I had an unresolvable issue after 2 attempts to update to the latest supported OS for that model, Big Sur. The App Store would not load and I tried seemingly everything. After using opencore legacy patcher everything resolved and now I can use Ventura. There is a YouTube channel Mr. Macintosh which has a full walk through, and of course a section on this site as well.

 

[winxmac]

Disk Utility on Big Sur and Monterey while in recovery mode is very laggy... If I were to translate it in fps, it felt like 15fps or probably much lower... This is not how Disk Utility behaves in Catalina and older which gave me the impression that I should just stick with Catalina or any older releases...

This happened whether I was using internet recovery or using a bootable flash drive... And Big Sur and newer are about 13GB downloads which makes the download and internet recovery install take a very long time...

I have now dual booted Catalina and Big Sur... Since Big Sur is still supported until macOS 14 is released in non-beta form, it will be what I will use as the primary since someone here mentioned it is a bit faster than Monterey, or at least how I understood what they said...

 

[rm5]

High Sierra hasn't had any security patches in years. I'd update ASAP

Yes, please do! High Sierra hasn't had any updates since 2020.

 

[rm5]

I have a late 2013 15” MacBook Pro (i7, 16 GB ram, graphics card) that runs very well on the latest macos with opencore legacy patcher. I had an unresolvable issue after 2 attempts to update to the latest supported OS for that model, Big Sur. The App Store would not load and I tried seemingly everything. After using opencore legacy patcher everything resolved and now I can use Ventura. There is a YouTube channel Mr. Macintosh which has a full walk through, and of course a section on this site as well.

OCLP has treated me very well on several old Macs, with very few problems. If your Mac supports it (which most Macs post-2008 do), I HIGHLY recommend to anyone to use OCLP!

 

[ikir]

Got a macbook pro 2016 model 13,3 - 16gb ram 1TB.
Currently running high sierra but to run some apps that I need I have to upgrade the OS.

I'm usually against upgrading OS on my Macs and iPhones because they usually bog the devices down.

Should I upgrade the Macbook or will it bog down?

No it will not slow downs, you will get better apps, new apps, better standard support and better security. Update to Monterey, or even ventura with OCLP but this is more for tech guys.

 

[padams35]

Got a macbook pro 2016 model 13,3 - 16gb ram 1TB.
Currently running high sierra but to run some apps that I need I have to upgrade the OS.

I'm usually against upgrading OS on my Macs and iPhones because they usually bog the devices down.

Should I upgrade the Macbook or will it bog down?

Upgrade. I would suggest entry level systems quit while ahead at the penultimate supported OS (Big Sur), but with 16GB RAM / 1TB SSD Monterey shouldn't be a problem.

Also at the very least Mojave is objectively better than High Sierra for systems with native metal support. You've been missing out by staying that far behind!

 

[MacProFCP]

Got a macbook pro 2016 model 13,3 - 16gb ram 1TB.
Currently running high sierra but to run some apps that I need I have to upgrade the OS.

I'm usually against upgrading OS on my Macs and iPhones because they usually bog the devices down.

Should I upgrade the Macbook or will it bog down?

2016 is fairly old but terrible. I would stay away from Ventura, but Big Sur should work just fine.

 

[thadoggfather]

2016 13" Pro here too. Don't know about yours but mine is the bog standard function key spec with the 2.0GHz dual core processor. 8/256GB.

Battery life on the other hand...

I've kept my 2016 NoTouchBar MBP on Sierra for battery life, and because I cant be bothered. its a backup machine, I mostly use it for windows 10 dual booting and otherwise my M1 Air on a new-ish version.

but maybe I will do Mojave sometime, since its last 32-bit supported version.

still, dont any BootCamp tomfoolery, since I use win10 a decent amount here and there.

 

[h.gilbert]

I've kept my 2016 NoTouchBar MBP on Sierra for battery life, and because I cant be bothered.

My battery is almost on 900ish cycles. Got it replaced a few years ago but been using the hell out of the machine.

Thought about buying another battery but it seems to be a bit of a lottery with non OEM batteries

 

[thehypestbeast]

A bit late to the post here. I had a similar question, but instead of upgrading from High Sierra I was considering upgrading from Big Sur. I have similar Specs, 2016 Macbook Pro 13 Inch 1TB 16GB RAM. After reading the posts above I am going to be sticking with Big Sur for now. The only thing I was having issues with was updating my Microsoft Applications that I use every blue moon on my personal device. Other than that Big Sur on these specs have not given me any issues whatsoever highly recommend it.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

A bit late to the post here. I had a similar question, but instead of upgrading from High Sierra I was considering upgrading from Big Sur. I have similar Specs, 2016 Macbook Pro 13 Inch 1TB 16GB RAM. After reading the posts above I am going to be sticking with Big Sur for now. The only thing I was having issues with was updating my Microsoft Applications that I use every blue moon on my personal device. Other than that Big Sur on these specs have not given me any issues whatsoever highly recommend it.

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My 2016 MBP 16 GB RAM runs very well under Monterey, the last upgrade available to that box. Recommended.

My 2016 MBP will RAM-out if I run too many things at once (so I added an M2 MBP with maximum RAM), but otherwise it still runs first rate under Monterey.