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Anyone still using the 2008 aluminum unibody MacBook?
- Thread starter retta283
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I wasn't willing to do the ROM patch because a bunch of people got bricked machines. The graphic glitches are definitely there, and they bug me to no end. Plus there are way more glitches with third party software.
To me, Mojave on that machine is not a good macOS experience, but YMMV.
Only retired mine late last year. After 10 years of daily use!!! I'd replaced the HD with an SSD a couple of years prior and this made it into 'new machine'. Mine was the 2.0ghz version and had 4GB from the start.
10 years off one laptop, I feel like I got my monies worth alright. And the fact that it was supported for so long, feels like one of the best purchases I ever made. It's experiences like that that make for loyal customers.
It's still around somewhere, working fine, but I bought a used 11" Air for the sake of portability and far improved battery life.
10 years off one laptop, I feel like I got my monies worth alright. And the fact that it was supported for so long, feels like one of the best purchases I ever made. It's experiences like that that make for loyal customers.
It's still around somewhere, working fine, but I bought a used 11" Air for the sake of portability and far improved battery life.
I'm still using a 2008 Aluminum Macbook. I'm on its third battery. The upside to this computer is that you can actually access ram and hard drive without too much issue. The display is very bright but 1280x800 is a bit out dated.
The downside is the Core 2 duo works very hard to get things done, and it gets hot even with mild computing tasks like browsing the web - choose your browser carefully.
I gave it to my daughter a couple years ago. She didn't like it since roblox was too slow. I reacquired it, installed a $30 SSD and put arch linux on it. After about 3 days of tweaking it's running pretty well. I really enjoy typing on it and have been doing more and more writing on it, despite having 2 other laptops around (yoga 720 and 2015 macbook 12").
Even with a new battery I'm lucky to get 2 hours of use out of it.
I will probably put the old HD back in with El Capitan if you can put the latest versions of FF and Chrome on it...
The downside is the Core 2 duo works very hard to get things done, and it gets hot even with mild computing tasks like browsing the web - choose your browser carefully.
I gave it to my daughter a couple years ago. She didn't like it since roblox was too slow. I reacquired it, installed a $30 SSD and put arch linux on it. After about 3 days of tweaking it's running pretty well. I really enjoy typing on it and have been doing more and more writing on it, despite having 2 other laptops around (yoga 720 and 2015 macbook 12").
Even with a new battery I'm lucky to get 2 hours of use out of it.
I will probably put the old HD back in with El Capitan if you can put the latest versions of FF and Chrome on it...
I'm finding webpages like CNN really bogs it down in 2019. It wasn't quite this bad in early 2018, so something has changed. But CNN has a lot of junk on it like those Paid Partner ads. I think it's just more junk.
Both Firefox and Chrome are still supported on El Cap. My battery is a cheapo third party one, I've had it for a few months and it doesn't last me 2 hours now.
I upgraded one of these old Macbooks late last year with a 250GB SSD, 8GB ram and did a fresh install of El Capitan.
It didn't have much use for a few years as it was getting very slow and the touch pad wasn't working very well, a bit of adjustment of a couple of screws fixed the touchpad.
It's only on it's second battery which still lasts a bit over 2.5 hours, the fan and cooling fins always had clean if there was any visible dust.
It wouldn't be comparable to a new notebook, but the upgrade has made it work faster than it ever has.
It's mostly use it for web browsing and iTunes, sometimes bit of Garageband, Photos, iMovie and documents, it works well with all of those programs.
Hopefully it'll keep working for few more years.
It didn't have much use for a few years as it was getting very slow and the touch pad wasn't working very well, a bit of adjustment of a couple of screws fixed the touchpad.
It's only on it's second battery which still lasts a bit over 2.5 hours, the fan and cooling fins always had clean if there was any visible dust.
It wouldn't be comparable to a new notebook, but the upgrade has made it work faster than it ever has.
It's mostly use it for web browsing and iTunes, sometimes bit of Garageband, Photos, iMovie and documents, it works well with all of those programs.
Hopefully it'll keep working for few more years.
CNN bogs down every machine or iPad that I've ever used to access it, what a crappy website. Don't judge your 2008 Macbook based on CNN's site......
I find that all news sites, even tech ones are extremely slow and laggy. Macworld in particular is absolute trash. I don't go to any of those sites for that reason.
Just giving an update on this MacBook, it's still my main laptop, but I don't use it much. Performance is fine with SSD and RAM upgrades, but I have one major issue with this laptop.
The screen is terrible, flat out. I have a 9C8C panel in mine, and sat next to my 2010 iMac color reproduction is horrible, and the viewing angle is so narrow it doesn't cover the whole screen. I did find a color calibration profile that makes the color bleed a bit less, but it can only go so far.
I have been looking at a new laptop for some time now, simply in the pursuit of a better display. 80% of my use of this thing needs a display that is even decent. But I don't know if it's worth buying a new laptop with how much I use it. Even time I do use this thing, I spend more time fighting with the viewing angles than I do using it. It's too bad really. Everything else about it is fine, but the screen is just dreadful.
Since I don't need a laptop for a whole lot, I figure I'll go for a MacBook Pro from this time period, I'm eyeing a late 2008 or mid 2009 15 inch. The 2009 13 inch might even be good, but it's so similar to mine that it would feel like a waste. The late 2009 unibody plastic MacBook might be good too, but I fear the rubber bottom will end up making the machine a nightmare. Everything I've ordered online with that kind of material is extremely sticky, and it's very, very difficult to clean off.
The screen is terrible, flat out. I have a 9C8C panel in mine, and sat next to my 2010 iMac color reproduction is horrible, and the viewing angle is so narrow it doesn't cover the whole screen. I did find a color calibration profile that makes the color bleed a bit less, but it can only go so far.
I have been looking at a new laptop for some time now, simply in the pursuit of a better display. 80% of my use of this thing needs a display that is even decent. But I don't know if it's worth buying a new laptop with how much I use it. Even time I do use this thing, I spend more time fighting with the viewing angles than I do using it. It's too bad really. Everything else about it is fine, but the screen is just dreadful.
Since I don't need a laptop for a whole lot, I figure I'll go for a MacBook Pro from this time period, I'm eyeing a late 2008 or mid 2009 15 inch. The 2009 13 inch might even be good, but it's so similar to mine that it would feel like a waste. The late 2009 unibody plastic MacBook might be good too, but I fear the rubber bottom will end up making the machine a nightmare. Everything I've ordered online with that kind of material is extremely sticky, and it's very, very difficult to clean off.
Works fine on my 2017 iMac.
However, to make it work better on the 2008 MacBook, we can install an ad blocker.
I use a 2010 white unibody MacBook in my classroom daily. Classrooms aren’t known for being the cleanest places ever
The rubber bottom does indeed get dirty, but a quick wipe down with a damp rag always restores it nicely. Mine is very heavily used, so is covered in scratches and whatnot. Even with those, it still isn’t bad to clean. It's an extremely hard rubber; it feels more like hard, tough plastic than it does rubber. I nearly always recommend the 2010 white to people looking for a MacBook from this era. They’re dirt cheap, easy to work on, look great, can take an SSD and 16GB of RAM, and are just fantastic laptops overall.EDIT: It's been a couple of weeks since I cleaned off the bottom, so I thought I'd give you some before and after pics of the process. Editing Admission - I did airbrush out the serial number on the bottom. No other edits have been done. Click on the images for bigger versions
Before: It's been in my classroom, going between my desk, the kids' desks, meeting tables, outdoor concrete planters, pretty much every surface you can think of in a school. I think the last time I cleaned it was the end of August.
After: To clean it, I just scrub it for maybe a minute with a Clorox wipe, then dry it off with a paper towel. It takes maybe a minute to do the entire bottom. Mine is scratched up a fair bit from use on rough surfaces, but it still cleans up really well overall.
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Yeah, but all pre retina Apple laptops have not so nice TN screens, although the 2008 unibody MacBook is especially bad. That 2010 iMac has a nice IPS screen, meaning good color (sRGB gamut) and good viewing angles. My brother's 2010 MacBook Pro really chokes on the Core 2 Duo, and it has SSD and 8GB RAM installed. Doable, but not always fun. Fan frequently runs into high gear. Whereas any Core i5 MacBook seems to run smoothly.
Wow, that turned out quite well. Makes me more willing to look at one of these. I had a really bad incident with a Black MacBook, the battery lock broke so the owner held it on with tape. However, once the tape was removed it was incredibly sticky, and even drenching the shell in water did little to help.I use a 2010 white unibody MacBook in my classroom daily. Classrooms aren’t known for being the cleanest places ever
EDIT: It's been a couple of weeks since I cleaned off the bottom, so I thought I'd give you some before and after pics of the process. Editing Admission - I did airbrush out the serial number on the bottom. No other edits have been done. Click on the images for bigger versions
Before: It's been in my classroom, going between my desk, the kids' desks, meeting tables, outdoor concrete planters, pretty much every surface you can think of in a school. I think the last time I cleaned it was the end of August.
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After: To clean it, I just scrub it for maybe a minute with a Clorox wipe, then dry it off with a paper towel. It takes maybe a minute to do the entire bottom. Mine is scratched up a fair bit from use on rough surfaces, but it still cleans up really well overall.
View attachment 868956
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TN doesn't always mean bad. I have a 19" HP panel that is TN, but the viewing angles and color are superb. Fairly close to the 2010 iMac. I also have a 2008 iMac, which is TN, and a PowerBook G4 15". Both of them are miles better than the 2008 MacBook.
The 15" and 17" unibodies are actually quite decent, obviously they are outclassed by modern displays. In relation to what what available at the time, they were quite good. But all of Apple's consumer laptops before the plastic unibodies used terrible displays.
Eef, that sucks. I haven't run into any real issues like that with mine. The earlier runs of the 2009s had issues with the rubber peeling off the bottom plate, but that was fixed years ago. Mine's going on 9 years now with no issues. Plus they tend to be a lot cheaper than the aluminum MacBooks. Most of the ones I see on eBay are around the $150 mark, oftentimes less.
Another owner here. I bought the 2.0 GHz AL MacBook the first day it was available in October 2008. Doubled the RAM to 4GB and swapped the 160GB HDD for a 240GB OWC Electra 3G SSD in mid-2012. This made it feel like new again and I happily used it for several years. Finally gave it to my teenage niece in 2016 and she continues to use it every day. Unlike others here I never attempted to expand it beyond its design specs; it runs El Capitan great with 4GB RAM. Haven't discovered too much it can't do -- even at 11 years old. My advice if you're considering one is to keep your expectations reasonable and don't hope for 2019-level performance out of a 2008 laptop.
The 2008 MacBook is one bad Apple when it comes to the screen (MacBooks that came before it were better). Yes, 2008 iMac isn't too bad, but viewing angle is still somewhat restricted. The 2010 iMac is still much better, although I like the 2008 design more because servicing it is so much simpler. TN off angle color shift is still not nice compared to IPS, but hey I'm still on one and it will do for most tasks.
If you have a Core 2 Duo MacBook and it supports Sierra, don't install it. El Capitan runs smoothly, Sierra is too much.
For what it's worth, I run High Sierra on my 2010 MacBook, and it runs it like a champ. No real hiccups to be had in general usage. Most of my use is in Safari (10-15 tabs open), Office, and a few light IDEs with some occasional light 3D modeling. With a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 16GB of RAM, and an SSD, it handles all these beautifully under High Sierra.
Have good Samsung SSD and 8 GB memory installed on MacBook Pro 2010, and since High Sierra the thing frequently ramps CPU to 100% and off goes the fan in high gear. I believe most frequent culprit is some background task related to Photo app indexing or something. Can't get the process turned off. Tried a way to kill it in the past, but have given up. On first boot, the fan also always goes into turbo for some reason. MacBook was fine on El Capitan.
On a side note, MacBook Pro 13" models have been know to have problems with the RAM slot getting loose over time (also 2009 models), which may cause overheating and eventual failure of one of the SO DIMM slots. Have had personal experience with it in the past.
You have to just let the photo analysis do its thing. It'll straighten out after a while. It does it if you have a lot of photos
The thing is, it doesn't over here. It's stuck -- intermittently. Probably corrupt pictures or movies or something in the library, but which ones? Like I said, no problems before. Something has changed.
I have to say that High Sierra runs very smooth on the original 9 year old 250GB Hitachi HDD on my MacBookPro7,1. I don't use Spotlight and my HDD reports 100% health on all accounts in DriveDX.
Nothing is ever clear cut in a technology, too many "it depends". Makes me think that SSD's are really oversold and mostly used as a cheap and lazy way of sweeping issues under the carpet.