Given that a new 13-inch MacBook Pro is more than an order of magnitude more, I don’t regret putting this good money into a bad computer to get it working again. If you already have a MacBook Pro to work with, you’re going to be looking at a similar expense. $100 for a working Mac laptop running the latest macOS software is a solid deal, as far as I’m concerned.

By the end of it, I was out only about $100 in parts after I shopped around.

To get this puppy running with Catalina and a suite of applications I depend on, all I needed to do was upgrade the RAM from its stock 4 GB configuration and replace a hard disk drive with an SSD. You know what they say: One person’s trash is another one’s treasure. I got a chance to rehab this unit after its previous owner did that “fix it or replace it” calculation and decided that, at least in their case, it wasn’t worth it. I use my Macs mainly for web surfing and web page editing, some light graphics work, and lots of productivity software, text editing, and other tasks that might be marginally faster with newer hardware, but certainly sufficient for me to get by on an older Mac. And a 2012 MacBook Pro is still useful to me, even seven years later.

Certainly Apple and Mac app developers have moved the goalposts a lot over the years, and if your needs have moved along with the current state of the art, it may very well be that putting more money into an older Mac isn’t worth your time or your effort.įor me, I prefer to keep using things for as long as they’re useful. Why not just replace the computer altogether? That’s certainly one valid approach, depending on your budget and your needs.

Install the RAM in your 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Order the right RAM for your 13-inch MacBook Pro.

The instructions in this guide should be applicable to the following 13-inch MacBook Pro models:ġ3-inch MacBook Pro RAM Installation Guide They combine the right amount of screen real estate with the right amount of performance to provide most of us with what we need to get our work done. 13-inch MacBook Pro models are plentiful and have been very popular throughout their entire production run. This tutorial will walk you through the process of installing RAM inside an older 13-inch MacBook Pro. That’s what I discovered recently with a 13-inch MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) that I got my hands on. Rather than budget for a new computer, sometimes you can put together a deal that will keep you going with what you already have – or what you can get your hands on cheap – that turns out to be a better value.

Late 2013 macbook pro 13 ssd upgrade