I feel like this story is also relevant to the 2012 MacBook Pro and Air. My partner kept her air going for more than 10 years, and I saw people who for whatever reason (maybe keyboard or Touch Bar) hold on to those pros long past normal. So consider that another anecdote. Real data would be great here.
Only thing that "killed" my older Air (I want to say 2016, but 2012 probably would have had the same issue): it couldn't run Zoom backgrounds without a green screen.
I usually paid 2/3rd of the cost of my upgraded model by parting out my old one. Thanks to Apple restricting parts (and their continued upgrades), the spare parts had good value. Sold everything (including the screws, people want OEM), except the battery.
I still use a fully specced out (i7, 8GiB memory, 512GiB SSD) Macbook Air 2013 daily . With OpenCore Legacy Patcher [1] it runs Sonoma well enough and dual boots OpenBSD for an even more lean experience.
Had to replace the battery, fan and thermal paste over the years - and it's surprisingly easy to work on, just a few screws on the bottom to take it apart and access to everything.
Agreed, I have two MacBook Pros from 2010 and 2011 which have been chugging along great since then; daily drivers up until 2020, then stuck on a shelf without any power conditioning for two years. Dusted them both off and put back in service. They're easy to clean, look basically brand new, and work just fine now as home servers after purchasing a USB-C to Magsafe adapter so I could recycle those old bricks. Now those I definitely went through a few of over the years.
I had a 2011 MacBook Pro that I used until end of 2022 when the discrete GPU failed for the second time (first time in 2016 Apple replaced the logic board).
I came here to add this, as a x230 user, the other laptop that has Mercedes diesel like longevity is the 2012 Macbook Pro. I've kept numerous alive for friends.
+1 to this. got a 2012 MacBook Pro as a gift for middle school, upgraded to a 1tb drive and 8gb ram in high school, again upgraded to an ssd and 16gb ram after starting college in 2019. Kept using it until last year when I got a 16" M1. I still occasionally use it for Windows shenanigans, best gift ever.
Conversely I had a classmate who used to joke about the fact that by the end of our degree, his macbook air had become a 4 "page" (mac)book as both covers were splitting.
All these replies makes me want to buy yet another battery for my old 2014 MBP. But the last two gave up very quickly - so any ideas as to where I can get proper batteries for the old MacBooks?
Is it feasible to keep old MacBook up to date with regards to security patches? I have an old Mid 2014 MBP, but unsure how "dangerous" it would be to keep using it still?
