To kick off...

[croissantking]

I keep a mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro (non-retina) around, it's made up with bits from a few different machines. The hi-res antiglare screen is notably taken from my old early 2011 machine that I had from new. My aunt still has the bottom half of that machine, hope to get it back one day!

I'm pretty fond of this model and find it very capable for its age. I mostly use it to boot into Windows to program chips on my T48. It's handy to have USB-A ports and not have to keep hunting for adapters.

 

[Byrd]

I'm using an 11" MBA right now running OpenCore Sequoia 15.7.7. It remains one of my favourite portables of all time. Story was I picked up three dead 11" MBA during Y2020, one worked, two dead. They were cheap - got them all for $200 AUD even back then. One of the dead ones had a small section of liquid damage near the vents with a crusty/damaged capacitor. Expunged this part off the really dead one, to find this was the golden i7 model with 8GB RAM working and ever reliable since. It lacked an SSD, so got the cheap adapter and put in a WD Blue nVME 500GB drive. I used this happily during a COVID outreach program I was involved in, sitting in a park and loved it.

Moving to 2026, installing Sequoia came up with a SMART failure error for the WD SSD; thought it was an OpenCore thing and tried the drive in a PC to report the same issue. Really odd but keeps up with my "anything touched that's Western Digital dies on me", from all of my computing history. Scrounged an Apple branded 128GB SSD and it's back in business. Once SSD prices drop I'll find another good replacement SSD and keep going.

 

[volvo242gt]

Have my mid-2012 A1286 set up to triple boot Catalina, High Sierra, and Mavericks. I probably would update the Mavericks install to 10.10, 10.11, or 10.12, but I don't want to potentially break my working copy of Photoshop CS4 that I originally installed on the mid-2010 A1286 I got from mcdermd in 2019.

 

[joshc]

mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro (non-retina)

I had one, also with the hi-res antiglare display, from new and it was my daily driver until 2021. A really excellent machine and I sort of wish I'd kept it because it still worked perfectly but in reality it wouldn't have seen any real use, just sat in a cupboard so selling was probably the right decision. I think these were the peak of hardware quality from Apple.

 

[CC_333]

Blast! I was hoping to make the first ever thread :lol:

Anyway, I have my MD101LL/A (late-model Mid 2012 MacBook Pro 13" manufactured in 2016), and while I haven't used it for much since I got my marginally faster and larger Mid 2013 rMBP, I still have it out, and it still works.

My first ever Intel Mac laptop (first Intel Mac period was a Mac Mini) was a Late 2006 MacBook. It didn't last long (it began falling apart in 2008, and finally had its screen broken in 2009), but it got me started, and it replaced my old clamshell iBook.

c

 

[croissantking]

Blast! I was hoping to make the first ever thread :lol:

Anyway, I have my MD101LL/A (late-model Mid 2012 MacBook Pro 13" manufactured in 2016), and while I haven't used it for much since I got my marginally faster and larger Mid 2013 rMBP, I still have it out, and it still works.

My first ever Intel Mac laptop (first Intel Mac period was a Mac Mini) was a Late 2006 MacBook. It didn't last long (it began falling apart in 2008, and finally had its screen broken in 2009), but it got me started, and it replaced my old clamshell iBook.

c

There's still the XServe forum to consummate!

 

[CC_333]

There's still the XServe forum to consummate!

True, but I don't have any Intel Xserves. Yet.

c

 

[Froggy814]

Is this post where you tell people what your pc is that you use the most?

 

[Phipli]

Is this post where you tell people what your pc is that you use the most?

It's people discussing what early Intel Macs they have, as the first thread in the new Intel section of the site.

Historically Intel Macs were considered off topic. Heh, there was a time when PPC was considered off topic.

 

[mikes-macs]

I can't be trusted with expensive laptop computers so I never bothered to get one. The G3 ibooks I got used, got dropped and wet several times so I decided that I'm not responsible enough for an expensive laptop. I don't use a computer for work so it's not a big deal for me. I made up for it with 15 Mac Mini computers of varying specs. At one point I had a Mac Mini installed in my car.

 

[CC_333]

I dropped my old clamshell iBook more times that I could count, and I even left it outside in the rain once.

It kept working.

The only things that finally did it in were a failed DC-in jack and my incompetence at trying to repair it (I broke the trackpad cable, and mangled the top case's inner metal lining when I tried to replace it).

Later PowerBooks, iBooks and MacBooks don't seem nearly as durable.

c

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

17" 4:5 screen and a bit thinner TSiMac would be a cool piece of retro gear. With modern components, you could probably have room inside it for a couple of file folders. Who really needs a briefcase when your laptop has a handle?