Solved! Viability of upgrades

[bigfootsquires]

Hi
I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro.

It has an occasional sticky"O" which sometimes works and other times not. I have been told that the only(best ) solution is to replace the keyboard.
I have also looked at upgrading the HD to a crucial or samsung SSD.
These works would cost me in the region of £300.
seeking advice whether it would be economic to do this? I am thinking of there potential future life of this laptop in terms of usability for a few more years. I generally use it for internet access and some word and photo apps but do not seek to use modern photoshop etc.
Any thoughts.

Thanks

 

[velocityg4]

Are you having a shop do this? The cost you mention sounds way too high for a DIY repair and upgrade. A replacement uppercase with keyboard is £20 to £75 on eBay. Depending on condition and if it includes a trackpad. A 500GB Samsung or Crucial SSD is only about £70. I'd also max out the RAM as OS X loves RAM as does Photoshop. At current prices compatible 16GB DDR3 RAM could probably be had for about £70 off eBay, perhaps less.

Would it be worth it? That's tough to say. It's a whole lot less cheaper than a new Macbook Pro. They'd be nice upgrades which would give it a lot more pep. Spending £210 to repair the keyboard and max it out. Then get perhaps another three years out of it would have a lower cost per year than a new one with 16GB RAM and 500GB SSD. Under the assumption the new one could last you ten years. Although with the recent increases in web page size it is doubtful 16GB RAM would hold up ten years for more than a few open web pages.

There are some factors to consider. MacOS Mojave is not supported. Which means other new software will stop supporting your computer. This takes a while. New browser updates will likely continue for three years as will many other new programs. After that support will quickly fade. Security is a concern as Apple may push out a few more security patches for High Sierra but they won't keep that up for long. iCloud support will also start to become more limited.

Would I do it? No, if it could still run the latest OS I might. Given the lack of OS support. It has a definite timeline until it will be functionally useless on the Web. I know some people try to keep things going by running third party distributions of Firefox and Chrome. Some even resort to running Linux distros to keep a current web browser on their Mac. Such a Lubuntu on their PowerMac. Also I wouldn't be keen on spending so much on tech so old due to its obsolescence and likelihood of other parts failing.

Personally, I don't think new Macs are worth anywhere close to their price. Given they can't be upgraded I'd never get anything less than 16GB RAM and a 500GB SSD. I used to be a big Mac fan. System 7 was vastly superior to DOS 6 and Windows 3.1. By XP the ease of use started getting close but I was still willing to shell out for OS X. By Windows 7 the differences were too small to care about. I only have Macs now because I get them for free. But I hardly use them. You have to spend $2200 for a Macbook Pro which will have a decent lifespan (quad core, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD)

If you do replace the keyboard. Don't be tempted by those keyboard only deals. The keyboard is not designed to be removed. Replace the uppercase.