How long do you plan on keeping your macbook pro?

I don't know how long mine will last but my 1 GHZ titanium power book, Powermac G4 MDD and late 2008 macbook pro are still working perfectly. I only upgrade when I feel the need for more speed and there is a significant difference between the machine I currently use and the one I'm going to buy. Of course this is after I've maxed out the previous machine with RAM and the largest / fastest harddrive the machine will accept.

I very much doubt that a MacBook Pro can last 5 years without some major and very costly repairs.
My MBP is now about 20 months old and has had 3 logic board replacements(2 of them within a 2-3 month period), a sound board replacement, a hard drive replacement and 2 MagSafe power adaptor replacements, all covered under my AppleCare exended warranty (thank God).
I'd say that MacBook Pro quality control and reliability have been steadily declining.
True, there are those who'll say that they've had their MBPs for X many years without problems, but I think that they're few.
I'll likely get rid of my MBP when its AppleCare extended warranty expires.
I do think that the tendency of MBPs to run hotter causes an undue amount of stress on its electronics.
Anyway, having repairs done at one's own expense costs a small fortune.

I keep my Apple notebooks until they are out of warranty ( four years because of credit card extension of Apple Care) and then only replace them when they have hardware problems. I have had the hard drives fail on three of them and one of the RAM slots go bad on another.

I always have two notebooks, one a year or two older which becomes a spare.This is necessary because from time to time I have hardware issues and don't want to be without a machine during repairs. Regrettably ProCare has been discontinued and I will miss it greatly when mine expires at the end of June.

I've had my MBP for almost 3 years with no issues. I plan to keep it until it needs a hardware repair that would not justify the expense or if it gets to where the OS is too old to be useful. As long as it does what I need it to do, there's no reason to replace it.

The one I use now is almost a year old, I'll probably use it at least another 3 years.

My first Mac still gets used regularly by my wife. It's a Powerbook G4, built in January 2002. It's on it's 3rd HD. Still works like new.

My original MBP is now over 4 years old. It is used daily on battery and is still running fine. I went through the battery fiasco with Sony batteries. My fourth, and current, battery is an SMP that has not given me any problems.

@ame8199
I'm in a similar situation. I have pretty much exactly what you have. I maximized my RAM but that's all. I also got myself an external HD. The only advantage I see to upgrading is to speed up encoding video files. Now, if Adobe Flash gets off YouTube and other sites there might be even less need for upgrading.

If you are compelled to spend money here are some suggestions: MacMini for your TV/Entertainment centre, iPhone 4G, iPad ... or you can get an iMac and new iPhone instead of getting another MBP 15" ... this is what I am considering.

cheers

One thing to look at is warranties. Applecare is for 3 years, so I think you can safely assume that Apple expects that it will last at least that long. Hard drives are usually guaranteed for 3-5 years, so you can assume the manufacturer thinks they will last at least that long. Once you're past the 3 year period, you can anticipate replacing the hard drive with a larger and faster one. If nothing else is causing issues, then it would be fair to expect you could well get another 3 years out of the machine. If the machine is a lemon, there will be issues from the very beginning.

Another thing to look at is the platform and the OS. When Apple went to the Intel platform from the Power PC platform, this was a bit more of a seismic change. I bought the original iBook G4 new, and it is still in use. I had the logic board re-balled and replaced the hard drive and maxed out the RAM. Just recently I bought it a new battery. It is still going strong. However, it cannot be updated past OS X v. 10.4.11, and that is going to be the problem going forward. It's still fine for email and surfing the web and even managing large iPhoto and iTunes libraries, but for example, it cannot be synced with the iPad. As technology progresses, the iBook will be left further and further behind. Some day it will need to be replaced not because there is anything wrong with it, but because it has just become too obsolete. If it is still working when it's time to replace it, I imagine it will be given to a child as a first computer.

It wouldn't hurt to plan to keep your MBP until it either needs a major repair that is not worth the cost, or it has become eclipsed by some new technology and/or OS that still lies in the future. At the same time, it wouldn't hurt to start a fund for the next one. The sooner you start to save, the more cash you'll have on hand when the time comes. It's really expensive to replace a computer every time there's an upgrade that makes it just a little bit faster and better. Much less expensive to keep using the old one as long as it is practical to do so.

Good luck!

Hi a,

I've never had a Mac laptop die on me.

I still have my first Mac laptop from around 1991-2. Batt is long dead, but still boots up and runs fine. Once in awhile people still use it, and it works fine for basic word processing with the apps installed on it from that time period.

Jump to 2000 and my first color laptop, a Pismo. The Pismo is still used semi-regularly at work, usually to open an older doc (everything else there is PC now). Its batt is also dead, but otherwise runs fine. It's even got a removable floppy drive that every so often I put in and use for one reason or another. I could still use it as my main computer, but it's noticeably slower than everything else I use, and I won't bother upping it past its current OS, Tiger.

My TiBook from 2003 still gets daily use. Aside from the batt being down to about 75% capacity, and the trackpad being a bit more shiny that it was new, it still looks and functions like new. I bought it "only" four years after my Pismo because it was the last run of the TiBooks, which I think is/was one of the most distinguished computers ever made; I didn't want to miss out owning one and I sure don't regret it. Because I was a regular in the TiBook forums and read so many, many posts about various issues, I remember wondering and worrying whether the hinges would hold out, and the paint, and the logic board, and the optical drive, and the track pad cable. As I said, it all looks and works like new, so it has certainly stood the test of time for me. Thus I take, with a grain of salt, all the worry about the MBP being a lesser computer.

And finally, when Apple decided to go all shiny, reflective glass-screens, I decided the time was now for a MBP. At that point, no one knew if they'd ever produce another anti-glare display, and that's a big factor for me. So months after production was discontinued, I got a fantastic deal on a new 2.5GHz, with anti-glare display. As with the others, I've upped the RAM and the OS, and, based on all my other laptops, I'm sure I will someday up the HD, although 250GB is fine for now.

In any case, to directly answer your question, I've had this MBP for almost a year and a half, and I plan on keeping it an minimum of four to five years, until the next and the next and the next technologies entice me enough to spend the money on another machine, who knows if it'll even be a laptop by then? I will be very surprised if I have to buy a new laptop previous to my chosen time because of my MBP failing. Of course I understand it could happen, I'm just very doubtful it will. If you're rolling in money, hey, I'm sure someone would be happy to have your MBP and you'd be happy with a new unibody with that extra batt life. But if that money tree in the back yard isn't growing so well, I'm not sure why you'd buy a new MBP at this point in time.

Good luck with your decision. 😉

My average would be around 3 years, by then the hardware has advanced enough to make a change a decent step forward and members of my family get the 'hand-me-down' ...