maverick vs yosemite vs sierra for Mid 2012 macbook pro 13

Hello all,

I am new to this forum and want to hear the experts or users here that have been using Macbook Pro for years. I just recently picked up an used mid 2012 Macbook Pro 13 inch with i7 2.9ghz, 8gb Ram and 750gb HD. It currently has Mavericks installed and I am considering to upgrade but would like to know the difference between these OSX.

I want to know the following for these OSX: Mavericks vs Yosemite vs Sierra

Performance, Speed, Efficiency and Battery usage.

I have been using Mavericks for quite some time on my desktop but havent upgrade to the newer version yet and now I have the macbook pro, I want to know which version of OSX works best for the macbook pro. My ideal is to utilize the performance/speed and minimize the battery life since it is a laptop.

Please provide your feedback and experience if you have use any of these OSX version.

Thank you.

iPhone 6, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Oct 16, 2016 8:04 PM

23 replies

MikeyMac888 Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 16, 2016 8:25 PM in response to babowa

Thanks Babo.

Since I just purchased this used MBP, I may be using it for Photo editing and organizing my pictures in it. so, when you used those previous version of OSX, which one did you like best in battery and performance wise?

babowa

Level 9

78,568 points

Oct 16, 2016 8:44 PM in response to MikeyMac888

Well, I still have a Mavericks partition on my iMac because the software/apps I prefer to use no longer work in El Capitan or Sierra. But, I only use it for that - for every day and online use, it is safest to have a very recent or latest OS with its security updates to keep the bad stuff at bay. I've not seen a big difference in battery usage and performance has been about the same with the SSD.

Oct 24, 2016 10:39 PM in response to babowa

I have a MBP late 2011 and I went over to Sierra but I found that performance wise it was not capable to drive my photo editing and sometimes video editing, so I went back to Mavericks. If you have downloaded the OSX before should be available to use again in your purchases. For me it's upgrade time, I hope the price on the new models will drop a little 🙂. By the way I upgraded mine to 16gb ram and SSD drive that works very well on Mavericks.

babowa

Level 9

78,568 points

Oct 24, 2016 11:02 PM in response to vdumitrescu

Thanks - I have bootable clones of every OS version since Mavericks - one factory fresh and up to date clones for El Capitan and Sierra. So I can recover/revert quite easily - no need for another download from the app store.

MikeyMac888 Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 25, 2016 5:16 AM in response to vdumitrescu

Hi vdumitrescu,

Can I ask what brand of Ram did you upgrade your MBA to 16gb with? I heard crucial is well known on this forum but I also read up corsair and Kingston. The only thing I am debating is that if crucial is the brand that runs smoothly and efficiently without generating more heat on my MBA. Please let me know if it does on yours and what brand did you installed? Thanks.

Aug 15, 2017 10:09 AM in response to babowa

Many thanks, babowa. I have zero hardware experience, so doing this myself means a fair amount of research. Now, off to look into cloning. 😎

Aug 15, 2017 10:45 AM in response to babowa

Thanks again. Would a Time Machine back-up to my external hard drive serve the same purpose as the clone?

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Aug 27, 2017 9:04 AM in response to MikeyMac888

Avoid Kingston and Corsair, Crucial's RAM is excellent, second only to OWC's.

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maverick vs yosemite vs sierra for Mid 2012 macbook pro 13