End of an era: In three years, Apple will retire one of its most popular MacBooks
Every once in a while, Apple makes a product that is so spot on, and in tune with consumers, that it just won’t go down without putting up a good fight.
According to Apple’s Vintage and Obsolete Products support page, the 2012 13 inch MacBook Pro will enter the annals as one of the most popular, and sorely missed MacBooks in Apple’s history. This MacBook Pro, which will still be available for at least three years, at the end of which it will be declared a vintage product in California, and obsolete everywhere else, has gone strong for years, due to its relatively high specs, now (barely) comparable to a more recent MacBook Air, the presence of a DVD drive, and the fact that it’s still relatively cheap to upgrade.
In spite of the fact that it’s a 2012 model, this MacBook Pro packs a Thunderbolt USB 3.0 port, which can be used to connect external displays up to a resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixel, to make up for the very conservative 1280x800 pixels display, which is not bad, for those who have not yet been spoiled by the crisp definition and high resolution of Retina displays.
The 2012 MacBook Pro is still a big seller with volume customers, like school districts, nonprofits, and some lower government branches, and while it’s not nearly as powerful as a 12 inch Retina MacBook, it’s still a rather powerful laptop, especially when upgraded to an SSD drive, although the cost of replacing the internal HDD with a speedy SSD would put into question whether investing into a newer MacBook is more economically sound.
Being a 2012 model, its bulk is fairly noticeable, weighing in at 4.5 pounds, with a thick bezel surrounding the display. The battery lasts approximately 7 hours, which is not bad for an older laptop. Wireless connectivity hardware packs a/b/g WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0.
This laptop is also one of the very few that may often come with OS X Lion, which is typically eligible for a free upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion, and every OS after that all the way to El Capitan, which has been touted as an operating system capable of breathing new life into older devices.
The 2012 MacBook Pro is expected to be declared officially obsolete in 2019, as every Apple Mac reaches obsolete status after 7 years.