Advice On Home It Set-Up

[samlouis83]

Hi folks,

I'm just looking to get some second opinions on my next steps for my IT set up at home.

I have a mac book pro (mid 2011) version which is really painful to use now it's just so slow. Thing is I don't actually use it very often now - just to back up my iPhone and iPad on iTunes and the occasional cv update as I have Office 2013 installed.

Most of the time I use my iPad Air 2 or my phone.

I don't really want to pay out for a new mac book as I just don't think it's a justifable expense for the use. Do I receycle my old mac book and just buy a cheap pc? Or do I look at buying a keyboard I can plug into my iPad? Or should I get rid of both iPad and MacBook and look at getting the iPad Pro?

Any advice gratefully received.

[woofgang]

what do you want? what can you afford? what do you use them for? I am almost completely Mac these days and love it. I keep one small cheap windows notebook to use one program I can’t use on Mac and when it goes I won’t replace it

[Fitzer]

The MacBook Pro should be more than capable of providing what you need. How much memory have you got installed and what in particular is slow? If possible install extra memory up to the maximum and consider swapping the hard drive for an SSD, these two things will normally massively increase the responsiveness and be a fairly cheap solution. Also, consider reinstalling the OS from scratch

[woofgang]

mac book pro comes with as much memory as it can hold and is not upgradeable

[Fitzer]

2011 models have 2 slots with either 2X2 or 2X4GB so perfectly possible to upgrade if the OP only has the 4GB installed, its only the Retina models which can't be upgraded

[samlouis83]

Hi,

OP here. I've only got the original memory. The mac's just generally running slow to do anything- run software, keeps getting a spinning wheel of doom.

If adding memory is the best option how would I go about that?

[woofgang]

have you given it a good clean up and clear out? I use a program called CleanMyMac and I find it really makes a difference.

[ladybirder]

Clear some memory space, that will make a difference. Click on the black Apple icon top lefthand corner of screen and select 'About this Mac' and then 'Storage'. You can then see what's taking up a lot of room and start deleting what you don't need anymore.