Are any of the parts repairable
Besides the obvious, like the HD, Memory, Motherboard or CD drive, is any other part of this computer user repairable
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All of the older Unibody MacBook Pro's, in my opinion, are the most repairable and expandable! I own one and love it.
Most of the parts are servicable and avalable. It just gets into the cost and if the system was damaged how much needs to be replaced.
The newer Retina MacBook Pro's are less repairable as any defect in RAM requires a new logic board. But by the same token, the Unibody MacBook Pro's If banged just right can damage the RAM sockets at which point would require a new logic board. The newest 2016 and onward MacBook Pro's with Touch Bar have soldered RAM & SSD storage. So it's even more expensive a repair when you need to replace the logic board.
So in the case of the retina & Touch Bar models you are limited to the amount of RAM based on what you bought day one. In the case of the Unibody MacBook Pro's the newer 2011 & 2012 support up to 16 GB of RAM which can be added in later if your needs change as well allowing you to spread the costs out.
In the case of storage, the older MacBook Pro's can support a 4 TB 2.5" SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) SSD. While the newer retina and newer systems have faster I/O SSD storage they can't support more than 2 TB of storage on Apple's custom blade SSD's
The 2012 15" Unibody 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7 system is still a powerhouse of a CPU. While the newer 2017 Kaby Lake 2.8 GHz based Touch Bar MacBook Pro is not that much more powerful, and the top of the line 4.1 GHz is where you'll see the most bang. But do you need such a powerful system for what you do?
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Well I asked this question for another reason. I had it repaired recently as it was extremely slow (even after I formatted the drive). I was unable to reload the OS although I tried various ways of doing that.
The battery also needed changing as it was no longer holding charge. The repair tech said he changed something (although he would not specify clearly what he had changed).
I brought it home and it was good for 20 min and then it froze. I restarted it and the same thing happened. The third time around it would no longer restart and I just got a blue screen with vertical lines (black).
He did not change the HD or MB nor did he change the memory, so what else could he have "changed" to justify the $450 price he charged me.
I am a photographer so that means thousands of images a week plus editing. I do image conversion from RAW to jpegs on my laptop
I purchased a MBP in 2016 and went for the 16 GB of RAM but my work flow on it was just no where near that of the speed of my iMac which has 32 GB. (2015).
I am looking for something portable with will handle stuff at the same pace my desktop does.
I've returned that MBP.
Image processing is a tricky subject! Depending on the image size and depth you often need lots of RAM & storage, then you need a powerful CPU & GPU.
Apples older 2012 Unibody fully loaded it more often going to give you as good if not better performance than the low-end current MacBook Pro Touch. The high-end model of the Touch Bar series would process a bit faster but given its costs, I'm not sure if it makes economic sense. The only big issue the newer retina models offer is a better display.
We still have one more issue and that is the limits of the onboard GPU's across all of the laptops this is likely what failed on your system. Laptop GPU's are still not as good as a desktop GPU.
Laptops are still not ideal for processing in batch mode lots of images. The amount of heat created will cook your system! This is where a desktop system is just superior as it offers better cooling.
It took killing three laptops for my photographer friend to stop batching on his laptop. Now he will process a dozen or fewer images at a time and he watches his thermals (he's working with an 11 MP Canon DLSR).
This also holds true with video processing Between the newer 40+ Mega-pixel full frame sensors used in DSLR's and 8K vid in the latest Red cameras no laptop can process the RAW data streams these cameras produce that effectively! You need a desktop.
But hold on! Things are about to change Apple won't be the first to offer the needed hardware to really support these high end cameras, HP announced workstation class laptops which will be what you want.
At this point, it saddens me to say Apple appears to be dropping the high-end level systems and sticking to the mid-tier. While they will be introducing a new Mac Pro there is no sight of a high end workstation class MacBook Pro. The new Touch Bar systems are not suitable platforms for a high end working visual pro.
Thank you for your very detailed reply!
Which HP model are you referring to? Would Dell maybe have the equivalent of what the new HP has to offer (as I have an account with them) I know they have a Core i9 coming out any day. I just need to be able to edit with a laptop when I'm on location or on a trip otherwise I am very happy with my iMac.
By the way what do you think of the 2015 MacBook Pro it’s still being sold by Apple and other retailers. Is that an option for me?
Here's the HP series I was thinking of which will be out later in May/June: HP packs 6 cores, 32GB ECC memory, 4TB SSD into a 5lb laptop
Keep in mind these are Windows systems, not MacOS so you'll end up needing a new set of apps! I have two friends that are looking very seriously at these systems if Apple doesn't at least show their cards at WWDC as they are now getting into 4K video editing. You may want to look at the 17" model as many photogs like your self, find the display size hard to work with (just a bit too small).
The 2015 15" retina system offers the better keyboard than the newer 2016/17 Touch Bar models. Still limited in the soldered RAM (16 GB) and while it has removable storage Apple only sells the 1 TB as the largest SSD. The best CPU it has is a Quad 2.8 GHz, Haswell.
Be careful here! Apple sells two versions the integrated graphics (IG) with Intel's Iris Pro 5200 onboard graphics engine only, and the Dedicated Graphics (DG) which has both an AMD Radeon R9 M370X dedicated GPU and Intel's Iris Pro 5200 onboard graphics engine which is the better of the two systems.
If you want to stick with Apple so you don't need to buy and learn new OS & apps this would be a good choice.
But, remember these systems can overheat when processing large and/or many images. I would recommend you buy TG Pro so you can keep an eye on your thermals.
Thank you for so much valuable information!
