Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

Should I buy a new phone or laptop?

I have an iPhone 8 Plus which is actually so outdated ( doesn’t even have Face ID) I’m thinking of getting the iPhone 12 pro.

Alternatively my MacBook Pro laptop is also quite old ( 2015) so wanted to update to the 2020 version.

Which one do you think I should get?? I use both a lot but obviously I’d say my phone more in general e.g social media, photos but I do use my laptop a lot for essays & uni ( but I only have a year left because it’s a masters)

Reply 1

londonmyst

I'd go with a new laptop.

Reply 2

username612415

Original post by felictyfernxx

Both are new enough that they don't need updating, so it's a question of which you enjoy using the least and which you will get more use out of, and whether you dislike them enough to justify spending the cash to replace them.

There's also the very worthwhile option of upgrading both for the price of a MacBook pro with very good options if you can see yourself leaving the Apple ecosystem. You can easily get a flagship caliber Android phone and a 13-14" Windows ultrabook for less than the £1,300 that the cheapest MacBook Pro runs for, and the laptop will still be more powerful.

If you are settled on Apple though, two things to bare in mind; outside of the addition of a telephoto camera, the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are functionally identical, all you'd be losing by going to the baseline 12 is that camera, some RAM and a steel frame that just makes the phone heavier. On the Mac front, Apple are expected to begin refreshing their MacBook line with new processors by the end of the year, and it will be a big shift from Intel chips to their own in-house ones. It is well worth waiting for these new models uif you do decide to buy a MacBook, they'll see longer support as Apple slowly shift their focus away from Intel machines. The sub-£1500 MBPs are also pretty long in the tooth now, their processors are over three years old at this point. As I mentioned before, they're now well behind Windows laptops costing half as much.

Reply 3

username5420832

This. Of course, OP, if you're into Apple then obviously stick with them, but for what it's worth if you're torn between the two and are willing to spend the money on a MacBook(starting from £1100 for something worthwhile), then it's definitely something worth considering.

An example of what you could get is a Xiaomi Mi 10T for £469, which is a good all-round flagship-calibre phone with excellent performance and battery life at a good price, while the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 is a solid-all round laptop for £699 with great battery life, a good screen and excellent performance that puts practially all of the 13" MacBooks to shame. In total, this would come to £1168, which while a lot of money is still cheaper than the base model MBP, and only £69 more than the i5 MBA(which is far less powerful).

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 4

Iouisa

laptop. 8 is still pretty useful but it's said that you should replace your laptop every 4 years. if it's older then eventually it will clap out.

I got a laptop and didn't need anything new just yet and guess what... 2 months later the hdd completely messed up.
I got the hp envy x360. don't bother buying a mac tho. you can get something like mine, still very premium, and has tremendous specs. if you were to get those specs in apple it would probably cost £2k. mine is half that price. plus, it can be used as a tablet.
apple has very limiting features for the price which is stupid ngl

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 5

Dramatic 10

Original post by felictyfernxx

Either way don’t get Apple

Reply 6

spotify95

Original post by felictyfernxx

What specs are your Macbook Pro - which model, processor, RAM, SSD etc?

An iPhone 8 Plus is still reasonably fine, it came out at the same time as the X. Since then, we've had the XR/XS, the 11/11 Pro, and now the 12/12 Pro, so three years old. The iPhone 8 Plus does have Touch ID in the form of a fingerprint scanner - which the new iPhone 12s don't have (dropped with the release of the X).

The Macbook Pro should also be fine provided that it's an Intel Core i5 (or i7) model with at least 8GB RAM and 256GB+ SSD. Having said that, more recent Intel Core i5 CPUs are more powerful.

If your laptop is still fine and does what it needs to, upgrade your phone. It might be worth trading in your iPhone 8 Plus - though keep your charger, as Apple are no longer providing chargers with their iPhones. It's also vital that you get a screen protector and a case (to protect against damage) since only Apple can perform repairs to iPhone 12s (without causing problems with functionality).

Also, Apple are likely moving their Macbooks to Apple Silicon CPUs, which may result in support being dropped for the older Intel based CPUs at some point in the future. At the moment, though, it won't be too much of a problem - especially since laptops are supposed to last longer than phones (laptop = 5 years, phone = 2-3 years).

TL,DR: If your laptop is OK, upgrade your phone as it could be close to 3 years old. If your laptop is an older model (i3 CPU, less than 8GB RAM, less than 250GB storage, or performing slowly) then upgrade the laptop. See if you can trade in your old phone (if you choose the phone instead of the laptop) to save yourself some cash.

Reply 7

username5347244

It really depends on which will benefit you more. Would a new laptop be good for school?

Reply 8

spotify95

Also, I have to say that I agree with Bluewolf21's and Gofre's advice: if you don't need Mac OS/iOS, and you don't mind switching to Android and/or Windows, then you can get a lot more value (and repairability!) for the money.

For any given Mac laptop, you can probably get a Windows laptop that does the same thing, with the same specification, for half the money (or less).
The iPhone 12 Pro is going to be £1000 and doesn't come with a charger or headphones, and is also severely restricted if you try and repair it. You can get a decent phone and laptop (that are not Apple based) for around that price, and that's both devices upgraded at once.

Reply 9

gcse20212004

The 8 plus is pretty good imo I have it and probably won’t buy a new one until it’s dead. The MacBook is older than the iPhone 8 Plus so perhaps MacBook? Seems more useful too in terms of doing work

Reply 10

Showaddywaddy

I mean, to be honest both are more than enough for the needs you described (Social Media and word processors).

In terms of your laptop being from 2015, i mean that's not that old for what you use it for, you arn't using your laptop for CAD or graphics processing in software like Autodesk CAD/Inventor or Blender, you are using it for essays and general browsing so imo it's more than enough for what you use it for.

In terms of your Iphone 8 Plus, i mean are there any other benefits apart from having face ID? I mean obviously I'm aware that there are hardware improvements and camera improvements but if you are planning to upgrade you need to think if you can justify the cost of either one of them in terms of the benefit of upgrading.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with upgrading for the sake of it, i've done it pleanty of times but from your post it sounds like you are on a budget so i would think about what actual benefit you would get from upgrading the laptop or phone.

If I had to choose 1 for you I would upgrade the phone as I think you would get more out of that upgrade. If you were doing more intensive workloads on your laptop then I would say 100% laptop, but that's not the case and really if you are just browsing and doing essays you could probably get away with a good laptop from 12 years ago.

Thanks.

Reply 11

Showaddywaddy

Original post by Iouisa

From my experience that's pretty misguided.

Usually the only parts you need to service (If the laptop has not been abused) is the HDD and Battery, The hard drive is usually very user replacable being a standard 3.5" drive and a battery replacement if you don't want to get into soldering can be done very quickly by a repair shop, even then i'm talking 8-9 years after production.

For the OP's needs (Word processing and browsing) the laptop is 100% fine and could probably get away with using a laptop from 12 years ago if i'm honest, heck I use a laptop which is 9 years old for work while commuting and i've barely had to service it, yes I use a workstation at home but for my use case (of browsing documents etc) its more than enough.

"apple has very limiting features for the price which is stupid ngl" Not for professionals which require a specific software suite in Mac OS, for OP yes those features are probably not required but that does not mean a product is stupid just because you don't fall into that demographic. I mean maybe OP just prefers Mac OS? maybe OP does utilize some of the software suite idk, they never specified what workloads they actually do apart from social media and essays. Some people just also like having 1 ecosystem for example all Apple devices so that they can guarantee that everything will work. I mean I don't use Apple products personally but please be aware that there are people who do and require apple products to do their jobs.

Sorry for the small rant (?) in the third paragraph.