Should I Replace My 5-Year-Old MacBook?

The Fan Started Spinning

All I did was spin up three Docker containers, and the MacBook started screaming.

The fan noise fills the entire cafe. The person at the next table glances over.

Feeling guilty, I shut one container down. The area above the keyboard is hot. Not quite enough for a fried egg, but it makes a decent hand warmer.

2021 MacBook Pro. Five years old this year. It still works.

When "it still works" is the best thing you can say, it might be time for a replacement.

Battling the Spec Sheet

I open Apple's website. The latest MacBook Pro. M4 Pro, 24GB RAM, 1TB SSD.

The moment you read the specs, every flaw of your current machine comes into sharp focus.

Build times are too long (are they really?). Multitasking stutters (maybe because I have 30 Chrome tabs open). Battery doesn't last (well, it's 5 years old).

I check the price. Around 3.7 million won (roughly $2,800).

I close the tab.

For developers, buying a MacBook sits right on the border between rational purchase and impulse buy.

The Real Reasons to Upgrade

Let me think about this objectively.

Is work impossible on the current MacBook? No. It's slow, but it works.

Build times? 1 minute becomes 2 minutes. If I build 50 times a day, that's a 50-minute difference. Over a month, about 17 hours.

17 hours isn't trivial. But whether those 17 hours are worth $2,800 is a different question.

The real reasons to upgrade are elsewhere. Security updates. End of macOS support. Compatibility with the latest Xcode. When these things pile up, one day the entire work environment wobbles at once.

Gradual aging is hard to notice, but once it crosses the threshold, everything breaks simultaneously.

The Psychology of the Equipment Excuse

Behind the desire for new equipment, something else is lurking.

A vague hope that a new machine will change things. Faster builds will boost productivity, and higher productivity will make me a better developer.

It's like a guitarist believing a new guitar will improve their playing.

But the habit of checking Twitter during slow builds will survive the transition to a new MacBook just fine. Tools change; habits don't.

The Fate of the Old MacBook

If I buy a new one, what happens to the current one?

"I'll use it as a secondary laptop." That's what everyone says, but I've never seen anyone actually use a secondary laptop.

It ends up in a drawer, or listed on Danggeun Market (Korea's equivalent of Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist). "2021 MacBook Pro, good condition, fan slightly audible."

There's a strange sentimentality in parting with a machine you've had for 5 years. On this keyboard, I wrote my first production code, handled my first outage, and deployed hundreds of times.

I know I shouldn't get emotionally attached to electronics, but you can't help growing fond.

You'll Buy It Eventually

And yet, you always do. Developers buy equipment. It's practically a law of nature.

It's just a question of timing. Replace it at the "still works" stage and it feels indulgent. Replace it at the "doesn't work" stage and it's an emergency.

Somewhere between those two is the right moment, and that's determined not by a spec sheet but by feel.

When the fan spins and you catch yourself sighing -- that's probably the moment.

The MacBook is hot again today. I opened Apple's website again. Added it to the cart. Closed the tab.

I'll probably do the same thing tomorrow. Then one day, on a whim, I'll hit the buy button.

A developer's MacBook purchase isn't an impulse. It's a surrender after ample deliberation.