Upgrade now or wait?

[EtcheverryA]

Hi,

I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro. I'm a junior in high school now, and I've decided to wait until college to buy a new computer altogether, but I want to upgrade my current machine so it'll last me until then.

As far as I know the only parts of a Macbook Pro you can upgrade/replace yourself are the hard drive, RAM, and disc drive. I'm thinking of just replacing the disc drive with an SSD, as I never really use disks.

My main question is, when is a good time to buy? I haven't really been following prices lately. The Christmas/New Year rush has come to an end, but some people have suggested to wait even a little bit more for the best deals. What should I do?

(If it's any help, I'm looking at getting a 240ish GB SSD, and 16GB of RAM)

Thank you for any opinions/suggestions/advice!

 

[tachybana]

you should stick to what you have right now. its a good machine, performace wise you won't see much of an improvement. What you will see now adays is a tremendous improvement on battery life. Also what processor do you have on the MacBook PRo? i5 or i7? and i believe on this model you can only max 8GB of memory (which you won't need more than that unless you were doing some intense photoshop)

Your model should've given you up to 7hrs battery time, now you can get 9hrs on the 2013 Model
Your Model should weight about 4.5bls now the newer model is 3.46lbs (a pound lighter)

 

[EtcheverryA]

you should stick to what you have right now. its a good machine, performace wise you won't see much of an improvement. What you will see now adays is a tremendous improvement on battery life. Also what processor do you have on the MacBook PRo? i5 or i7? and i believe on this model you can only max 8GB of memory (which you won't need more than that unless you were doing some intense photoshop)

Your model should've given you up to 7hrs battery time, now you can get 9hrs on the 2013 Model
Your Model should weight about 4.5bls now the newer model is 3.46lbs (a pound lighter)

It's the i7 model - 2.0 Ghz

I would agree - I probably wouldn't need all 16GB of RAM... it's just feeling a little sluggish, so I guess I'll just stick with the 8GB, along with the SSD.

Any advice as to whether now is a good time to buy?

 

[tachybana]

With regards to your comment, "as to whether now is a good time to buy"? Are you referring to the SSD's or a new macbook pro? As i under stand mac prices don't fluctuate that much. Good luck at finding a significant savings on a 2013 model. Also, SSD sales are all over the place, you would have to find one that suits your price/perfomance criteria. Not too familiar with the mac world but as i understand it, they make it some what difficult to upgrade certain components. Check the Mac section of toms.

Best luck