Purchased Macbook Pro 16" 2019 🎉

I had been meaning to upgrade my early-2015 MBP for quite some time.

Then I got one from office, so did not need to upgrade.

then something or the other kept coming up.

Few months ago, I visited a shop to get battery replaced for my MBP

The service was good.

The shopkeeper also told me that he has some used MBP for sale.

Usually these come from corporate customers (I think) and are in good condition.

I decided to stick to Intel mac, since there is a possibility of installing Linux on it eventually ¹

I had asked for at least 16GB RAM - current one has 8GB, which works well for most tasks but it is from 2015, and apps in 2025 may more more demanding on memory so 16GB seemed like the least I should buy.

I went to the shop to “see” the machine.

He showed me i9+32GB version (We had discussed i7+16GB) and said “Yours will be just like this” (i.e. as good condition as this)

So I asked if this machine itself was available and what is the price difference.

Yes, it was for sale.

Turns out the price difference was not much.

So I decided to go with better version. 😁

I am really happy being back on macOS. ²

Not that I was unhappy with Linux, but things are just better on macOS 🤷‍♂️

Other minor details :

The machine had Sonoma - which is from 2022 - 3 years old.

I asked the shopkeeper to give me Tahoe aka macOS 26 on a bootable USB stick

But he couldn’t do it. 🤷‍♂️

At the time of purchase he suggested to wait before switching to Tahoe, as it was “too new” (euphemism for buggy 😄)

Once I came home, I checked reddit, and turns out people are not too happy.

So I decided to upgrade to Sequoia instead.