Upgrade the macOS or Just Purchase a New System?

[Nadine Edwards, Japanese-English Translator]

Dear Colleagues,

I am evaluating whether it is worth it to do the last compatible upgrade of my desktop (2012 macmini) and laptop (2014 macAir) and carry on, or just opt for the new M2 or M3 and hope it will last as long.

For you, I have a few questions:

1) What kind of setup you are running at the moment? What hardware,
macOS version, word processing, and CAT tool are you on?
2) How long have you been running this setup?

3) If you have made a similar evaluation recently, which path did you choose and why?

About me. I use primarily

BBEdit, Minco 1, MS Office Suite, OmegaT, Thunderbird, BBEdit on the daily. I like things being portable/transferable without too much fuss. Generally, I work on the mac mini and take the macair on the road (though I have been using the mac air more this last year). I opted for the 2012 mac mini a while ago because I can still get inside and swap out the hard drive or memory as needed. I see those options all but gone on new macs and that is something that gives me pause.

Very curious to hear about the variety of setups. Thank you in advance for your comments and thoughts.

Best,

Nadine

---

Nadine A. Edwards

Japanese Patent Document Translation
Virginia, USA

[Matthew Young]

Nadine,

For my translation work, I also use an older 13” MacBook Pro, although not as old as your set up. Mine is a 2019 MacBook Pro running MacOS 10.14.6 (Mojave). When I’m working at home, it’s plugged into a 27" LG monitor, which I’ve also had for a long time, but I find the 13” screen is perfectly OK for when I’m on the train, on holiday, away in my camper van etc.

The computer itself can take a newer operating system than that, but I use two software packages that can’t (Heartsome TMX Editor and Dragon Dictate for Mac).

Other software, such as MS Office and Wordfast Pro (which I’ve used for many years), runs perfectly fine on this system, so I’m happy enough to stay in the past and keep using the set-up I have. I think there’s a lot to be said for finding a set-up that you’re comfortable with. I occasionally use Trados on a Dell laptop for one client, and my heart sinks a bit every time I start one of those projects.

I must say, I’ve become very attached to my MacBook Pro over the years. I can’t think of a single problem I’ve had with it, and I can personally verify for its build quality.

Last year, I dropped it down a flight of stairs onto a stone floor, but it booted up as if nothing had happened. I only use it for work - all my music, photos, etc. are kept on a separate (much newer) MacBook Air, so I haven’t encountered any problems involving the hard disk filling up. The fan comes on more often than it used to, but closing and reopening apps generally solves that.

Now that I’m nearer 60 than 50, I don’t plan to be working for more than another 2-3 years, so I’m hoping that my current system will see me through to retirement.

Regards,

Matt.

Matt Young, MITI

Managing Director
Matt Young Translations, Ltd.

Patents - Chemistry - Automotive - Environment

Spring Cottage,
Back Gate,
Ingleton,
North Yorkshire.
LA6 3BG
United Kingdom

Tel: +44-7736-805447

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[Jean-Christophe Helary]

Thank you Nadine for starting this thread.

I decided a while ago that I would not buy new machines anymore. I’ve decided for a mid-2015 15″ Macbook Pro with 16 gb of ram and a 1 tb SSD that I carry with me pretty much everywhere I go. I in fact have two of them. They are pretty cheap now and easily fixable. If one goes down, I just need to restore the most recent Time Capsule (yes!!!) backup to the other one and I’m back to work in a few hours.

With this machine, I’m limited to macOS 12 (Monterey). And the software I use is very similar to what you both have described.

I mostly use (and build and test) OmegaT. I also sometimes use the Okapi tools and I have all the tools developed by Maxprograms. Matthew, by the way, I don’t exactly remember HS TMXEditor functions but Maxprogram’s rewrite is pretty good. I use Emacs as my writing text editor (I write a lot of prose) and sometimes BBEdit, mostly to work with regular expressions (I need to become more familiar with Emacs’ regex, but they never stick).

Since I try to use free and open-source software (or at least preinstalled macOS software) as much as possible, I have LibreOffice, but some jobs require MS Office. I also make (very) extensive use of AppleScript things that I wrote. I think I’ve reached a point where all my automation needs are covered, so I don’t write scripts much anymore.

Matthew, it’s funny that you mention your age. We must be pretty close (turning 57 this year), but the pension system in Japan is so bad that my wife and I will have to work into our 70’s before we can expect much.

JC

> On Apr 28, 2026, at 15:50, Matthew Young <in...@mattyoungtranslations.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Nadine,
>
> For my translation work, I also use an older 13” MacBook Pro, although not as old as your set up. Mine is a 2019 MacBook Pro running MacOS 10.14.6 (Mojave). When I’m working at home, it’s plugged into a 27" LG monitor, which I’ve also had for a long time, but I find the 13” screen is perfectly OK for when I’m on the train, on holiday, away in my camper van etc.
>
> The computer itself can take a newer operating system than that, but I use two software packages that can’t (Heartsome TMX Editor and Dragon Dictate for Mac).
>
> Other software, such as MS Office and Wordfast Pro (which I’ve used for many years), runs perfectly fine on this system, so I’m happy enough to stay in the past and keep using the set-up I have. I think there’s a lot to be said for finding a set-up that you’re comfortable with. I occasionally use Trados on a Dell laptop for one client, and my heart sinks a bit every time I start one of those projects.
>
> I must say, I’ve become very attached to my MacBook Pro over the years. I can’t think of a single problem I’ve had with it, and I can personally verify for its build quality.
> Last year, I dropped it down a flight of stairs onto a stone floor, but it booted up as if nothing had happened. I only use it for work - all my music, photos, etc. are kept on a separate (much newer) MacBook Air, so I haven’t encountered any problems involving the hard disk filling up. The fan comes on more often than it used to, but closing and reopening apps generally solves that.
>
> Now that I’m nearer 60 than 50, I don’t plan to be working for more than another 2-3 years, so I’m hoping that my current system will see me through to retirement.
>
> Regards,
>
> Matt.
>
> Matt Young, MITI
>
> Managing Director
> Matt Young Translations, Ltd.
>
> Patents - Chemistry - Automotive - Environment
>
> Spring Cottage,
> Back Gate,
> Ingleton,
> North Yorkshire.
> LA6 3BG
> United Kingdom
>
> Tel: +44-7736-805447
>
>

> <ITI 20 years.jpg>

>
>> On 27 Apr 2026, at 23:20, Nadine Edwards, Japanese-English Translator <nadine.t...@gmail.com <mailto:nadine.t...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> I am evaluating whether it is worth it to do the last compatible upgrade of my desktop (2012 macmini) and laptop (2014 macAir) and carry on, or just opt for the new M2 or M3 and hope it will last as long.
>>
>> For you, I have a few questions:
>> 1) What kind of setup you are running at the moment? What hardware,
>> macOS version, word processing, and CAT tool are you on?
>> 2) How long have you been running this setup?
>> 3) If you have made a similar evaluation recently, which path did you choose and why?
>>
>> About me. I use primarily
>> BBEdit, Minco 1, MS Office Suite, OmegaT, Thunderbird, BBEdit on the daily. I like things being portable/transferable without too much fuss. Generally, I work on the mac mini and take the macair on the road (though I have been using the mac air more this last year). I opted for the 2012 mac mini a while ago because I can still get inside and swap out the hard drive or memory as needed. I see those options all but gone on new macs and that is something that gives me pause.
>>
>> Very curious to hear about the variety of setups. Thank you in advance for your comments and thoughts.
>>
>> Best,
>> Nadine
>> ---
>> Nadine A. Edwards
>> Japanese Patent Document Translation
>> Virginia, USA
>>
>> --
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>
>
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Jean-Christophe Helary
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/

[Matthew Young]

Jean-Christophe,

We must be pretty close, yes. I turn 57 later this year too. Fortunately, I live in a part of the UK where the cost of living isn’t too high, and I’ve been paying into a private pension since my 20s, so I should be good to retire by 60. My wife and I have plans anyway! Of course, this is all assuming that Trump doesn’t get bored/senile and press the big red button anytime soon.

I do occasionally look at the latest release of Maxprogram’s TMX editor, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have the custom filters function that the Heartsome editor did. I find that invaluable. Over the years, I’ve come to learn where I’m susceptible to missing or mis-reading source text terms, and I’ve saved around 70 custom filters to help me catch those. It’s very handy as a safety net.

It still surprises me that no one has released anything to replace Nuance’s Dragon Dictate for Mac, as there must surely be a market for that. Dictation software is a must-have for me thanks to RSI in both hands after almost 40 years of motorcycling. I can’t type for very long before my fingers get sore. I occasionally try to use the dictation function on my newer MacBook Air, but it’s nowhere near reliable enough for translation work. So I’ll keep on using my ancient version of Dragon Dictate. It seems very stable, so fingers crossed it doesn’t pack in before I do.

All the best,

Matt.

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[Nadine Edwards, Japanese-English Translator]

Thank you Matt and Jean-Christophe,

Very interesting. At least I know what other models are long lasting.

JC, I can't believe you still have a Time Capsule. Thank you for sharing that! It tells me that I really need to take a more serious look at Time Machine. I already have my work files fairly portable, and at one time I used owncloud as a part of my backup/portability system.

Matt, I used to use Dragon Dictate, and sadly, it went downhill after changing some of my peripherals. I haven't been able to get it to behave since. There is actually an open source project called Talon (https://talonvoice.com/) that says it can use the Dragon engine if you already have one installed. I've tested it a bit, and as always in dictation, I just need to practice a bit more. It will be worth it to me even if all I get out of it is just some navigation and some dictation.

I am looking to be translating full-time at least another decade or so, and I imagine that changes the calculus a bit. What would you do, in that case?

Is there anyone else planning to hold on to their current system another few years? If you've recently made an upgrade in the past few years or so, was worth it?

Good Luck to us all,

Nadine

---
Nadine A. Edwards
Japanese Patent Document Translation
Virginia, USA

On 27 Apr 2026, at 23:20, Nadine Edwards, Japanese-English Translator <>> wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

I am evaluating whether it is worth it to do the last compatible upgrade of my desktop (2012 macmini) and laptop (2014 macAir) and carry on, or just opt for the new M2 or M3 and hope it will last as long.

For you, I have a few questions:
1) What kind of setup you are running at the moment? What hardware,
macOS version, word processing, and CAT tool are you on?
2) How long have you been running this setup?
3) If you have made a similar evaluation recently, which path did you choose and why? 

About me. I use primarily
BBEdit, Minco 1, MS Office Suite, OmegaT, Thunderbird, BBEdit on the daily. I like things being portable/transferable without too much fuss. Generally, I work on the mac mini and take the macair on the road (though I have been using the mac air more this last year). I opted for the 2012 mac mini a while ago because I can still get inside and swap out the hard drive or memory as needed. I see those options all but gone on new macs and that is something that gives me pause.

Very curious to hear about the variety of setups. Thank you in advance for your comments and thoughts.

Best,
Nadine
---
Nadine A. Edwards
Japanese Patent Document Translation
Virginia, USA

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[Jean-Christophe Helary]

Nadine,

> On May 2, 2026, at 0:15, Nadine Edwards, Japanese-English Translator <nadine.t...@gmail.com <mailto:nadine.t...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Thank you Matt and Jean-Christophe,
>
> Very interesting. At least I know what other models are long lasting.
>
> JC, I can't believe you still have a Time Capsule.

I have a 2 TB version. I see that it was discontinued 10 years ago already !!!
I’ve had very few issues with it and since I use it as a work backup, I don’t mind resetting it to defaults when I have to.

> Thank you for sharing that! It tells me that I really need to take a more serious look at Time Machine. I already have my work files fairly portable, and at one time I used owncloud as a part of my backup/portability system.

I tried to explore other backup solutions, but with little urge, since TC works very well. But I see that the next version of macOS that my wife uses won’t support TC backups, so I might have to do something about that now...

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/10/macos-27-wont-support-airport-time-capsule/ <https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/10/macos-27-wont-support-airport-time-capsule/>
> Matt, I used to use Dragon Dictate, and sadly, it went downhill after changing some of my peripherals. I haven't been able to get it to behave since. There is actually an open source project called Talon (https://talonvoice.com/ <https://talonvoice.com/>) that says it can use the Dragon engine if you already have one installed. I've tested it a bit, and as always in dictation, I just need to practice a bit more. It will be worth it to me even if all I get out of it is just some navigation and some dictation.

I’m surprised that with all the LLM systems we have now, there are no proper "pro" dictation systems for macOS.

> I am looking to be translating full-time at least another decade or so, and I imagine that changes the calculus a bit. What would you do, in that case?

If you feel like upgrading your system, any second-hand M1/M2 system will be incredibly more performant than your system. And you can still use VMs for the occasional piece of software that need to stay on older versions of macOS (I don’t remember which version of macOS is OK to use on a VM though).

> Is there anyone else planning to hold on to their current system another few years? If you've recently made an upgrade in the past few years or so, was worth it?
>
> Good Luck to us all,

:-) Thank you Nadine !

JC

> Nadine
> ---
> Nadine A. Edwards
> Japanese Patent Document Translation
> Virginia, USA
> On Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 10:01:46 AM UTC-4 Matthew Young wrote:
> Jean-Christophe,
>
> We must be pretty close, yes. I turn 57 later this year too. Fortunately, I live in a part of the UK where the cost of living isn’t too high, and I’ve been paying into a private pension since my 20s, so I should be good to retire by 60. My wife and I have plans anyway! Of course, this is all assuming that Trump doesn’t get bored/senile and press the big red button anytime soon.
>
> I do occasionally look at the latest release of Maxprogram’s TMX editor, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have the custom filters function that the Heartsome editor did. I find that invaluable. Over the years, I’ve come to learn where I’m susceptible to missing or mis-reading source text terms, and I’ve saved around 70 custom filters to help me catch those. It’s very handy as a safety net.
>
> It still surprises me that no one has released anything to replace Nuance’s Dragon Dictate for Mac, as there must surely be a market for that. Dictation software is a must-have for me thanks to RSI in both hands after almost 40 years of motorcycling. I can’t type for very long before my fingers get sore. I occasionally try to use the dictation function on my newer MacBook Air, but it’s nowhere near reliable enough for translation work. So I’ll keep on using my ancient version of Dragon Dictate. It seems very stable, so fingers crossed it doesn’t pack in before I do.
>
> All the best,
>
> Matt.
>

> On 28 Apr 2026, at 11:47, 'Jean-Christophe Helary' via Mac for Translators <mac-for-t...@googlegroups.com <applewebdata://BFFDAB1B-C994-4D5A-99D9-4927B88E943F>> wrote:
>> Thank you Nadine for starting this thread.
>>
>> I decided a while ago that I would not buy new machines anymore. I’ve decided for a mid-2015 15″ Macbook Pro with 16 gb of ram and a 1 tb SSD that I carry with me pretty much everywhere I go. I in fact have two of them. They are pretty cheap now and easily fixable. If one goes down, I just need to restore the most recent Time Capsule (yes!!!) backup to the other one and I’m back to work in a few hours.
>>
>> With this machine, I’m limited to macOS 12 (Monterey). And the software I use is very similar to what you both have described.
>>
>> I mostly use (and build and test) OmegaT. I also sometimes use the Okapi tools and I have all the tools developed by Maxprograms. Matthew, by the way, I don’t exactly remember HS TMXEditor functions but Maxprogram’s rewrite is pretty good. I use Emacs as my writing text editor (I write a lot of prose) and sometimes BBEdit, mostly to work with regular expressions (I need to become more familiar with Emacs’ regex, but they never stick).
>>
>> Since I try to use free and open-source software (or at least preinstalled macOS software) as much as possible, I have LibreOffice, but some jobs require MS Office. I also make (very) extensive use of AppleScript things that I wrote. I think I’ve reached a point where all my automation needs are covered, so I don’t write scripts much anymore.
>>
>> Matthew, it’s funny that you mention your age. We must be pretty close (turning 57 this year), but the pension system in Japan is so bad that my wife and I will have to work into our 70’s before we can expect much.
>>
>> JC
>>

>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mac-for-transla...@googlegroups.com <applewebdata://BFFDAB1B-C994-4D5A-99D9-4927B88E943F> <mailto:mac-for-transla...@googlegroups.com <applewebdata://BFFDAB1B-C994-4D5A-99D9-4927B88E943F>>.
>>
>> --
>> Jean-Christophe Helary
>> https://sr.ht/~brandelune/ <https://sr.ht/~brandelune/>