I still have my late 2008 MacBook Pro--the first 15" unibody design with a Core 2 Duo. I just spent about $250 for 8 GB RAM upgrade and a 500 GB SSD and did a clean install of El Cap.
It actually runs faster now than it did with the stock HD and Mountain Lion! Granted, I'm not doing a lot of heavy computing with it. For web surfing and the basics it still works great.
It actually runs faster now than it did with the stock HD and Mountain Lion! Granted, I'm not doing a lot of heavy computing with it. For web surfing and the basics it still works great.