Well, I've found a refurbished M1 with a 2TB SSD (!!!) for under $600 or a refurbished M2 with a 1TB SSD for under $750. New M4 with a 1TB SSD is just under $900. Obviously I DO NOT CARE OR WANT Apple Intelligence, so that's not a factor here. Is the M1 gonna be enough for me? - ThreadSky

gregpak.net • 52 days ago

Well, I've found a refurbished M1 with a 2TB SSD (!!!) for under $600 or a refurbished M2 with a 1TB SSD for under $750.

New M4 with a 1TB SSD is just under $900.

Obviously I DO NOT CARE OR WANT Apple Intelligence, so that's not a factor here.

Is the M1 gonna be enough for me?

Comments

thecasey.bsky.social•52 days ago

I have a M1 as my work laptop and it only supports one external monitor, which I wasn’t expecting.

robert-e-630.bsky.social•52 days ago

The m1 Is like 5 years old?

thereisnocat.com•52 days ago

My usual rule-of-thumb is to buy the most powerful Mac I can afford because they’ll be useful longer, whether the power is needed for what I do now or not. I keep my Macs for at least 10 years, and they’re useful that entire stretch.

M4 is about twice as fast as the M1, BTW.

daemionfox.bsky.social•52 days ago

I've got an M1 in my Macbook Pro (2022), I've still not seen any need for an upgrade.

tomtomorrow.bsky.social•52 days ago

when my Mac desktop melted down I went with a Mac mini (new) and it's working fine, no complaints

gregpak.net•52 days ago

Do you know what processor you've got? M1, M2, or M4?

tomtomorrow.bsky.social•52 days ago

texting you

benleecohen.com•52 days ago

The jump from M1 to M4 is significant. M1 to M2 not as much. I'd probably spend the extra $300 on the M4 now and be set for another long stretch (based on past and current systems I'm using).

castirony.bsky.social•52 days ago

I have had an M1 for years and it’s great, feel absolutely no pressure to upgrade so far.

gregpak.net•52 days ago

Sweet, thanks! Are you doing Photoshop/editing video on it?

castirony.bsky.social•52 days ago

Some, but mostly coding and CAD

literalkaren.bsky.social•52 days ago

My M1 MacBook Pro is two or three years old now. Handles video editing like a champ. You’d be fine.

akmonday.bsky.social•52 days ago

i have an m3 laptop and it's very very nice, upgraded from a 2017 intel chip macbook. So I'd say if you can find an m3, get that with as much RAM as you can afford.

brontology.bsky.social•52 days ago

I recently upgraded a similar age macbook and went with an m1 on sale because i think the will drop the intel chips from future OS updates sooner that later. Dont care about ai or whatever. With the usb c you can get cheap, fast external storage too

brontology.bsky.social•52 days ago

And i forgot, the m1 hasnt broke a sweat yet on anything. The old intel would have had fans blazing

scrappyaf.bsky.social•52 days ago

What will you wish you had bought if you need to get 8+ years out of this machine - is the question i ask myself. My macs stay relevant for a long time with the right specs. Mostly a photoshop user.

omfproductions.bsky.social•52 days ago

Not a Mac guy, but if both machines have a way to connect an external drive, which I am guessing they probably do...

I would prioritize chipset and RAM over HDD size for long term performance/usability.

gregpak.net•52 days ago

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I'm kinda being lazy right now - my current machine has a 1 TB drive and I hate the whole idea of downsizing to 512 or whatever and reworking all the backups and everything to manage the transfer to a new machine. :-(

omfproductions.bsky.social•52 days ago

That would definitely suck but having built PCs for three decades now, the bottleneck for performance, especially 4, 5, 6 years down the road, is always RAM and Processor/Chipset. It is a pain in the ass but there are lots of ways to transfer to external storage etc, but the chipset is a hard wall.

somohapian.com•52 days ago

I got the m4 recently. The external SSD drive through the thunderport in the back is as fast as the internal drive. I added 2 TB that way for about $150 and it works fine - I run most of the apps from it and of course all storage. DM me if you want details.

gregpak.net•52 days ago

Oh, wow, running APPS from an external drive? I didn't know that was a thing!

somohapian.com•52 days ago

Yup. And if you buy the drive and enclosure, it literally just snaps together and works.

somohapian.com•52 days ago

I did a lot of research on making sure it was fast enough to be seamless. :)

gregpak.net•52 days ago

wow

chimeracoder.bsky.social•52 days ago

If you had said anything other than Photoshop and video editing, I'd say you're definitely fine. But those are two of the most resource-intensive things people do with their personal machines, so you'll want to check with folks who do that on an M1 today and see how it is for them.

chimeracoder.bsky.social•52 days ago

Emphasis on "today", because unfortunately editing software is subject to resource creep, so someone using an M1 successfully four years ago does not mean that it will still be viable with today's software, etc.

chimeracoder.bsky.social•52 days ago

You may be fine, or you may not, but that's the specific advice you should be looking for to make your decision about whether the M1 will work for you.

lanewinree.com•52 days ago

I’ve got a personal M1 and a work M3. Honestly the M1 still runs like an absolute champ even though I bought it in 2021. Just make sure you spec it for at least 16GB RAM

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