4 ms·

The tradeoff I'm making is money vs capability. My argument is that most people don't need the capabilities offered by brand new, top of the line models. A used

The tradeoff I'm making is money vs capability. My argument is that most people don't need the capabilities offered by brand new, top of the line models. A used laptop that is a couple of years old is, I think, the best choice for most people.

dijit 5y ago
A new M1 laptop is likely to last 4-5 years as a good specification of machine. A second hand laptop has much less advantage to doing that. I think this is a false economy. “The poor man pays twice” But regardless: the cost isn’t outrageous when compared to the Dell XPS/latitude or HP Elitebook lines (which are the only laptops I know of designed to last a 5y support cycle). If you’re buying a new laptop, I don’t think I could recommend anything other than an M1 unless you don’t like Apple or MacOS. Which is fair.
- nasmorn 5y ago
  Also the M1 runs near silent or in case of the Air actually silent. I would pay an extra 1000 just for that alone. Turned out the Air was barely more than that in total. Which other laptop does that?
- true_religion 5y ago
  The trade in value for my 6 year old MacBook Air is 150 dollars. Old computers depreciate so fast, that you can afford to buy ten of them for the price of one new computer.
  - dijit 5y ago
    Looks like they’re selling for more than twice that on ebay.co.uk though. And considering MacBook airs are $1000~ devices that’s really high. 6 years is also beyond the service life of a(ny) machine. If I look at 3 year old MacBook airs they’re selling for £600 on eBay, which is, what, half of the full cost. Not great for an already old machine with only a few good years left. I guess you might save a bit of money using extremely old hardware and keeping it for a while. But this is a really poor argument against an objectively good evolutionarily improved cpu in my opinion.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      > 6 years is also beyond the service life of a(ny) machine. That was the case for many decades. I think it’s no longer nearly the case. I’ve got a USB/DP KVM switch on my desk and regularly switch between my work laptop (2019 i9 MBPro) and my personal computer (2014 Dell i7-4790, added SSD and 32GB). Same 4K screens, peripherals, everything else. I find the Dell every bit as usable and expect to be using it 3 years from now. I wouldn’t be surprised if I retire the MacBook before the Dell. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i9-9980HK-vs-Intel-i7-4790/3451vs2226 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i9-9980HK-vs-Inte... shows the Mac to have only a slight edge and that’s a 2 year old literal top of line Mac laptop vs a mid-range commodity office desktop from 6 years ago bought with < $200 in added parts. (Much of what users do is waiting on the network or the human; when waiting on the CPU, you’re often waiting on something single-threaded. Mac is < 20% faster single-threaded.)
      - dijit 5y ago
        Yeah, desktops vs laptops. 20W parts vs 84W parts. Honestly, I'm not sure what we're discussing anymore. If you don't need (or want) an all round better experience then that's on you. But don't go saying that these things are too expensive or that the performance isn't there. Because it is. If Apple had released something mediocre I'd understand this thread, but this is a legitimately large improvement in laptop performance, from GPU, to memory, to storage, to IO, to single threaded CPU performance. Everyone kept bashing AMD for not beating Intel in single thread. Everone bashed Apple for using previous Gen low TDP intel chips. Now Apple has beaten both AMD and Intel in a very good form factor, and people still have a bone to pick. Please understand that your preference is yours, these are legitimately good machines, every complaint that anyone had about macbooks has been addressed. Some people will just never be happy.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        I was commenting only on whether “6 years is beyond the service life of any machine”, which I tried to make clear with my quoting and reply. I’ve got no bone to pick with Apple and am not making any broad anti-Apple or anti-M1 case. (I decided to [have work] buy the very first MBPro after they un-broke the keyboard and am happy with it.) Of the five to eight topics you raise after your first two sentences, I said exactly zero of them.
  - jsjohnst 5y ago
    Trade-in value on electronics is way lower than resale value. I’ve sold a couple 2014/2015 MacBook Pros this year for $700+ and probably could’ve gotten more had I held out.
    - true_religion 5y ago
      Was that via ebay? I really want to sell my devices. Since work-from-home became a norm, I'm struggling to find actual reasons to use a laptop.
      - jsjohnst 5y ago
        No, it was to coworkers. Going on eBay completed auctions, I could’ve gotten around $800-1k for similar spec / condition machines.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  > I think this is a false economy. > “The poor man pays twice” I'm still using an X-series Thinkpad I bought used in 2011. I had another laptop in-between but it was one of these fancy modern machines with no replaceable parts and it turned out 4 GB RAM is not enough for basic tasks.
lancepioch 5y ago
> My argument is that most people don't need the capabilities offered by brand new, top of the line models. A used laptop that is a couple of years old is, I think, the best choice for most people. I think you're correct. But also the majority of people will buy brand new ones either way. And a lot of them will spend much more than they should too.
manigandham 5y ago
That's why most people buy the bottom of the line models. The base Macbook Air is the most common purchase, and the best choice for most people. People buy it brand new because its small, lightweight, attractive, reliable, long-lasting hardware with very low depreciation, great support, and part of Apple's ecosystem. Cost is not the same as value and the value of your dollar is much greater with these.
zerkten 5y ago
This is fine and people who have budget limits have options both new and used. It seems like this has been the case for quite a while although things like the pandemic probably impacted the used market (I haven't researched that.) The thing you are denying is that people have both needs and wants. Wants are not objective, no matter how much you try to protest their existence. There is no rational consumer here. There are inputs beyond budget which sometimes even override budget (and specific needs!) Apple has created desirable products that even include some slightly cheaper options. The result is that people will keep buying things that they don't really need, but they'll likely still get some satisfaction. I don't suggest that this is great for society, the environment, or many other factors - but, it's the reality we live in.

dijit 5y ago

A new M1 laptop is likely to last 4-5 years as a good specification of machine. A second hand laptop has much less advantage to doing that. I think this is a false economy. “The poor man pays twice” But regardless: the cost isn’t outrageous when compared to the Dell XPS/latitude or HP Elitebook lines (which are the only laptops I know of designed to last a 5y support cycle). If you’re buying a new laptop, I don’t think I could recommend anything other than an M1 unless you don’t like Apple or MacOS. Which is fair.

nasmorn 5y ago
Also the M1 runs near silent or in case of the Air actually silent. I would pay an extra 1000 just for that alone. Turned out the Air was barely more than that in total. Which other laptop does that?
true_religion 5y ago
The trade in value for my 6 year old MacBook Air is 150 dollars. Old computers depreciate so fast, that you can afford to buy ten of them for the price of one new computer.
- dijit 5y ago
  Looks like they’re selling for more than twice that on ebay.co.uk though. And considering MacBook airs are $1000~ devices that’s really high. 6 years is also beyond the service life of a(ny) machine. If I look at 3 year old MacBook airs they’re selling for £600 on eBay, which is, what, half of the full cost. Not great for an already old machine with only a few good years left. I guess you might save a bit of money using extremely old hardware and keeping it for a while. But this is a really poor argument against an objectively good evolutionarily improved cpu in my opinion.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    > 6 years is also beyond the service life of a(ny) machine. That was the case for many decades. I think it’s no longer nearly the case. I’ve got a USB/DP KVM switch on my desk and regularly switch between my work laptop (2019 i9 MBPro) and my personal computer (2014 Dell i7-4790, added SSD and 32GB). Same 4K screens, peripherals, everything else. I find the Dell every bit as usable and expect to be using it 3 years from now. I wouldn’t be surprised if I retire the MacBook before the Dell. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i9-9980HK-vs-Intel-i7-4790/3451vs2226 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i9-9980HK-vs-Inte... shows the Mac to have only a slight edge and that’s a 2 year old literal top of line Mac laptop vs a mid-range commodity office desktop from 6 years ago bought with < $200 in added parts. (Much of what users do is waiting on the network or the human; when waiting on the CPU, you’re often waiting on something single-threaded. Mac is < 20% faster single-threaded.)
    - dijit 5y ago
      Yeah, desktops vs laptops. 20W parts vs 84W parts. Honestly, I'm not sure what we're discussing anymore. If you don't need (or want) an all round better experience then that's on you. But don't go saying that these things are too expensive or that the performance isn't there. Because it is. If Apple had released something mediocre I'd understand this thread, but this is a legitimately large improvement in laptop performance, from GPU, to memory, to storage, to IO, to single threaded CPU performance. Everyone kept bashing AMD for not beating Intel in single thread. Everone bashed Apple for using previous Gen low TDP intel chips. Now Apple has beaten both AMD and Intel in a very good form factor, and people still have a bone to pick. Please understand that your preference is yours, these are legitimately good machines, every complaint that anyone had about macbooks has been addressed. Some people will just never be happy.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        I was commenting only on whether “6 years is beyond the service life of any machine”, which I tried to make clear with my quoting and reply. I’ve got no bone to pick with Apple and am not making any broad anti-Apple or anti-M1 case. (I decided to [have work] buy the very first MBPro after they un-broke the keyboard and am happy with it.) Of the five to eight topics you raise after your first two sentences, I said exactly zero of them.
- jsjohnst 5y ago
  Trade-in value on electronics is way lower than resale value. I’ve sold a couple 2014/2015 MacBook Pros this year for $700+ and probably could’ve gotten more had I held out.
  - true_religion 5y ago
    Was that via ebay? I really want to sell my devices. Since work-from-home became a norm, I'm struggling to find actual reasons to use a laptop.
    - jsjohnst 5y ago
      No, it was to coworkers. Going on eBay completed auctions, I could’ve gotten around $800-1k for similar spec / condition machines.
formerly_proven 5y ago
> I think this is a false economy. > “The poor man pays twice” I'm still using an X-series Thinkpad I bought used in 2011. I had another laptop in-between but it was one of these fancy modern machines with no replaceable parts and it turned out 4 GB RAM is not enough for basic tasks.

lancepioch 5y ago

> My argument is that most people don't need the capabilities offered by brand new, top of the line models. A used laptop that is a couple of years old is, I think, the best choice for most people. I think you're correct. But also the majority of people will buy brand new ones either way. And a lot of them will spend much more than they should too.

manigandham 5y ago

That's why most people buy the bottom of the line models. The base Macbook Air is the most common purchase, and the best choice for most people. People buy it brand new because its small, lightweight, attractive, reliable, long-lasting hardware with very low depreciation, great support, and part of Apple's ecosystem. Cost is not the same as value and the value of your dollar is much greater with these.

zerkten 5y ago

This is fine and people who have budget limits have options both new and used. It seems like this has been the case for quite a while although things like the pandemic probably impacted the used market (I haven't researched that.) The thing you are denying is that people have both needs and wants. Wants are not objective, no matter how much you try to protest their existence. There is no rational consumer here. There are inputs beyond budget which sometimes even override budget (and specific needs!) Apple has created desirable products that even include some slightly cheaper options. The result is that people will keep buying things that they don't really need, but they'll likely still get some satisfaction. I don't suggest that this is great for society, the environment, or many other factors - but, it's the reality we live in.