4 ms·

My M1 Mac is the best laptop I ever owned. But it is also a big step up, I expect my machine to stay viable quite some time and recommend my noob friends to bu

by ralfd 3y ago

My M1 Mac is the best laptop I ever owned. But it is also a big step up, I expect my machine to stay viable quite some time and recommend my noob friends to buy used M1/M2 Macbooks (if available).

soulbadguy 3y ago
Is it also (inflation / time adjusted) the most expensive ?
- jrib 3y ago
  Base m1 macbook air sells for 800 bucks routinely. It's a great value in my opinion. I agree it's the best machine I have ever owned.
  - soulbadguy 3y ago
    Doesn't answer my question. I wasn't trying to imply that M1 are a bad value...
    - ido 3y ago
      My old Dell XPS was actually slightly more expensive (even before adjusting to inflation - I was researching online and at the time it was the most recommended high-end pc laptop). And macs retain value a lot better than PCs - you can likely resell it for a significant fraction of its new price in a few years (unless you broke it).
      - soulbadguy 3y ago
        Still doesn't answer my question, not sure why people feel the need to jump into this... maybe something wrong the tone on my answer. But while i have you here... Which dell xps (year/model/spec) was it and which M1 mac (year/model/spec) was it.
        ido 3y ago
        How does this not answer your question? If the XPS was more expensive even before adjusting to inflation, than the answer is no: the macbook was not the most expensive computer I ever bought (both adjusting and not-adjusting to inflation). The Dell was XPS 13 (9350) bought Janaury 2016 for €2,105. The Macbook is M1 Macbook Air (the highest end model of which), bought June 2021 for €1,598. In both cases I wasn't trying to save money and was happily paying a premium for (within reason) the best laptop I could get, as far as I could tell from online reviews. I bought both of these directly from Dell's and directly from Apple's respective online shops. The latter is radically higher performance while also being much better in many other ways (build quality, battery life, reliability, etc). I promise you I'm not getting a commission from Apple, in fact there's a lot of stuff they do that I deeply dislike :)
        soulbadguy 3y ago
        > How does this not answer your question? Because i was interested in OP point of view, not someone else... > The Dell was XPS 13 (9350) bought Janaury 2016 for €2,105. The Macbook is M1 Macbook Air (the highest end model of which), bought June 2021 for €1,598. You are comparing the experiences of two laptops 5 years apart ... > The latter is radically higher performance while also being much better in many other ways (build quality, battery life, reliability, etc). I promise you I'm not getting a commission from Apple, in fact there's a lot of stuff they do that I deeply dislike :) I agree, i have nothing apple hardware. I was just curious what kind of machine OP had before his mackbook air. I also recommend macbook air to anyone who can use macos
  - barbariangrunge 3y ago
    If you don’t mind wearing out your ssd with the insane swap use. You really need 16+ gb of ram on macs, otherwise you’re damaging your hardware
    - kylec 3y ago
      That depends on what you're doing. If you're running a bunch of bloated garbage like Discord and Slack and whatever then yeah, you'll need a lot of memory. If you're running mostly native apps you might be surprised how much you can run with 8GB. I would still recommend 16GB to people for future headroom, but 8GB is usable.
- mk_stjames 3y ago
  I hadn't thought of this too much but I bought an M1 14" Macbook Pro, mid-spec, for around $2300 I think back in 2021 right after it launched. My previous laptop that I had used for 8+ years was a 2013 Macbook Pro 15" with the i7, and I bought it as a factory refurb 6 months after launch for- get this- I think it was $2400. New it would have been $2600 I think, in 2013-dollars. So, especially adjusted for inflation, a similar level of machine is actually about 30%-35% more affordable now than it was a decade ago and computationally it's anywhere from 4x to 10x faster and something like 2x as energy efficient. All that combined makes my M1 Macbook Pro one of the best values in computing I've ever purchased, IMO. And considering my 2013 MBP lasted more than 2x as long as any previous laptop I had ever owned, even though at the time it was about 50% more expensive than any previous laptop I owned, it paid for that run- and so if I get the same use time out of this current M1, the value over the lifespan of the machine will trounce any previous computer I've owned.

by ralfd 3y ago

My M1 Mac is the best laptop I ever owned. But it is also a big step up, I expect my machine to stay viable quite some time and recommend my noob friends to buy used M1/M2 Macbooks (if available).

soulbadguy 3y ago

Is it also (inflation / time adjusted) the most expensive ?

jrib 3y ago
Base m1 macbook air sells for 800 bucks routinely. It's a great value in my opinion. I agree it's the best machine I have ever owned.
- soulbadguy 3y ago
  Doesn't answer my question. I wasn't trying to imply that M1 are a bad value...
  - ido 3y ago
    My old Dell XPS was actually slightly more expensive (even before adjusting to inflation - I was researching online and at the time it was the most recommended high-end pc laptop). And macs retain value a lot better than PCs - you can likely resell it for a significant fraction of its new price in a few years (unless you broke it).
    - soulbadguy 3y ago
      Still doesn't answer my question, not sure why people feel the need to jump into this... maybe something wrong the tone on my answer. But while i have you here... Which dell xps (year/model/spec) was it and which M1 mac (year/model/spec) was it.
      - ido 3y ago
        How does this not answer your question? If the XPS was more expensive even before adjusting to inflation, than the answer is no: the macbook was not the most expensive computer I ever bought (both adjusting and not-adjusting to inflation). The Dell was XPS 13 (9350) bought Janaury 2016 for €2,105. The Macbook is M1 Macbook Air (the highest end model of which), bought June 2021 for €1,598. In both cases I wasn't trying to save money and was happily paying a premium for (within reason) the best laptop I could get, as far as I could tell from online reviews. I bought both of these directly from Dell's and directly from Apple's respective online shops. The latter is radically higher performance while also being much better in many other ways (build quality, battery life, reliability, etc). I promise you I'm not getting a commission from Apple, in fact there's a lot of stuff they do that I deeply dislike :)
        soulbadguy 3y ago
        > How does this not answer your question? Because i was interested in OP point of view, not someone else... > The Dell was XPS 13 (9350) bought Janaury 2016 for €2,105. The Macbook is M1 Macbook Air (the highest end model of which), bought June 2021 for €1,598. You are comparing the experiences of two laptops 5 years apart ... > The latter is radically higher performance while also being much better in many other ways (build quality, battery life, reliability, etc). I promise you I'm not getting a commission from Apple, in fact there's a lot of stuff they do that I deeply dislike :) I agree, i have nothing apple hardware. I was just curious what kind of machine OP had before his mackbook air. I also recommend macbook air to anyone who can use macos
- barbariangrunge 3y ago
  If you don’t mind wearing out your ssd with the insane swap use. You really need 16+ gb of ram on macs, otherwise you’re damaging your hardware
  - kylec 3y ago
    That depends on what you're doing. If you're running a bunch of bloated garbage like Discord and Slack and whatever then yeah, you'll need a lot of memory. If you're running mostly native apps you might be surprised how much you can run with 8GB. I would still recommend 16GB to people for future headroom, but 8GB is usable.
mk_stjames 3y ago
I hadn't thought of this too much but I bought an M1 14" Macbook Pro, mid-spec, for around $2300 I think back in 2021 right after it launched. My previous laptop that I had used for 8+ years was a 2013 Macbook Pro 15" with the i7, and I bought it as a factory refurb 6 months after launch for- get this- I think it was $2400. New it would have been $2600 I think, in 2013-dollars. So, especially adjusted for inflation, a similar level of machine is actually about 30%-35% more affordable now than it was a decade ago and computationally it's anywhere from 4x to 10x faster and something like 2x as energy efficient. All that combined makes my M1 Macbook Pro one of the best values in computing I've ever purchased, IMO. And considering my 2013 MBP lasted more than 2x as long as any previous laptop I had ever owned, even though at the time it was about 50% more expensive than any previous laptop I owned, it paid for that run- and so if I get the same use time out of this current M1, the value over the lifespan of the machine will trounce any previous computer I've owned.