Good to know about the sales, though being in Canada might hamper me there. The refurb and edu discounts are pretty decent though, and I'd probably consider tho

Good to know about the sales, though being in Canada might hamper me there. The refurb and edu discounts are pretty decent though, and I'd probably consider those if I really start pursuing an upgrade. HDMI has always been a bit irrelevant for me, aside from using it with work-issued displays. I've always used displayport over thunderbolt, and don't know that HDMI offers any advantages. I'd prefer almost any other port over HDMI. My issue is more that every time I spec out a new MBP, it genuinely feels like I'm being grifted, and it really turns me off more than in the previous 10+ years I've been buying macs. $200 for a ram upgrade was already too high, and hurt the wallet then, but $500 - $1500 CAD for ram upgrades (inflated by the apparent, probably artificial, requirement to choose CPU upgrades that I'd never have in the past and wouldn't likely get any value from. If I choose the minimum CPU that allows 64gb, I then need to spend an addition $750 to add 8 gpu cores and go up to 96gb (not that I'd necessarily go that high or feel like I'd need to, but it's not like I can upgrade, and just stands to illustrate the point). $750 is my damn rent payment. So before even going past 512gb ssd or including Applecare or taxes, the computer sits at $5100 CAD, if I were to max out the ram, on the 14" new.