As mundane and common as the information I’m about to share may be, it’s the reality of MacBook ownership for many - dare I say most? I don’t buy new MacBooks. I get them refurbished from MicroCenter, Apple, or elsewhere. In 2024, I picked up a 2021-released 14” M1 Max MacBook Pro w/ 2 TB and 64 GB for $1800 from Microcenter. Because Apple is so hostile to repairs, I have been paying for AppleCare+ and will continue for some time. But I don’t see myself truly needing to replace this machine for another 2-3 years. It’s my daily driver for BBedit, some IDEs, music apps, Firefox with dozens of tabs, Mail, Messages, iTerm2 with half a dozen tmux sessions. True - my computing needs are not demanding. But for those of us who offload commuting to remote servers and mostly use thin clients, the computer is a joy to use. I’ve been dabbling in Ableton Live Suite 12 Lite, which came with my Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88 MKII midi keyboard, and this machine never breaks a sweat. The M-series are seriously as close to BIFL as a consumer laptop can be. Meanwhile, my wife’s daily driver is a 2013 13” MacBook Air w/ 128 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM. And an Intel i7 from that era. I won’t defend this though. She’s insane, and I don’t know how she lives with herself. I purchased it used from a Craigslist seller to be my daily driver 14 years ago, and it lasted until I upgraded to a 2020 M1 MacBook Air base model, which I later donated to a friend in need.
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Strange, I have Safari open on my 8GB Base Model M1 Mac mini with 30+ tabs all the time.
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Yes, it was. Previously, I had an XPS 13” that was pretty decent, and then an Intel Air, which was even better. I bought an M1 Air, base model, at launch, and was blown away. For once, a manufacturer wasn’t lying about battery life. What Apple has achieved with their SoC is nothing short of revolutionary. They make the best laptops by any conceivable metric, and it isn’t even close.
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I'm in the same boat. My base model M1 air is the longest I've owned a laptop without upgrading. And it's perfectly fine. (and yes it only has 8gb)
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I haven’t had a personal laptop in years. Just a mac mini m1, base model. It still runs great - I do have to be a bit careful running too many things at once, but that’s an acceptable trade off. I like working from a desk. I feel locked in, and when I get up, it really is to take a break from the work The cost savings are certainly worth it. I also grew up with desktop computing until college, and even then the laptop rarely left my dorm room. So maybe I’m just used to working this way I recently spec’d out some comparable machines from Apple - $999 gets you a 32GB Mac Mini M4. A comparably setup Macbook Air (24GB, M3) costs $1299, and the current gen Macbook Pro is $1999. That’s a lot more money for a small screen and small keyboard
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I still have my base model M1 MacBook Air, and I never felt the need to upgrade. It never felt slow.
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That's quite an insight. I'm gravitating more towards linux especially after this copilot+ shit microsoft pulled out from the magic bag of tricks. I noticed issues with nvidia too on linux however arch seems to run things pretty smooth for me compared to other debian based distros, so probably going to go with that. I've been running arch in an nvme with an enclosure through usb c and tbh it is amazing but now considering just removing the windows drive and sticking with linux as the main driver while keeping windows in the enclosure since I do game time to time. As for mac, have had an amazing overall experience with m1 but then i got the base model since i didn't have a few extra kidneys in me to sell to afford the max lol but yes, seems like linux takes it home!