I see comments like this in various reviews. Are there really people out there who would replace a Macbook Pro M1 or M2 with a M3 just to get something a bit faster? What are they doing that is so performance critical?
My last Macbook Pro is a 2014. I still find it usable for development work, and I'm only replacing it because of other hardware failures.
In the late noughties I worked for a smallish company where engineers got MBPs and everyone else got mid-range PC business laptops (I think Dell or someone?) The failure rate on the PC laptops was just astonishing; they were practically disposable. The failure rate of the MBPs was higher than you'd see today, though not as bad. Replacing machines in under 3 years was the norm because many of them didn't _work_ after 3 years.
the corporate thing reminds me of my professor back in college - they'd upgrade him to the latest/greatest Power Mac each year, only for him to boot it up and terminal into his VMS machine and launch min...
With the amount of nannyware and spyware these corporations load up on your laptop it actually does feel pretty unusable. The difference in performance between my personal 4 year old laptop and my corporate 3 year old laptop is ridiculous.
The corporate laptop has so many antiviruses and stuff running all the time that it feels like a 2000’s era windows machine that’s been exposed to the internet for too long.
It’s very painful to not have local admin rights on a Windows machine if you’re a developer. We can’t even install Docker or make changes to it without “help” from our non-developer IT staff.
Fire up an ABR session, do your admin stuff, close the session. A minor hassle and it gives IT a paper trail for later (and probably pings someone if certain software names come up during a session).
2016-era MBPs failed in about three years though because the keys would fall off the keyboard or stop responding.
If anyone knows where I can be downstream of these M1's (website, other old stock websites) please let me know. I would like to procure 1 or 2 on the cheap. Esp an M1 Pro.
We ship our laptops off to some company who gives us some nominal amount for I assume the scrap value of the machine, then we can donate it to a charity
I'd be happy to "buy" an M1 Air with a cracked screen and run it as a headless Asahi Linux box for a hundred bucks or something. But he won't budge
Finance has been depreciating those laptops as capital assets and if youre going to buy one from the company that means its not depreciated, and they need to amend their taxes.
Legal and security are concerned about the data and dont know how to prove the encryption really worked and the keys are gone, but the recycling company has insurance and certifications “proving” they dispose of things properly.
I was all set to upgrade to an M3 Pro until I saw the weird SKU binning for the higher memory models and remembered that my M1 Air still does everything that I need it to do and more. I originally bought it strictly for music production but have since used it more generally as I have to use Apple machines for work... I'll probably end up keeping it for another two years and swinging back to a nice Thinkpad with Mint or similar as my dev machine as there are insane deals on 7840-based Lenovos right now.
There is very little vision at HP & HPE.
Let’s say you were thinking of an M2 but knew this was coming. The difference between the M3 and M2 may tell you it’s worth getting the newer M3 or the (now cheaper) M2.
Or perhaps you saw the M2 wasn’t a big leap. You want to replace your older laptop but didn’t want to get an M2 because it wasn’t a big leap over the M1 in many respects. This info would tell you if it was a big leap (buy now!) or you might as well hold off another year if you can.
The other reason is simply making it interesting. If every article was comparing to a 5-6 year old laptop, the answer would almost always be “it’s amazing!” Even if that’s what most people come from it’s a boring story. But year to year variation is much higher.
Also, decent way to lessen the beatings to improve moral since who doesn't like getting new hardware?
In many organizations, budgets are ‘use it or loose it.’ The money has to be spent otherwise you may not be able to ask for the same amount or an increase.
I recall getting a new laptop because it was close to the end of the fiscal year and there was a chunk of money that needed to be spent. It wasn’t that my current machine wasn’t useable but it was old enough to qualify me for a new laptop.
There was always someone with something older I could pass my ‘old’ machine too.
Anyway, for the bottom line of your company I think it rarely makes sense to frivolously spend more just to decrease your tax burden. There's smarter ways to spend money.
Can anyone explain this to me?
Yup. It's hmm should I upgrade now or wait next year for a juicy M4 model? (some corporate refresh policies let you buy your old work computer at a heavily reduced price, giving you an incentive to get a good work computer)
That sounds bad enough that I wouldn’t want to work for such a firm.
I figured I'd replace it at M2, and then at M3. But to be honest even with the 8GB it's fine enough still. I don't use it for much heavy lifting but it works ok-ish for that in a pinch. And for day to day personal use it's fine. So every year I go through the cycle where I *want* to replace it and then convince myself I don't really need it. I already have a monster machine for my work stuff, having extra horsepower for my personal machine would be nice but ....
I'm sure M4 is the generation I'll upgrade. Just wait :)
Turns out that my 8GB machine would slow down significantly when hitting the RAM limit. This was expecially noticeable when running Final Cut Pro (almost unusable) or Photo Mechanic + Photoshop (I'd have to quit one to run the other). I tolerated this situation until the M2 Airs came out and I maxed it to 24GB RAM, and have been beyond happy with it since then!
My partner now has my 8GB M1 and it works perfectly for her.
but yea 8gb is barely acceptable except as a pure consumption laptop. TBH even 16/256 is too small for anyone who's posting here, some npm/rubygems/pipenv/gradle/docker packages will eat that right up.
It is completely OK to want to have nice things in your life. It is OK to invest in yourself. It is OK to place a high value (2021 vs 2023 Mac) or any value (2014 Mac vs 2023 Mac) on your time.
Maybe the shocked reactions are a result of currency conversions, but when you factor in trade in value, the M1 to M3 upgrade isn’t much more expensive than an iPhone.
Over the course of two years, the Mac is no more expensive than a gym membership (actually quite a lot less depending on the gym) and probably gets a lot more use.
But there I go justifying again. If personal computing is your hobby or your passion, you should spend your hard-earned money on what you want.
If you replace your laptop, don't you just restore a backup and you're ready to go?
Wipe the old machine and sell it and you're net the same amount of ewaste.
I don't believe putting a used laptop on the market is necessarily cutting down e-waste in the same way as not purchasing one, though you make a good point.
But the carbon footprint of some people I see here must be astronomical.
Ever since it came out I want to buy a MacBook with these new chips as my personal machine. But I haven't yet bought one because I don't need one.
Or I'll buy it when my ThinkPad dies. (Weird laughter).
And then over here I read about people replacing laptops every other year or so, and I wonder why I am the way I am.
Now I'm working on a project that requires about six Docker images, and we made a questionable choice about Typescript packages for typing our API responses. The Docker consumes most of my RAM, and even when it's turned off, there's a visible different in the IDE between mine and my M2 equipped coworkers whenever a document that uses this dumb lib is opened.
So anyway I'm picking up an M3 Max next week.
Are there really people who buy a new car every 2 years?
Yes. Yes there are.
Some people like to have the newest stuff and don't mind living paycheck to paycheck to do so. Or maybe they're rich.
I recouped the cost of the M2 MacBook Air 24GB RAM/1TB in less than 15 hours worth of work - taking my after tax rate into account.
My work was not compute intensive so the Air was fine. But I would definitely pay for a 30% improvement at that bill rate.
Imagine you go to see a lawyer who is charging you $750 per hour, but instead of using a computer, they are writing everything out by hand and then personally using a typewriter to type up their notes. You ask why they don't use a computer and they point out that they can make more money by billing you for the time it takes to use slower technologies.
Might you consider a different lawyer?
And yet, regardless of how moral it is, the calculation seems correct - billing at $150 an hour means things which take longer, get you more money. Two people have claimed that a faster computer will earn them more money, while describing a situation wherein a faster computer will earn them less money. It doesn't make sense.
With your lawyer comparison it's easy to see paper and tyepwriter; are you suggesting that customers know whether contractors are using an Apple M1 or an Apple M3, and have an idea of how much time that ought to change the quote by, and would consider a different contractor based on the computer they are using? I doubt clients have that insight or interest. Are you saying they buy Apple M3 because they are more moral contractors and it's the right thing to do? Even if it is more moral, I find that unlikely to be the reason since the argument was explicitly "it makes me more money" not "it saves my customers money".
> "people are probably counting on you to not be someone who would think, "If I keep a slower computer, I could bill for more because the client would pay for the time I spend waiting for my computer.""
I think people would see you upgrading your M1 to an M3 and decide you were being extravagant and therefore charging them too much, and leave for a competitor who is more frugal. Far more than they would decide you were a con artist because you didn't have the latest and greatest. Are you saying that the reason to invest in a new top of the line Apple laptop is to compete on a race-to-the-bottom where you can undercut competing quotes? That also feels unlikely - you could likely do that more effectively with a second hand AMD Ryzen desktop than a new Macbook Pro (something the well-informed customer would know) and that people competing in a race to be cheapest tend to aggressively penny-pinch rather than aggressively spend on the best.
And good luck taking that AMD Ryzen desktop on a customer site.
Most of my time is spent between the AWS console and VS Code writing Python and Node. A faster computer wouldn’t speed that up.
However.
I expect that the majority of people who upgrade their computer regularly can't justify it as a business expense. But I could be wrong.
I sit on desktops for 5 years+ with modest opportunistic upgrades, and I consider that extravagant.
I think people forget that $4k+ for a computer is Quadro workstation territory.
M3 MacBook Pro 16" is $2499, roughly the same as an equivalent Dell XPS / Precision laptop (for the same price Dell typically has half the screen resolution, much worse battery life, and more RAM)
Divide $2499 over five years, that's $500 per year. Not expensive on a developer salary in high income countries. It's a business expense.
That said, I do not find much appeal to upgrade unless there is a specific reason myself. But there seems to be something in apple customer culture where people upgrade for the mere sake of stuff like new design or colour.
And that's with the general Nvidia price gouging these days, and paying a premium for ITX as well.
$2K is very expensive for a PC.
- One of them supports a family of 3 on one income. - One of them is single and supports only themselves. - One of them is married with dual-income and no kids.
This has nothing to do with wealth.
I really only upgrade if my current PC cannot do a thing that I need it to do.
1. I went with 16 GB of RAM on the M2 and sort of regretted it from day one. I have 36 GB on the M3 and feel much more comfortable about that in a machine I plan to use for the next 5-7 years.
2. Apple gave me what I thought was a very generous trade-in offer on the M2 - something like 90% of what I paid for it, even after half a year’s use. At that value, it basically felt like a wash going from the old computer to a new one, and I was just paying for the substantial upgrade on the old machine (Max-level processor, bigger SSD, quite a bit more memory).
3. I thought the darker color looked neat. That said, it’s much subtler than I imagined, and I wouldn’t have considered this as a factor.
Of course, the truly hilarious thing is that I don’t do anything at all intensive on my computer so I’d be just fine with just about anything. But what can I say, I like to know I could if I wanted to.
Very fair; part of the reason I went with 64GB on my ThinkPad, and Apple makes this configuration almost cost prohibitive.
Computers are very, very cheap.
And most people (even in first world countries) never go on a single one of those in their lives. Even most businesses never purchase one.
Google Flights says that’s a typical price
Direct with BA is €14k
Though neither of course a price a business would usually pay, due to contracts for special pricing and booking a bit more in advance
[1] My country does not use EUR, i calculated it based on the current exchange rate.
Marques Brownlee has been rocking an M1 Pro laptop and ordered an M3. Which he cancelled after he got his review unit. He’s got enough money to not think hard about it but he cancelled anyway. Which stands as an interesting data point.
I’m tempted to upgrade my M1 Pro to an M3 Max.
Reports suggest id halve my build times and then some.
All stats from here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i5dBe_rsiNaQATH-D-Pj...
should be single core Perf, short for "performance"?
Ditching SwiftUI and going back to Obj-C would absolutely slash my build times ;-) But who wants to do that!
The productivity gain is all about instant feedback and developer flow.
It might be hard to justify on paper to an IT Manager in charge of budgets when you add up the minutes.
But as I work for myself, it's easier.
As for environmental concerns, well, two year used Macbooks don't go in the trash. Used Macbooks have very long lives in my experience!
Still it could be a lot better.
Anything related to multimedia processing.
Whether it's video encoding or live audio processing or rendering or whatever.
M1 might be more than fast enough for emails and web development, but multimedia is a whole different beast.
People forget that the "Pro" refers to media professionals, not development professionals. Remember the Touch Bar? It was designed for artists and editors for things like color selection and scrubbing and sound control, not for programmers.
I'm sure apple not having decent desktops for a decade leaves a mark. I guess I'm surprised people put up with it.
And of course use the desktop as your main device when you are at your home/office wherever the desktop is.
You don't think sound producers visit different studios each week?
You don't think video editors have to get work done while they travel?
You don't think multimedia professionals work both at the office and home like the rest of us?
Why wouldn't you do it on a laptop if you can?
MKBHD used to ship an iMac Pro around before Apple Silicon. :)
I thought desktops are more future proof
What's your justification for saying I shouldn't, precisely?
What's next -- I shouldn't use it to compile software either?
Bonus points for being able to do it while your laptop is in your bag.
For those curious: this is running a 3.7GHz 4-core Haswell. That's very roughly the performance that you'd get from a contemporary Alder Lake-N (the E-cores only variant). c.f. this very reasonable mid-range $450 Chromebook: https://store.acer.com/en-us/acer-chromebook-314-cb314-4ht-3...
I'm not sure if this is still true, but I found the resale value great enough that it was almost the same cost over time to upgrade annually vs every 3-4 years. Of course if you're only upgrading every 9-10 years, the math changes significantly.
That said, due to changing priorities and needs, my current MBP is from 2018. I am planning to upgrade to an M3 MBP this week.
While my current MBP does what I need, some development processes & platforms I use nowadays are taking more time than I'd like. If it saves me 15 minutes a day, it's a great deal.
Adjusted for inflation, the M3 was about 20% more expensive for close to infinitely more performance.
I could see holding on to this M3 Pro as my daily driver for 5-10 years assuming I don't drop it too many times.
I'll probably replace my wife's MBA from 2018 next month for whatever the bottom spec MBA is now.
Also, isn't using a black laptop by non-black person an act of cultural appropriation?
Apple should at least test your familiarity with Critical Race Theory before selling you one. /s
The only upgrade for the M3 line I would make would be to an M3 Max 16 core (Geekbench multicore pref: 21387) or an upcoming M3 Ultra 32 core (probably a Geekbench multicore pref: ~30000), but it is very expensive and probably not available in the MacMini form factor, so I will hold off for now.
All stats from here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i5dBe_rsiNaQATH-D-Pj...
Otherwise I'm still entirely happy with my 2021 minspec M1 MBP.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/tech-talks/111374
This is like saying a 8GB disk is actually like a 10-12GB disk elsewhere.
Yeah, right.
Aside from performance it's hard to overstate just how quiet the current MacBook Pro is. The 2015 got noisy pretty easily especially if I had to switch to the discrete GPU, and anything heavier than 1080p30 in Firefox would cause the fans to go bonkers. By most accounts the last of the Intel models were worse. This one? After a few hours of transcoding video the fans still only spin up to a quiet whisper.
What I don't hear anyone talk about is the rigidity. You could hear the 2015 creak and flex if you picked it up with one hand. The 2023 just feels like a solid chunk of metal.
For all of its warts, this is probably my favorite hardware of the bunch. The software (macos 14) is utter garbage though. That's the culmination of lots of poor design choices over the years and nearly non-existent quality control.
I can see why others like me may upgrade. But I’m not going to bother just yet.
Joke aside, for people who read reviews, I don’t think they read it because their computer is dying. So I think it is fitting from the selection bias there to focus on performance improvement. (Like when I buy a car I won’t read a review because I don’t care its performance.)
However, I agree on the phrasing. The amount of people who are upgrading yearly is much smaller than people who would buy a generation older Mac to save money.
I've had a development role with an AV company where I'd periodically go on site a couple times a year to assist with shows to test real world scenarios or lend a hand just to see things in action ("production deployments" in both senses of the phrase, as well as to see actual users and behaviors in the moment. Time management, stress, and risk in a live event is something you can't really grok without having experienced it). Assuming the role of a show producer for those trips I would have two redundant company laptops to run the show that I carried but weren't mine specifically, while I had my personally-assigned work laptop with me to work remotely with. And if it was a long enough trip to warrant it, my personal laptop also to keep those activities separated. If new OS updates were being tested and deployed, add in a tertiary show laptop for that. There are carry-on sized Pelican cases that handle it fine. You might be surprised at the sheer amount of stuff AV professionals tote around the world, on top of the ridiculous amount of cargo that gets shipped via freight directly to venues. Going through airport security with two to five laptops was an average Thursday for many of the people I interacted with at that job.
There are close to 100M MacBook users.
People will give you reasons here - because this is a non-representative group - but this is a tiny fraction of their user base.
The main reasons are Apple's marketing and signaling.
For me, doing development and office work, I'll be hard pressed to ever replace my M1 Max w/ 64GB. I don't feel like I ever wait for anything.
I bought a M2 Mac Mini with 16 Gb to test the platform. There's a Studio with 64 Gb in my future ;)
I use mine exclusively for a side contract and that’s the only reason I bought it. I’m either using VSCode with Python or Node and occasionally to build Lambdas in a Docker Amazon Linux 2 container.
If I need more compute than that on my side project, I spin up a Cloud 9 instance on my client’s account.
"Most HNers" mess with things I think.
The last thing I want to do is look at a computer for free and do anything “productive” after spending all day at work.
That said I have an M2 Pro MBP and this thing is a monster.
so probably it’s not for everyone but i guess there is value in knowing how big of a bump the newest model gives.
My 3000€ i7 mbp16 2019 recently died and I replaced it with an "interim" base model, 650€ MacMini M2. The jump is huge, that freakin Mini beats my 3yo (I bought it in 2020) decked out MBP that constantly spun fans. While intended as Interim until M3 MBPs where announced, I see no reason to upgrade right now.
Apple RAM premium is outrageous.
Maybe I am in the minority but I see it as a tool. My workflows work well in MacOS, I like the build quality of the tool. My replacement timeline is generally pretty long. The value this tool generates is massive compared to the cost of it.
I remember how often coworkers would joke about the cost of a Kinesis keyboard. They would die if they were a mechanic.
Certainly there is a line to when it makes sense to compare costs but we are talking about sub $10k costs for a tool that lets say has a 3 year life for a business, so $3300 per year or $275 per month. I would think most of the individuals on this forum are generating more than $275 of value per month on their laptop.
Its less about justifying and more that the cost is meaningless compared to the value. There is some intersection of objective and subjective analysis here, I don't care if you want a $10k laptop that runs linux.
Yes, in many places outside of SV, they do. $10k is slightly less than what I paid for my car, it’s more than a year of rent and is more than some (unfortunate) people in this country make in a year. And this is still Europe, a country with paved roads, fiber internet and free healthcare.
I do my job on a $1700 MacBook, I could probably do it on a $300 Thinkpad and I personally could go and buy a $10k laptop, but my girlfriend would without doubt leave me on the very same day.
And yes, Windows systems are bad. They shipped broken TouchID for years, and they don’t trust you to turn off OneDrive (and will re-enable at every turn). Edge just gave me a toolbar yesterday that looked like browser chrome, but was actually a GamePass ad. I’m just pulling the easiest examples, listen to Windows Weekly for a full enumeration.