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Considering Upgrade from M2 Pro to Base M4 MBP

Performa640

Performa640

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 12, 2020
19
18
New Jersey
Friends, I have a dilemma. For some time now, I have been considering trading in my 2023 14-inch M2 Pro MacBook Pro with 16GB of unified memory and a 1TB SSD for a new 14-inch base model M4 MacBook Pro with 16GB of unified memory and a 512GB SSD. Apple tells me on their website that I've got $860 in trade-in value on this older MBP, which makes for a rather compelling deal, but...I'm not sure if I should pull the trigger.

I do have a sentimental attachment to this machine (on which I am typing this post) because it was the first MacBook I ever purchased, and I really love it - the mini-LED display is bright and vibrant, the speakers are fantastic, the keyboard is first-rate, and the performance is fast and smooth. In other words, there's nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Yet I find myself wanting to do the upgrade because I know the trade-in value will never be higher, and if I were to wait for, say, the M5 MacBooks to come out next year, I wouldn't get nearly as much back for it.

So I ask you: is it worth putting out $1600 up front to get $860 back, thereby cutting the final price of the new MacBook down to a mere $739? Or does it make more sense to just keep using this 2023 device and forget about upgrading for the time being? I guess it all comes down to how much better the base M4 chip might be than the M2 Pro.
 
aperfectcircle said:
This comparison might be useful:

Apple M4 (10-Core) vs M2 Pro: performance comparison

We compared Apple M4 (10-Core) (4.46 GHz) against M2 Pro (3.5 GHz) in games and benchmarks. Find out which CPU has better performance.
nanoreview.net nanoreview.net
Click to expand...
Thanks! I appreciate the response. It looks like I'm not really losing much of anything if I go from the M2 Pro to the base M4 chip. I kind of thought that would be the case, to be honest. I'm not a gamer or a video / photo editor, so the fact that the M2 Pro has a better GPU (but not by a whole lot) doesn't matter all that much to me.
 
Upgrading via trade-in very rarely make sense from a financial perspective. The best value is always to keep the computer for as long as possible.

Unless you are being hindered by M2 and can take full advantage of the M4, it makes no financial sense to upgrade.

Think of it this way. You would lose roughly $800 from upgrading. Let's say when M6 launches, you upgrade again and lose another $800. That would mean your M2 MBP is worth $0, which it obviously isn't.
 
JPack said:
Upgrading via trade-in very rarely make sense from a financial perspective. The best value is always to keep the computer for as long as possible.

Unless you are being hindered by M2 and can take full advantage of the M4, it makes no financial sense to upgrade.

Think of it this way. You would lose roughly $800 from upgrading. Let's say when M6 launches, you upgrade again and lose another $800. That would mean your M2 MBP is worth $0, which it obviously isn't.
Click to expand...
I hadn't thought of that. Thank you for the excellent reply.
 
Yeah if you’re happy with the current machine, I wouldn’t get rid of it. It’s always going to be more expensive to upgrade every 2.5 years than every t years, as the post above explains. It sounds like there’s a big redesign coming in 2026, so it’s probably worth waiting for that (that’s my plan!)
 
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