Future proofing, what I personally think of it.

[virulent]

How unwise would it be to just buy the M1 pro(November 2020 release) with Touch Bar right now starting at 1199$(education pricing) now. Is it’s resale and usefulness in the dump with these new releases? I’m not a video editor/developer/software engineer

Honestly pretty smart. The battery life is stellar on those and if you don't need the extra power... why bother? You'd want to consider the Air too but price-wise they're close and you can go either way.

Seriously consider refurb if you haven't though. They start at $1099 (ok, small-ish difference) and will come in immaculate condition (new battery and minimal cosmetic issues, I think new top case?) with full warranty & option to buy AppleCare. Airs start at $849 there.

Even smarter would be to buy used locally from someone dumping their M1 Pro at cheap prices to buy the 14"/16" but that might not be worth the effort compared to just getting refurb or new (with a new battery).

Don't forget that the M1 still matches the M1 Pro / Max on single core performance. It's still a scary fast machine!

 

[Hunter5117]

How unwise would it be to just buy the M1 pro(November 2020 release) with Touch Bar right now starting at 1199$(education pricing) now.

I just did that, last week immediately after seeing the new MBP announcement. I bought a 13", 8/512 to use as a 2nd system, get into the M1 systems and probably replace my 2018 12.9" IPP. I like the touch bar and I found a great deal on an open box unit. I also have a 16" but I like something small to grab for weekends etc. Seeing the relative benchmarks between this and the new "beasts" I am quite satisfied it will be a good little computer for as long as I want to keep it.

 

[haruhiko]

An M1 MBA should be the best bang for the buck for someone who doesn’t really need big power.

 

[davidg4781]

I have minimal needs and I'm really considering the 2020 MBP, maxed out.

I'm almost certain I don't need that much power and won't need it for years. I would love the latest and greatest since this could probably be my 2nd to last PC I buy (I've been keeping them for about 10 years it seems, as long as they stay alive).

The cost difference from the 13" to 14" is a lot and I just don't think I'll get the return for that.

I just wish it had MagSafe. And I don't know how I feel about it being almost a year old technology. I kind of wish they'd do an update in November. I'd either get the update or a discount on this one.

 

[AgentAnonymous]

Completely agree - by the time the delta between what you upgraded to “futureproof” vs the lower spec becomes noticeable, there are probably many more upgrades that have been added to the newer model that you can never account for. E.g. I would wager that many people upgrade because of connectivity options or screen tech - things that more RAM or CPU performance cannot mitigate against.

Lower spec models also almost always have higher resale value as a proportion of their original cost. I’d much prefer to buy a cheaper machine now and change it earlier.

At the same time though for many of the cheap versions, you might as well not even buy them because you won't get any longevity out of them. The new Macbook Pro with only 512GB or 1TB of storage can hardly even support current use cases. A good quality copy of a 4K HDR movie is 40GB.

 

[Christopher Kim]

Apple should have had a base model of 32GB RAM for the 14". I bet a lot of people would snap that up in store.

Totally agree, myself included! I think quite a few would get the 10/16-core 32gb/1TB model (basically $400 more than the current $2,499 base model).

While I agree with many ppl here re: "compared to over-speccing, upgrading in 2-3 years makes more sense", the only other counterpoint I'd throw out was that selling your computer in 2-3 years (vs keeping 5-6 years) is not without its annoyances. Ebay has its risks to the seller (buyer scams, etc.), and even with better markertplaces like Swappa, it's still a non-insignificant factor trying to sell your computer. Yes you can trade-in to Apple, but we all know their trade-in prices are significantly worse (plus, you only get Apple Gift card, or a credit to another purchase vs straight cash). I know many people here have bought/sold on secondary market enough that this is a small thing, but I bet for a lot of people who are less experienced, it's a factor.

 

[fathergll]

I was never a person to completely max out any Apple product. With that said I have never in my life regretted spending extra money on memory upgrades or storage but I have on multiple occasions wish I did.

With that said I get the spirit of what the TS is saying but anytime I opted to spend a bit extra on the storage or memory I found myself extremely happy I did down the road.

 

[cambookpro]

At the same time though for many of the cheap versions, you might as well not even buy them because you won't get any longevity out of them. The new Macbook Pro with only 512GB or 1TB of storage can hardly even support current use cases. A good quality copy of a 4K HDR movie is 40GB.

Depends what you’re doing - I’m an iOS developer and appreciate the CPU power, but don’t really need loads of storage. Only use 280GB of internal space. Also know a freelance film editor who only has a computer with 512GB storage, because no internal SSD could ever be big enough so all the media is on a 32TB RAID.

Appreciate that that is all anecdotal, but think the key is to buy for what you need now or in the near future. If I bought a laptop with 2TB storage, it’d simply be a waste of money for me.

 

[arvinsim]

Depends what you’re doing - I’m an iOS developer and appreciate the CPU power, but don’t really need loads of storage. Only use 280GB of internal space. Also know a freelance film editor who only has a computer with 512GB storage, because no internal SSD could ever be big enough so all the media is on a 32TB RAID.

Appreciate that that is all anecdotal, but think the key is to buy for what you need now or in the near future. If I bought a laptop with 2TB storage, it’d simply be a waste of money for me.

Yeah, I was thinking that if one ever decides to do video editing, it's better to invest in a RAID setup later as needed.

 

[Rck1984]

I was never a person to completely max out any Apple product. With that said I have never in my life regretted spending extra money on memory upgrades or storage but I have on multiple occasions wish I did.

With that said I get the spirit of what the TS is saying but anytime I opted to spend a bit extra on the storage or memory I found myself extremely happy I did down the road.

There is no such thing as "bits" in Apple world. Everything be it RAM, Storage, CPU, GPU are vastly overpriced and that is exactly how Apple gets you.

That bit of extra cash for 16GB of extra RAM and 512GB storage costs $800 U.S. (690 euro) for us in Europe.
I don't consider that spending a bit extra, that's a lot of money for something I might, or might not need one day. If that situation occurs, I rather sell my current machine, spend the $800 and get the newest machine with the right specs for that time.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I was never a person to completely max out any Apple product. With that said I have never in my life regretted spending extra money on memory upgrades or storage but I have on multiple occasions wish I did.

With that said I get the spirit of what the TS is saying but anytime I opted to spend a bit extra on the storage or memory I found myself extremely happy I did down the road.

Same. RAM and storage upgrades have served me well. CPU upgrades have been highly debatable. GPU upgrades? Nice to have, but I’ve not really pushed it that hard ever.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Depends what you’re doing - I’m an iOS developer and appreciate the CPU power, but don’t really need loads of storage. Only use 280GB of internal space. Also know a freelance film editor who only has a computer with 512GB storage, because no internal SSD could ever be big enough so all the media is on a 32TB RAID.

Appreciate that that is all anecdotal, but think the key is to buy for what you need now or in the near future. If I bought a laptop with 2TB storage, it’d simply be a waste of money for me.

Storage should ideally be specified based on the requirements of the data stored on it in terms of speed of access, transfer bandwidth, reliability / redundancy & cost.

I see quite a few people saying "I need <x> TB of internal storage for my movies, photos, game collection etc. "...when in reality a 5GB/s SSD is complete overkill for this usage. You would be better off with cheaper external storage, even HDDs, unless you absolutely have to carry your entire collection around with you. Even if you do need to do this, you still have to have redundant backups, so need the external disks or backup solution anyway.

Cloud storage is a viable option for many applications these days at prices that are probably less than internal SSDs, even over several years' usage. The added advantage is that someone else is worrying about ensuring your data is on highly available storage and backed up, plus you can expand it as you need.

A more economical approach when at home is to have a NAS - highly available, redundant, with HDD storage that is vastly cheaper than Apple's SSDs.

Even high-capacity external SSDs are a good option - they are much cheaper than internal upgrades, weigh very little, and are small enough to stick in a shirt pocket or velcro to the back of your screen, which I used to do!

Apple must be rubbing its corporate hands at their success in upselling internal storage to people who find connecting a tiny SSD or connecting to iCloud Drive / Google Drive / DropBox etc. to be too much of a burden.

 

[Fomalhaut]

There is no such thing as "bits" in Apple world. Everything be it RAM, Storage, CPU, GPU are vastly overpriced and that is exactly how Apple gets you.

That bit of extra cash for 16GB of extra RAM and 512GB storage costs $800 U.S. (690 euro) for us in Europe.
I don't consider that spending a bit extra, that's a lot of money for something I might, or might not need one day. If that situation occurs, I rather sell my current machine, spend the $800 and get the newest machine with the right specs for that time.

Yes, if you're really not sure whether you need it, and can't accurately estimate your future needs, it can be an expensive mistake to upgrade "just in case".

I base my specs on years of experience with multiple machines, and have a pretty good idea of what I use daily, and what my future usage will be (assuming I don't change my use case completely).

For example, I consistently use 20-30GB RAM so on my 16GB Mac Mini, I'm either running a lot swap disk (that slows the machine down a bit, and wears out the SSD faster), or having to "house-keep" more than I want to by closing apps, documents, browser tabs etc. 32GB is the sweet spot for me. I also have a 32GB laptop and know that this is the right capacity for my use. I had a 64GB desktop and never used all the memory, so that was overkill (at the time I thought I would run lots of VMs, but moved to cloud instances instead).

Similarly with storage. I had a 256GB laptop SSD and was always having to move stuff to archive, swap it back when I needed it, and generally spend a lot of time on data management. The next laptop had 512GB and was much better. Then I got into video editing and ended up with hundreds of GB of video files for "work in progress" (that was much easier to handle from the internal drive - which was also much faster than externals at the time), so the computer after that had 1TB, which was perfect. Having photos, a few movies, and music on the computer also made it easier to access these when on the move or traveling - not my entire collection - just what I needed or was working on.

So I'm pretty confident about what I need. External SSD storage is a great option these days if you underspec your storage and is much more economical. The only thing you need to get right is your RAM usage, and even this is no longer as important as it once was. My somewhat overstretched 16GB Mac Mini still runs like a champ even when pushed to use lots of swap. It only slows down noticeably once I get over about 15-20GB swap usage, when it starts to spend a significant amount of time swapping instead of working.

 

[arvinsim]

Storage should ideally be specified based on the requirements of the data stored on it in terms of speed of access, transfer bandwidth, reliability / redundancy & cost.

I see quite a few people saying "I need <x> TB of internal storage for my movies, photos, game collection etc. "...when in reality a 5GB/s SSD is complete overkill for this usage. You would be better off with cheaper external storage, even HDDs, unless you absolutely have to carry your entire collection around with you. Even if you do need to do this, you still have to have redundant backups, so need the external disks or backup solution anyway.

Cloud storage is a viable option for many applications these days at prices that are probably less than internal SSDs, even over several years' usage. The added advantage is that someone else is worrying about ensuring your data is on highly available storage and backed up, plus you can expand it as you need.

A more economical approach when at home is to have a NAS - highly available, redundant, with HDD storage that is vastly cheaper than Apple's SSDs.

Even high-capacity external SSDs are a good option - they are much cheaper than internal upgrades, weigh very little, and are small enough to stick in a shirt pocket or velcro to the back of your screen, which I used to do!

Apple must be rubbing its corporate hands at their success in upselling internal storage to people who find connecting a tiny SSD or connecting to iCloud Drive / Google Drive / DropBox etc. to be too much of a burden.

You're right. I initially also thought that I should get 2 TB SSD. But why not just do some research and do a NAS?

 

[dead flag blues]

I'm using most of my 2tb ssd on my 2019 16". And still need space to store my GoPro files. I need a 4 bay nas asap.

 

[davidg4781]

I'm using most of my 2tb ssd on my 2019 16". And still need space to store my GoPro files. I need a 4 bay nas asap.

You're right. I initially also thought that I should get 2 TB SSD. But why not just do some research and do a NAS?

I think this is where everyone's needs have to come in to play.

My 2011 mini's 500 GB drive was almost full. It had some large apps and media. I wasn't in danger of filling it up but I wasn't doing as much on it as I would like to since it was a desktop and almost full. When it died I'm borrowing my mom's 2010 MBP, with 500 GB SSD. I moved the regular media over, left some in the cloud. With both our profiles, she's only using 375 GB. And I think most of that is my stuff.

 

[Rck1984]

Yes, if you're really not sure whether you need it, and can't accurately estimate your future needs, it can be an expensive mistake to upgrade "just in case".

I base my specs on years of experience with multiple machines, and have a pretty good idea of what I use daily, and what my future usage will be (assuming I don't change my use case completely).

For example, I consistently use 20-30GB RAM so on my 16GB Mac Mini, I'm either running a lot swap disk (that slows the machine down a bit, and wears out the SSD faster), or having to "house-keep" more than I want to by closing apps, documents, browser tabs etc. 32GB is the sweet spot for me. I also have a 32GB laptop and know that this is the right capacity for my use. I had a 64GB desktop and never used all the memory, so that was overkill (at the time I thought I would run lots of VMs, but moved to cloud instances instead).

Similarly with storage. I had a 256GB laptop SSD and was always having to move stuff to archive, swap it back when I needed it, and generally spend a lot of time on data management. The next laptop had 512GB and was much better. Then I got into video editing and ended up with hundreds of GB of video files for "work in progress" (that was much easier to handle from the internal drive - which was also much faster than externals at the time), so the computer after that had 1TB, which was perfect. Having photos, a few movies, and music on the computer also made it easier to access these when on the move or traveling - not my entire collection - just what I needed or was working on.

So I'm pretty confident about what I need. External SSD storage is a great option these days if you underspec your storage and is much more economical. The only thing you need to get right is your RAM usage, and even this is no longer as important as it once was. My somewhat overstretched 16GB Mac Mini still runs like a champ even when pushed to use lots of swap. It only slows down noticeably once I get over about 15-20GB swap usage, when it starts to spend a significant amount of time swapping instead of working.

By all means, if you need a certain amount of RAM or storage, then get it ofcourse.
The point I was trying to make is about the actual opposite, which is going crazy on the specs because you don't know if you ever need it.

I totally agree, get what you need right now or in the foreseeable future and put the rest aside. If your personal use case does change in a few years, just trade-in/sell your current machine and buy a new one based on the situation you're in at that moment.

It's such a waste to get 32GB for a lot of cash, not utilising it and buying a new machine in a few years anyway.

 

[fathergll]

There is no such thing as "bits" in Apple world. Everything be it RAM, Storage, CPU, GPU are vastly overpriced and that is exactly how Apple gets you.

That bit of extra cash for 16GB of extra RAM and 512GB storage costs $800 U.S. (690 euro) for us in Europe.
I don't consider that spending a bit extra, that's a lot of money for something I might, or might not need one day. If that situation occurs, I rather sell my current machine, spend the $800 and get the newest machine with the right specs for that time.

Well yes Apple is primarily a hardware company so they need to make money somehow. They are not Microsoft making money on OS sales.

With that said doubling storage from base is $200 which for me personally is a no brainer but your miles my vary. To me thats "bits" upgrade and quite different than going maxed out storage upgrade of $2400.

 

[Rck1984]

Well yes Apple is primarily a hardware company so they need to make money somehow. They are not Microsoft making money on OS sales.

With that said doubling storage from base is $200 which for me personally is a no brainer but your miles my vary. To me thats "bits" upgrade and quite different than going maxed out storage upgrade of $2400.

Again, if you need that extra storage then get it. I am not telling anyone to not upgrade, what I am saying is to upgrade according to your situation/use case.

The problem with the "bits" is that they can add up very quickly.
Get a 10 core CPU for just $200, another $100 for 16 core GPU, for just $200 more you can get a Max chip instead of a Pro and so forth..

Yes, Apple is a hardware focussed company, an expensive one.