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jenniekl73

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Jul 10, 2023
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Hi all...I'm a single mom of two teenagers and a high school teacher in my twilight years so I will hopefully have this in 6 or 7 years when I retire. Which components do you think will be essential for the longevity of this machine? My last one lasted maybe 7 years before slowing to a painful rate.

The financial piece is huge!

Thanks in advance!!!
 
You're probably going to want a MacBook Air. The biggest upgrade (when it comes to the Air) is going to be bumping the RAM to 16gb for longevity. There's a lot of options out there for additional hard drive space if you need it (external and cloud services).

The M1 or M2 will be more than okay unless you're considering doing graphic intensive work at some point.

System specs should be 16gb of RAM and 512 of hard drive space (if you can find a deal to bump either of those numbers up go for it).

Take a look at B&H and Best Buy for sales on both the Air and Pro machines - you'll never find a discount directly through Apple. Both sites typically have sales 10-30% off the retail price, and sometimes even more if you're looking at the M1 series.

Hope this helps.
 
For the longevity 16 GB of RAM might be an option if you can afford it. For normal office work, mails and web browsing you should even be fine with 8 GB for couple of years (unless you're one of those folks who use Chrome and have like two dozen tabs open at the same time).
Concerning storage only you know how much you need and if you're willing to rely on external storage (e.g. for videos and/or photos).

As for prices (besides the already mentioned deals from 3rd party dealers) you can also check out the Apple refurbished store.
 
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i dont understand why the info about teenage kids should help us to give u advice in buying a laptop. What do u want to do with the laptop?

If no professional (power hungry) work:

Since u are on a budget and want to run it 6+ years go to the apple refurb store and buy a M1 Air with 16GB ram.
 
You're probably going to want a MacBook Air. The biggest upgrade (when it comes to the Air) is going to be bumping the RAM to 16gb for longevity. There's a lot of options out there for additional hard drive space if you need it (external and cloud services).

The M1 or M2 will be more than okay unless you're considering doing graphic intensive work at some point.

System specs should be 16gb of RAM and 512 of hard drive space (if you can find a deal to bump either of those numbers up go for it).

Take a look at B&H and Best Buy for sales on both the Air and Pro machines - you'll never find a discount directly through Apple. Both sites typically have sales 10-30% off the retail price, and sometimes even more if you're looking at the M1 series.

Hope this helps.
Thank you so much! This was so super helpful! Do you think an M1 is okay or should I just justify the price difference as a long-term investment?
 
For the longevity 16 GB of RAM might be an option if you can afford it. For normal office work, mails and web browsing you should even be fine with 8 GB for couple of years (unless you're one of those folks who use Chrome and have like two dozen tabs open at the same time).
Concerning storage only you know how much you need and if you're willing to rely on external storage (e.g. for videos and/or photos).

As for prices (besides the already mentioned deals from 3rd party dealers) you can also check out the Apple refurbished store.
Unfortunately, I'm one of those people with a couple of chrome windows and tabs going...one for each subject I teach and then one for personal...lol so I guess 16g ram is the way to go.

M1 sufficient or just go for it and get the M2? Also, I always hesitate with refurbs they are truly reliable?
 
Unfortunately, I'm one of those people with a couple of chrome windows and tabs going...one for each subject I teach and then one for personal...lol so I guess 16g ram is the way to go.

M1 sufficient or just go for it and get the M2? Also, I always hesitate with refurbs they are truly reliable?
Concerning performance you won't see a difference between M1 and M2 MacBook Air for your use case.
If the M2 will get longer software support than M1 is totally unclear. No one has any idea when Apple will exclude any of those chips from macOS updates. If iOS is any indication, 5-6 years of new macOS updates should not be an issue for both of them.

So it really is just down to if you like the design of the M2 or M1 MacBook Air better. If you want 15" instead of 13", there's only the M2 version. Also keep in mind that the M2 has a slightly brighter display (but it's still not ideal for direct sunlight).

I'd also hesitate with 3rd party refurbished sellers but Apples own refurbished devices are great. You can't distinguish them from a new one except for the packaging (just the name of the device instead of a picture).
 
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I will hopefully have this in 6 or 7 years when I retire. Which components do you think will be essential for the longevity of this machine? My last one lasted maybe 7 years before slowing to a painful rate.

I would actually advise spending a little more now if you can do it. If you can spend $500 more up front, that's like $70/year for the time you're expecting to use it. The M1 Macs are very usable today, but the M2 are a little faster. 8 GB of RAM is OK now but will probably not be enough in 7 years. 256 GB of storage might be OK today but could feel tight as you accumulate photos and videos and other files, so you might want 512 GB or even 1 TB.

The reason your last machine slowed down is that the software got more demanding over time, each time you updated it. I'm sure it was plenty fast when you bought it. Being a little more generous with the specs now will keep the Mac more usable for a longer time.

For people who upgrade every 2-4 years, it's easier to skate by on base model Macs, but 7 years is a long time in computer time.
 
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Hi all...I'm a single mom of two teenagers and a high school teacher in my twilight years so I will hopefully have this in 6 or 7 years when I retire. Which components do you think will be essential for the longevity of this machine? My last one lasted maybe 7 years before slowing to a painful rate.

The financial piece is huge!

Thanks in advance!!!

I would prioritize RAM over storage. Since you are wanting to keep your next machine for 5+ years, I recommend getting 16gb of RAM for the kind of usage you are planning on. I have had various MacBooks (standard MacBook, Air, Pro) and I have never felt it is much of a hassle to utilize cloud storage or an external hard drive, although others might disagree. If you are comfortable with that kind of setup, I recommend a 16/256 M1 MacBook Air. M2 Air would be a fantastic upgrade over the M1, but I am not sure if it will be worth the price increase with you wanting to keep your budget lower. Good luck!
 
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You could snag one of those M1 MacBook Airs on sale ($750) at Amazon (mentioned on MacRumors earlier today):


This is a baseline model, but it's still a solid machine at a bargain price...and it should last for a long time. The 8GB of RAM is a bit low for a modern laptop, but by comparison the 16GB model on Amazon is about $450 more expensive (about 60% more expensive than the current price of the baseline M1 Air).
 
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You could snag one of those M1 MacBook Airs on sale ($750) at Amazon (mentioned on MacRumors earlier today):


This is a baseline model, but it's still a solid machine at a bargain price...and it should last for a long time. The 8GB of RAM is a bit low for a modern laptop, but by comparison the 16GB model on Amazon is about $450 more expensive (about 60% more expensive more than the current price of the baseline M1 Air).

To add onto this, I recently switched from the machine @tubuliferous linked to a 15'' M2 MacBook Air 16 GB / 512 GB. I'm not a teacher but I do corporate training and teach on average 2 2 hour training sessions a week (sometimes more, sometimes less depending on material we have to cover with our teams and how many new hires we are taking in). My day to day work: stuff related to my training sessions like powerpoints, material preparation, system onboarding - and lots of paperwork, metrics charts/reports, and web app usage. I found the 8 GB of RAM was totally adequate for this.

I did upgrade to the 16 GB and while my system metrics on my Mac are much happier (ie lower overall memory usage), I don't actually notice a true performance difference (ie the 8 GB machine could do all I needed and still felt fast).

I think you probably really have two routes to go here:

1. Since budget is a concern, try to save as much as possible. The $750 price tag on the M1 Air a heck of a deal and that unit will last you for quite some time. I don't anticipate office work or casual web browsing to need much more than this over the next 6-7 years

2. Spend extra now to allay longevity concerns. My recommendation here would be a 16 GB Air. Apple sometimes has really good prices in their certified refurbished listings although glancing through it today, it looks like they only have units with more high end options listed.

You can buy external storage to supplement the available space on my computer. So if you have (or take) lots of photos and things, you don't necessarily have to pay a lot up front for more storage on your computer when you can easily buy something down the road to store all of that information. If you have a lot of apps you want to install, it might be worth it to spend extra. The types of data you'd need for work won't take up a lot of space relative to the amount of storage available in even a baseline unit though it might not hurt to take al look at how much storage you are using in your current computer to get an idea of what you might like.
 
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Hi all...I'm a single mom of two teenagers and a high school teacher in my twilight years so I will hopefully have this in 6 or 7 years when I retire. Which components do you think will be essential for the longevity of this machine? My last one lasted maybe 7 years before slowing to a painful rate.

The financial piece is huge!

Thanks in advance!!!
What did you have previously? Which desktop or laptop?
 
If you are wanting this for the next 6-7 years, for sure go 16GB Ram. While 8 can work well for many situations now, in the next handful of years I am sure requirements will rise, and then the new laptop will start to slow to a painful rate, like the one you are replacing.

You can always add external storage, but all the people above advising you to ram it up are correct.
 
I see this going two ways. Either bite the bullet and upgrade the memory and storage on the m2 air (16/512 or 16/1tb), or buy the $749 m1 air on sale at costco for half the price. Its such a good deal that it may not kill you to upgrade a few years sooner if needed.
 
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Unfortunately, I'm one of those people with a couple of chrome windows and tabs going...one for each subject I teach and then one for personal...lol so I guess 16g ram is the way to go.

M1 sufficient or just go for it and get the M2? Also, I always hesitate with refurbs they are truly reliable?
Refurbs are absolutely acceptable choices if you find one configured the way you want it.

M1 is likely sufficient for your needs, but be aware that last-generation M1 means not the latest Bluetooth, etc. Despite what some say, do not consider less than 16 GB RAM (24 even better) because the RAM demands of OS and apps always increase over time. Many folks here foolishly focus on 2023 operation rather than on the intended life cycle of a new box, but you can be smarter than that.

weeener's suggestion of a short life cycle and "buy the $749 m1 air on sale at costco for half the price. Its such a good deal that it may not kill you to upgrade a few years sooner if needed" also is a totally reasonable approach to consider. Just be aware that the Costco deals only have 8 GB RAM, which will be limiting pretty much immediately; not something I would choose. The Mac OS does a great job of making things work even with RAM constraints, but you will likely notice the limiting effect.
 
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Hi all...I'm a single mom of two teenagers and a high school teacher in my twilight years so I will hopefully have this in 6 or 7 years when I retire. Which components do you think will be essential for the longevity of this machine? My last one lasted maybe 7 years before slowing to a painful rate.

The financial piece is huge!

Thanks in advance!!!
All things considered, right this moment my recommendation is the $1549 refurb on Apple's site: 13" M2 MBA with 16 GB RAM. Second choice would be the Costco deal, but a far far second with M1 and only 8 GB RAM meaning lesser performance and short life cycle; very few years before slowing to a painful rate.

Edit: As to SSD size, rule of thumb is 2x the capacity of expected files. But that is ideal, and one can easily add external SSD if needed. Most folks can offload not-current files to external drives. For all practical purposes typically you can ignore the SSD size and just accept what is on the box you end up with. The exception would be if you are already using substantial SSD capacity carting essential files with you then you should look to follow the 2x rule.
 
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Hi all...I'm a single mom of two teenagers and a high school teacher in my twilight years so I will hopefully have this in 6 or 7 years when I retire. Which components do you think will be essential for the longevity of this machine? My last one lasted maybe 7 years before slowing to a painful rate.

The financial piece is huge!

Thanks in advance!!!
M1 MacBook Air - upgrade to 16GB of RAM minimum if you can afford it and make sure you have enough storage (256gb is fine for me but each person’s needs are different).
 
Thank you so much! This was so super helpful! Do you think an M1 is okay or should I just justify the price difference as a long-term investment?
For your use case, I don't think you're going to benefit from the speed difference between M1 & M2. The M1 should be more than sufficient (even in a few years time) if your primary use is web based applications and such.

A lot of people used the M1 (and continue to do so) for relatively heavy workloads that include having several tabs open in a browser, music production, graphic design and video editing work. It might not be the newest, but it certainly is no slouch and is still one of the most efficient processors available (most likely the best value Apple has offered in quite some time).

Keep in mind though, Chrome has a reputation for being a RAM hog. I'm not sure if that has changed over the years, but I made the switch to Safari and occasionally Firefox for most of my web browsing. Unless there's a specific reason you use it, I would avoid having it as your primary web browser. Try using Safari or Firefox on your current configuration and see if that makes a difference.
 
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From a practical point of view, you are best off with a base model MacBook Air today. This is especially true if you consider the possibility the machines could be damaged during their life. In 6-7 years, the same MacBook is unlikely to be supported by the latest macOS at the time.

Buy the $749 MacBook Air M1 with 8/256. Save the $400 upgrades to 16/512 and put those savings toward a base model machine 6-7 years from now.
 
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From a practical point of view, you are best off with a base model MacBook Air today. This is especially true if you consider the possibility the machines could be damaged during their life. In 6-7 years, the same MacBook is unlikely to be supported by the latest macOS at the time.

Buy the $749 MacBook Air M1 with 8/256. Save the $400 upgrades to 16/512 and put those savings toward a base model machine 6-7 years from now.
Recommending an 8 GB box for 6-7 years is bad advice. Sorry, but that is my $0.02. Choosing 8 GB RAM will reach the slowing to a painful rate that the OP mentioned much sooner.
 
All things considered, right this moment my recommendation is the $1549 refurb on Apple's site: 13" M2 MBA with 16 GB RAM. Second choice would be the Costco deal, but a far far second with M1 and only 8 GB RAM meaning lesser performance and short life cycle; very few years before slowing to a painful rate.

Edit: As to SSD size, rule of thumb is 2x the capacity of expected files. But that is ideal, and one can easily add external SSD if needed. Most folks can offload not-current files to external drives. For all practical purposes typically you can ignore the SSD size and just accept what is on the box you end up with. The exception would be if you are already using substantial SSD capacity carting essential files with you then you should look to follow the 2x rule.
thats way too much price just to get into the 16gb territory, she might as well spend 1400 and get the m1 pro which comes with 16gb standard.

 
Recommending an 8 GB box for 6-7 years is bad advice. Sorry, but that is my $0.02. Choosing 8 GB RAM will reach the slowing to a painful rate that the OP mentioned much sooner.

Given the speed of the swap system on M1, 8GB systems are likely to last a long time. She's expected to retire, not use the computer for serious productivity.

MBA base model is $750. The 16GB model costs an additional $329. The 16/512 is $1,259. In general, buying the base model and replacing when necessary will offer the best value.
 
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