I cannot afford a new M1 Air

[sgtaylor5]

Title says the problem.

I have a 2013 MacBook Pro i5/8/256 running Catalina with Big Sur firmware (Big Sur was giving me beachballs in normal office work/web browsing). I use it for my computer repair business; heavy lifting in Windows is done with a Dell OptiPlex 3rd Gen full tower desktop. I use the MBP for accounting, web research, email and general use. My current laptop is getting a little slow in daily use.

I can pick up a 2017 i7/8/128 MacBook Air for $300 from a client I know well (I have enough rewards points so that's it's free to purchase). I also bought a 512 GB Apple-branded SSD to upgrade it for BootCamp use (duplicating my test system). Staying with Catalina for performance maintenance and stopping major OS upgrades with JamfNow enrollment and the proper Terminal command.

Buying a 2020 MBA 16/512 on eBay is approaching the price of a M1.

 

[wonderings]

not sure what the question is here?

If you need to run Windows on your Mac, be it bootcamp or virtually M1 Macs are completely out anyways. Your use on the Mac side of things is light, I would maybe try a clean install of Mac OS and see how things run.

 

[sgtaylor5]

not sure what the question is here?

If you need to run Windows on your Mac, be it bootcamp or virtually M1 Macs are completely out anyways. Your use on the Mac side of things is light, I would maybe try a clean install of Mac OS and see how things run.

The described performance of my current MBP is with a clean install with a new AppleID (wanted no record of all the apps I've tested in the past as I was learning the macOS ecosystem). 2017 MBA is the last year you could replace the SSD.

and the M1's being out for Windows use is a factor in my decision making, for sure.

 

[wonderings]

If you are not doing heavy work in Windows I would suggest running as a VM. I use Windows daily as a VM on my 5K iMac. Runs very well if you have the RAM to spare. I have 32 gigs on my 2014 iMac and I don't even notice when Windows is running. My main applications are Indesign, Illustrator and some Photoshop. I generally have Windows running in a mode called coherence so the Windows only app I need looks like a Mac app, no second window. All that being said Windows runs very well with enough RAM and a decent CPU. So if looking to run both together I would look for more RAM as you do dedicate RAM to the VM itself. If you only have 8 gigs you are split with both systems running with not a whole lot of RAM.

 

[sgtaylor5]

If you are not doing heavy work in Windows I would suggest running as a VM. I use Windows daily as a VM on my 5K iMac. Runs very well if you have the RAM to spare. I have 32 gigs on my 2014 iMac and I don't even notice when Windows is running. My main applications are Indesign, Illustrator and some Photoshop. I generally have Windows running in a mode called coherence so the Windows only app I need looks like a Mac app, no second window. All that being said Windows runs very well with enough RAM and a decent CPU. So if looking to run both together I would look for more RAM as you do dedicate RAM to the VM itself. If you only have 8 gigs you are split with both systems running with not a whole lot of RAM.

I had tried that. I found that if a client wanted me to plug in a USB device, the VM couldn't see it at all. So that's why I'm thinking BootCamp is the only way to go for what I need it to do.

 

[internetrando]

I was under the impression that no modern Mac could have the drive swapped (at least easily). You know better than I do, though.

I’ve got M1 Max machines and they run Windows 11 ARM just fine as a VM. I imagine all M1 machines will do the same given enough RAM (16+).

If you think you want to boot natively, Intel is your only choice (at least for now). I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if BootCamp comes back once 11 ARM is publicly released, but that’s speculative.

If you’re happy with the 2017 model that you can get for free, why not? It won’t cost you anything other than points, and it will likely run better than your current 2013 does.

Worst case you’re out the funny money.