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Mac M1 still worth buying?

S

scaramoosh

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 30, 2014
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My mum's mate has a brand new Mac M1 512GB 8/8 Macbook and she's offering for £300 as a sort of "mates rate" sort of thing and I'm wondering if it's still a good buy or if they're dead now? I know x86 Laptops are supported on Windows for decades, but Apple devices only last a handful of years.

Thanks.
 
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scaramoosh said:
brand new Mac M1 512GB 8/8 Macbook and she's offering for £300
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Brand new M1? I didn't know Apple is still selling M1 laptops

MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? The base M4 MBA is $900 US dollars EDU pricing and that's 10 CPU/8 GPU setup with 16GB of ram and 256GB storage.

The base model Macbook Pro (10 CPU/10 GPU) 16GB/512GB storage is 1,500 dollars

Worth is subjective, is 300 a good price for the M1 MBA? Not sure, its a third of the price of a new one. Is it a MBP? Then I'd say it might be a nice price.


scaramoosh said:
I know x86 Laptops are supported on Windows for decades, but Apple devices only last a handful of years.
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Apple gives you 7 years on hardware generally, and the M1 came out in 2020 so you're only 2 years left, and I'm not sure if the macOS 26 will run on a M1.

As for PCs, I believe Dell and HP only support the hardware for 5 years, though the OS will generally be compatible on the hardware a lot longer. I wouldn't say PCs are supported for decades.
 
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I think it's still going to be another couple of years before M1 devices become Vintage, and are no longer supported, and even then they will still work.
I have a 2020 Macbook Air M1 still going strong.

Here is the list of all current Macs that support macOS 26.

  • MacBook Air 13-inch (M4)
  • MacBook Air 15-inch (M4)
  • MacBook Air 13-inch (M3)
  • MacBook Air 15-inch (M3)
  • MacBook Air 13-inch (M2)
  • MacBook Air 15-inch (M2)
  • MacBook Air 13-inch (M1)
  • MacBook Pro 14-inch (M4)
  • MacBook Pro 14-inch (M4 Pro or M4 Max)
  • MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro or M4 Max)
  • MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max)
  • MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Pro, M3 Max)
  • MacBook Pro 13-inch (M2)
  • MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1)
  • MacBook Pro 16-inch (2019, Intel)
  • MacBook Pro 13-inch (2020, Intel, 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports)
  • iMac 24-inch (M4)
  • iMac 24-inch (M3)
  • iMac 24-inch (M1)
  • Mac mini (M2)
  • Mac mini (M1)
  • Mac Studio (2022, M1 Max/M1 Ultra and later)
  • Mac Pro (2023, Apple silicon)
  • Mac Pro (2019, Intel)
 
I'd only buy it if the price were great and I had a specific use for it for at least a few years.

I would personally not buy any Mac with only 8 GB of RAM these days. We do have an M1 MacBook Air with 16 GB of RAM and it's quite a useful system.
 
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M1 with 8GB RAM is mid-life for light-duty. Even if you decided to update no further than Sonoma for performance that still gives another full year of security updates and maybe 3-6 years of 3rd party internet browser updates from Brave, Firefox, etc.

Long term the Fedora Asahi linux should be a viable option.
 
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ewu said:
M1 chip only supports 'Metal 3' not 'Metal 4'. it is get killed by Apple secretly.

always buy latest M4 chip, unless you care about budge.
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GPU Metal version support for OP's Mum's new-to-Mum used Mac is a red herring concern. What software do you propose will not work with anything other than a M4 SoC?
 
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take a M1 macbook pro and have look, with latest mac os, it is metal 3. that is why I said "secretly".
 
You'll be fine. 300GBP is cheap for a new M1. If Apple stops supporting macOS on M1 Macs in a few years, there may be OpenCore Legacy Patcher support for Apple Silicon. If not, these new macOS releases aren't that big of a deal anymore.
 
Prabas said:
If Apple stops supporting macOS on M1 Macs in a few years, there may be OpenCore Legacy Patcher support for Apple Silicon.
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The M-series SoC Secure Enclave Processor is going to be a tough nut to crack. Don't hold your breath.
 
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Bigwaff said:
For general computing use like email and web browsing, definitely!

Not at all


Decades! Who’s using a Windows laptop from 2005 in 2025?
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It will do a lot more then just handle email and web browsing. These are very capable chips even at the lowest spec M1 chip.
 
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maflynn said:
Apple gives you 7 years on hardware generally, and the M1 came out in 2020 so you're only 2 years left, and I'm not sure if the macOS 26 will run on a M1.
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Yes, Tahoe 26 supports M1 Macs. It even runs on some Intels, still.

The M1 is a perfectly decent Mac, for general computing tasks. Browing the internet, using email, calendar, opening some PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, photos, etc -- these tasks largely haven't changed in complexity for decades, while computers have got faster and faster.

It should stay current for another 3 years, at least; and then will still be ok for a couple more years, even if you can't update the OS.
 
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We know from history Apple supports 6-7 years of major macOS updates. M1 was introduced in late 2020. So it's likely you'll get the calendar year 2026 and maybe the 2027 year major update.
 
I'm still going with my Mac Studio M1, editing in Premiere and Da Vinci. I usually, however, make proxies and edit from them because of a 2TB limit and to avoid any playback / render issues with 4K and bigger media generated by a range of cameras. What's funny is I had a look at Apple's new M3 and M4 Macs for upgrading and when I entered my M1's serial number for trade-in value, the algorithm didn't give a value, only a message saying it was time to think about 'recycling it'.
 
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I was wondering if a new MBA with M4 is worth buying now ($200 discount at Amazon).

I have a 13" M1 16GB MBA and the performance is more than adequate (Office / Safari / Email / Lots of documents at the same time). Would I feel the performance gains from an M4 ? Or should I wait the M5 MBA ?
 
JohnnyGo said:
I was wondering if a new MBA with M4 is worth buying now ($200 discount at Amazon).

I have a 13" M1 16GB MBA and the performance is more than adequate (Office / Safari / Email / Lots of documents at the same time). Would I feel the performance gains from an M4 ? Or should I wait the M5 MBA ?
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While M4 single core performance is greater than M1, for the general computing activities you list, I suspect you won't notice much of a performance gain. Selling your M1 16GB MBA to offset the costs of the M4 MBA makes most sense.
 
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ewu said:
M1 chip only supports 'Metal 3' not 'Metal 4'. it is get killed by Apple secretly.

always buy latest M4 chip, unless you care about budge.
Click to expand...
You have zero clue about computers. It’s actually quite shocking how someone can write this unironically. Is PirateSoftware your dad?
 
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ewu said:
take a M1 macbook pro and have look, with latest mac os, it is metal 3. that is why I said "secretly".
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What is "latest mac os"? Are you talking about Sequoia or Tahoe? Sequoia includes only Metal 3. There were reports of Tahoe showing Metal 3 in the system info but it was a bug corrected in the latest Tahoe. M1 can run Tahoe and Tahoe only includes Metal 4. There is no version of Tahoe running Metal 3.
 
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Absolutely! Don´t fall for anyone telling you different. Our Macbook Airs and Mac Minis M1 (8GB and 16GB variants) are flawless. Especially the 16GB ones chew through anything without a sweat. And they seem to be the most robust ones. The M1 series is the gold standard, easy.

And they are the only ones you can get for really cheap nowadays - if you have strict budget limits it is a no brainer. Your quoted price is good. But try to get a 16GB RAM machine with at least 512GB of internal storage.
 
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scaramoosh said:
My mum's mate has a brand new Mac M1 512GB 8/8 Macbook and she's offering for £300 as a sort of "mates rate" sort of thing and I'm wondering if it's still a good buy or if they're dead now? I know x86 Laptops are supported on Windows for decades, but Apple devices only last a handful of years.
Click to expand...

Performance wise they're fine, but support wise they are 5 years old, so don't expect Apple to keep giving macOS updates for more than a few years. ~7 years is typically around the time they stop getting new versions of macOS and totally dropped by 10.

Additionally the M1 generation is missing some AI related instructions in the GPU (BFLOAT16 if i recall - which i believe M2 and later include so that's a significant factor in future software support).

Being a laptop - the battery may or may not be in reasonable condition.

I think at 300 quid... that's halfway to a macbook air that's quite a bit newer. Shop around and see what an M2 air can be obtained for and make your choice. Maybe the UK market is different to elsewhere?

Not saying M1 generation sucks, etc. - i still have multiple M1 generation machines in this household, but for 300 quid i think its awfully close to probably an M2 Air which is a significant upgrade. Its just a question of whether or not 300 quid is a good price and what condition the battery is in. Performance wise for general user stuff today the machine is still great.

That said i do really love that old classic Air form factor!

IF its an m1 pro - that changes things. But M2 and certainly M3 Air are in some ways faster than M1 Pro in light workloads due to the more recent CPU instructions.

ANY of these machines will be faster and more responsive running most light-usage mac software than any intel machine (up to and including my trashcan mac pro) and it isn't even close.
 
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Project Alice said:
I mean, I have ThinkPad X40 I use sometimes. It has Debian and Haiku on it, though not Windows. But I also frequently use PowerPC Macs like my ol 15" PowerBook G4. I suppose normal people don't do this lol
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I have a thinkpad X61T from 2007 that is still supported on Windows 10 although a couple of things don't work on it on 10 (touch does not work but pen does). It meets Windows 10 specs but lenovo has not issued drivers for Win10.

Having said that nobody uses core duo Macs or PCs as their daily drivers. But I can totally see someone using a Sandy Bridge Mac or PC from 2012. That would still run on Windows 10 till 2026 (we'll see if Microsoft extends the free support for 1-2 more years after October 2026).
 
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