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Purchase Question

B

butterwm

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 25, 2012
122
42
I am going to order a MacBook Pro this evening for our son who goes off to college this fall. They have two models on Black Friday special:

Model 1: 14” MBP / M4 / 24 GB RAM / 1 TB SSD - $1,799
Model 2: 14” MBP / M4 PRO (12/16) / 24 GB RAM / 1 TB SSD - $1,999

I have read a lot on these forums about the differences between the processors and machines. Honestly, he is doing a biology undergraduate degree followed by medical school so I am not sure he will do anything on the machine that will require the processing power of the M4 PRO. However, do these other advantages still make it worthwhile for the $200 jump or am I just throwing money away and are there any other advantages I am missing?

1. Dual cooling fans for better cooling but more importantly quieter operation in the event the fans are running.
2. Increased SSD read and write speeds.
3. Thunderbolt 5 ports versus thunderbolt 4.

Just curious which was you would lean with this price difference?
 
butterwm said:
Just curious which was you would lean with this price difference?
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I personally would go for the Model 1. He will probably never hear the fans. Thunderbolt 5 accessories are few and far between and Thunderbolt 4 is really quite fast.

However, $200 factored over 6 or 7 years is really a trivial amount. Your money, your choice. Your son will be served well by either.

Also, check B&H Photo for prices. They have some really good deals and you can save another couple hundred dollars.
 
raythompsontn said:
I personally would go for the Model 1. He will probably never hear the fans. Thunderbolt 5 accessories are few and far between and Thunderbolt 4 is really quite fast.

However, $200 factored over 6 or 7 years is really a trivial amount. Your money, your choice. Your son will be served well by either.

Also, check B&H Photo for prices. They have some really good deals and you can save another couple hundred dollars.
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Thanks. Those two models I listed above are coming from B&H Photo.
 
For school I seriously doubt he would notice a difference between the m4 and the m4 pro, unless he were doing intensive mucic production or video editing where time is of the essence. The M4 pro has more than twice the bandwidth on the ram 120gb/s vs 273gb/s. Again, unless he were really pushing the machine he wouldn't notice I don't think.

Me personally, I'm going with a different option all together right now. Id go M4 Pro 24gb/512 for $1749, which is the current sale price at B&H and Best Buy If he gets to the point he fills up the ssd, spend that savings for an external ssd. I doubt for school he would fill up 512ssd. With cloud storage, it makes it far less required to store everything on the computer.
 
Also, for school, I can't see a need for a pro. An M3 air would be perfectly fine. You can get an M3 air 15" 24gb/512 on sale for $1425 at Best Buy right now
 
$200 difference is very good, M4 Pro is much more powerful and down the road it might be the better solution, because your son's needs in a few years might be more demanding - e.g., he might have to run some simulations or statistical computations based in lab data etc. Plus in the next few years, Thunderbolt 5 peripherals will become mainstream, and he would be able to attach an external SSD of large storage capacity and possibly faster speed than the internal one at a much lower price compared to the ridiculous Apple pricing fro storage config upgrade. These two things alone I believe that justify the extra cost. M4 is a perfectly valid option as well, though, very good machine overall.
 
Over the course of half a decade or more, life has a tendency to slightly deviate from our long term plans. 200$ is reasonable to help you deal with probable requirements evolution.
 
Thanks for everyone’s advice! I ended up going with the M4 Pro. My biggest concern is while I know what he will be using it for now would be just fine on the M4 I don’t know what his future looks like with his studies and university requirements. I guess I would rather overpay a little and be wrong versus underpaying and finding out it doesn’t work for what he needs. Someone also gave me some great advice that if I was going to jump to the M4 Pro to upgrade to the 14/20 core since it was only $100 more which is what I did. Curious to see how well this serves him and how long he gets out of it in a eight year program.
 
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bellflyer14 said:
Also, for school, I can't see a need for a pro. An M3 air would be perfectly fine. You can get an M3 air 15" 24gb/512 on sale for $1425 at Best Buy right nowakers
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Carefully read the comparative specs. The MBPro is better in every way than the MBA except weight, starting with the display and the speakers.
 
butterwm said:
Curious to see how well this serves him and how long he gets out of it in a eight year program.
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Since you [IMO wisely] bought the pro version the same box may well last for the full eight years. "How long he gets out of it in a eight year program" will probably be more about how he evolves within his uni program than it will be about how well the MBP lasts. Initially his needs will be trivial from a computing standpoint, and they may remain trivial for eight years; or he may develop some specific future interest that demands more horsepower.
 
Allen_Wentz said:
Since you [IMO wisely] bought the pro version the same box may well last for the full eight years. "How long he gets out of it in an eight year program" will probably be more about how he evolves within his uni program than it will be about how well the MBP lasts. Initially his needs will be trivial from a computing standpoint, and they may remain trivial for eight years; or he may develop some specific future interest that demands more horsepower.
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I figure in four years when he finishes up his undergraduate and starts medical school will be a good point to evaluate his current setup and see if he can squeeze another four years out of it or needs to upgrade. I guess that will be the M8 or M9 lineup at that point—LOL.
 
Allen_Wentz said:
Carefully read the comparative specs. The MBPro is better in every way than the MBA except weight, starting with the display and the speakers.
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Respectfully, I never said the MBA was better than the pro. I said a 15" MBA with 24gb memory and 512 ssd for $1400 is an absolute steal and would most likely be just fine for university studies.
 
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butterwm said:
I figure in four years when he finishes up his undergraduate and starts medical school will be a good point to evaluate his current setup and see if he can squeeze another four years out of it or needs to upgrade. I guess that will be the M8 or M9 lineup at that point—LOL.
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Yup. In 4 years he may opine that some 2029 tablet should be his primary modus operandi.
 
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