Hello macrumors community,
I would need your input. About two years ago I bought a MacBook Air for university with a M1 Chip, 16Gb RAM and a 512Gb SSD. Now unfortunately I had a display damage which was not caused by me. So fortunately the insurance covers the damage and I am compensated for it. The MacBook has a dent on the outside and below the camera some pixels are dead, respectively they can't display a proper black anymore.
I actually wasn't going to make the jump to a MacBook Pro until the 3nm process was integrated into the chips. Does it make sense to sell my current MacBook and switch to an M2 Pro / Max or should I rather use my MacBook Air until it breaks and then switch?
Are there already rumors when the M3 processor in the 3nm process will be released in the MacBook Pro?
Please help me regarding my decision. 🙂
1) Yours is a very appropriate query. Also the patina comment about the damage adding character is spot-on. You are not in a corporate board room, yet. And the dent will reduce the laptop's theft-attraction, a large value add. Even perfectly backed up, mid-semester hardware thefts are a very large PITA.
2) Tech keeps moving forward, always. Whatever hardware choices we are looking at today will be new and different in 6 months; and more importantly OSs/apps will evolve to be different in 6 months. IMO right now is an approaching evolutionary change time at Apple with WWDC 2023 (WWDC tends to be when Apple gives its most public look at where things are going for the next 12 months).
Apple is very likely to flesh out the state of its AR/VR world at WWDC, including actual device demo. Most wags blather on about VR and games, but IMO AR will be where the important future will be. AR/VR needs might help define future Macs.
The reason you specifically should care is because most of us do not yet know what resources AR will most demand 2024 and beyond: GPU? CPU? RAM? Complex i/o? What presents as most important affects the conclusion of what box may be optimum for you specifically. If future apps/OS look like they will want hordes of RAM, for instance, then you might want to wait for M3 and buy a then-discounted 96 GB RAM M2 MBP. [Note that Apple has presented a huge boost in offered RAM lately, and that may or may not be telegraphing something]. Or iF complex i/o becomes necessary you may to add a Mini and keep your lamed MBA, but probably you would not want a new MBA box with limited i/o. Etc.
3) Realities of SoC chip evolution is hella complex. It is
not some simplistic
"we built using 5 nm size parts and now we will build using 3 nm size parts" as many folks here present it to be. I cannot overstate this enough:
simplistic 5 versus 3 is wrong-headed thinking that leads to bad analysis. Yes future generations of tech will always be stronger, but in what ways and at what costs at any given point in time is
not simple 5 nm versus 3 nm. I strongly recommend folks read up on SoC and on chip design.
4)
Bottom line: wait. The longer your MBA-with-character can keep meeting your needs the better, because tech will keep inexorably advancing. Purchase choices will invariably be better in 6 months than they are at any given present time. New choices will present, old choices will reduce in price, apps/OSs will evolve and
most importantly you will become better informed as to your needs and where the tech seems to be going.
Right now with WWDC pending in four months it is particularly important to wait if at all possible. I am trying to, but odds are strong that I will fail...
