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Two M1's or M1 + M2?

Mr West

Mr West

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 9, 2012
73
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I currently have a maxed out MBA M1.
Now my girlfriend (who only needs a laptop for admin/browsing) wants a Macbook too.

This leaves me with two options:
Option A: Give her my current M1 and buy a new (specced up) M2 for myself
Option B: Buy her a new M1 (albeit with lower specs than mine)

The new device has to be new as I am bound to a supplier.

Fortunately, budget is not an issue but I don't want to waste money either.
For this reason, buying her a new M2 seems like a bad idea, cause for a bit more budget I could spec it out and have a new long lifecycle for both device (Maxxed out M1 for her, M2 for me).

All advice is appreciated.
 
M2 only offer a very modest CPU performance boost compared to M1, and I highly doubt your girlfriend would be able to use much GPU, so I don't think the value is there. M1 is cheaper, offers decent performance, and still holds strong.
 
Mr West said:
While I appreciate your romantic mindset, it does not seem wise to get her a 2k USD machine to write some e-mails.
Click to expand...

In that case, you can't do better than a brand new MacBook Air for $780.

www.microcenter.com

Apple MacBook Air MGN63LL/A (Late 2020) 13.3" Laptop Computer - Space Gray; Apple M1 8-Core CPU; 8GB Unified Memory; - Micro Center

Get it now! Our thinnest, lightest notebook, completely transformed by the Apple M1 chip. CPU speeds up to 3.5x faster. GPU speeds up to 5x faster. Our most advanced Neural Engine for up to 9x faster machine learning. The longest battery life ever in a MacBook Air. And a silent, fanless design.
www.microcenter.com www.microcenter.com
 
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Mr West said:
I currently have a maxed out MBA M1.
Now my girlfriend (who only needs a laptop for admin/browsing) wants a Macbook too.

This leaves me with two options:
Option A: Give her my current M1 and buy a new (specced up) M2 for myself
Option B: Buy her a new M1 (albeit with lower specs than mine)

The new device has to be new as I am bound to a supplier.

Fortunately, budget is not an issue but I don't want to waste money either.
For this reason, buying her a new M2 seems like a bad idea, cause for a bit more budget I could spec it out and have a new long lifecycle for both device (Maxxed out M1 for her, M2 for me).

All advice is appreciated.
Click to expand...
Dood! Do Option A!!!!!! I would!!!! You know you want to!
 
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Mr West said:
I currently have a maxed out MBA M1.
Now my girlfriend (who only needs a laptop for admin/browsing) wants a Macbook too.

This leaves me with two options:
Option A: Give her my current M1 and buy a new (specced up) M2 for myself
Option B: Buy her a new M1 (albeit with lower specs than mine)

The new device has to be new as I am bound to a supplier.

Fortunately, budget is not an issue but I don't want to waste money either.
For this reason, buying her a new M2 seems like a bad idea, cause for a bit more budget I could spec it out and have a new long lifecycle for both device (Maxxed out M1 for her, M2 for me).

All advice is appreciated.
Click to expand...
M2 MacBook Air, 24 GB, 1 TB, 10-core GPU, Midnight. Because that’s what I bought so it must be the right choice.
 
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Mr West said:
While I appreciate your romantic mindset, it does not seem wise to get her a 2k USD machine to write some e-mails.
Click to expand...
I think this answers your question. A maxed out M1 Air is a formidable machine. She doesn't need that for just writing e-mails, though I still recommend to all users buying an M1 or M2 to get at least 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for overhead. People will say that they don't need much and then, next thing you know, they're maxing out their RAM with every browser tab running and/or filling their drive with all sorts of crap. On all Apple devices with storage soldered to the logic board, I always recommend going one storage size higher than you think you'll need and exactly for that reason.
 
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Yebubbleman said:
I think this answers your question. A maxed out M1 Air is a formidable machine. She doesn't need that for just writing e-mails, though I still recommend to all users buying an M1 or M2 to get at least 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for overhead. People will say that they don't need much and then, next thing you know, they're maxing out their RAM with every browser tab running and/or filling their drive with all sorts of crap. On all Apple devices with storage soldered to the logic board, I always recommend going one storage size higher than you think you'll need and exactly for that reason.
Click to expand...
While joking above, this is exactly what I have. An M1 MBA with 16GB RAM and 512GB Storage. I am most likely set for 5 years (unless they finally make that macpad I have been wanting forever...not happening).
 
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my politics : tech parity between my wife and I.
No reason why she should get a lesser version.
When we changed our iPhone or Mac, we change it altogether to the same specs.
Older devices will be sold or give away to relatives
No jealousy, and no stupidity like boy get the best and girl get the worst.
 
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philbiss said:
my politics : tech parity between my wife and I.
No reason why she should get a lesser version.
When we changed our iPhone or Mac, we change it altogether to the same specs.
Older devices will be sold or give away to relatives
No jealousy, and no stupidity like boy get the best and girl get the worst.
Click to expand...

I think that is a really great idea. You probably have a good relationship. Smart.
 
philbiss said:
my politics : tech parity between my wife and I.
No reason why she should get a lesser version.
When we changed our iPhone or Mac, we change it altogether to the same specs.
Older devices will be sold or give away to relatives
No jealousy, and no stupidity like boy get the best and girl get the worst.
Click to expand...
I mean its not that I look at it that way. For example, her phone is better than mine.
However, I use my laptop +8 hours a day for coding, she uses her couple of hours per week for some emails and admin.
 
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Mr West said:
I mean its not that I look at it that way. For example, her phone is better than mine.
However, I use my laptop +8 hours a day for coding, she uses her couple of hours per week for some emails and admin.
Click to expand...
What, you mean, that context matters? My wife absolutely hates dealing with technology. She would much rather I have the "latest and greatest" and she gets the "old reliable". She would rather I keep her in horses. ;) Marriages are all different.
 
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Mr West said:
I mean its not that I look at it that way. For example, her phone is better than mine.
However, I use my laptop +8 hours a day for coding, she uses her couple of hours per week for some emails and admin.
Click to expand...
The benefits of the M2 are incremental and would probably not be all that noticeable to either of you. I would recommend getting a relatively basic M1 for her based on her needs. The 8GB M1 would likely be quite sufficient if she is doing that kind of activity and not much multi-tasking. Save yourself some money now and save up for a bigger upgrade for your working machine in a couple of years.
 
Tagbert said:
The benefits of the M2 are incremental and would probably not be all that noticeable to either of you. I would recommend getting a relatively basic M1 for her based on her needs. The 8GB M1 would likely be quite sufficient if she is doing that kind of activity and not much multi-tasking. Save yourself some money now and save up for a bigger upgrade for your working machine in a couple of years.
Click to expand...
Damnit, I was just about to pull the trigger on the M2 :). I would go from 16GB (the max on an M1) to 24GB of RAM though. I'm still conflicted, the M1 is serving me well, but getting another one feels like a waste.

The upgrade might be small, but I squeeze a lot of the power from the system from time to time. I just don't want a Pro, too thick and heavy and I prefer fanless.
 
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Mr West said:
Damnit, I was just about to pull the trigger on the M2 :). I would go from 16GB (the max on an M1) to 24GB of RAM though. I'm still conflicted, the M1 is serving me well, but getting another one feels like a waste.

The upgrade might be small, but I squeeze a lot of the power from the system from time to time. I just don't want a Pro, too thick and heavy and I prefer fanless.
Click to expand...

Does your gf care? My wife wouldn't. In fact, she prides herself on using old equipment. I don't get it, but there is.

Which for me, would make this a simple question. What do *I* want?

And yeah, I am typing this from my 512 mb 16 gb M2 MacBook Air. So you can see what I would choose. I gave my M1 to my son. People say its an incremental change not worth bothering about, but I am glad I did.
 
G5isAlive said:
Does your gf care? My wife wouldn't. In fact, she prides herself on using old equipment. I don't get it, but there is.

Which for me, would make this a simple question. What do *I* want?

And yeah, I am typing this from my 512 mb 16 gb M2 MacBook Air. So you can see what I would choose. I gave my M1 to my son. People say its an incremental change not worth bothering about, but I am glad I did.
Click to expand...

Yep. I’ll go into specs with wife and watch her eyes glaze over. Then she asks how much. And all of a sudden she’s staring into my soul. More alert than I’ve ever seen. And I’m thinking darn I knew I should’ve lied more about the price.
 
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G5isAlive said:
Does your gf care? My wife wouldn't. In fact, she prides herself on using old equipment. I don't get it, but there is.

Which for me, would make this a simple question. What do *I* want?

And yeah, I am typing this from my 512 mb 16 gb M2 MacBook Air. So you can see what I would choose. I gave my M1 to my son. People say its an incremental change not worth bothering about, but I am glad I did.
Click to expand...
No not really. And she won't notice the difference anyways I think. If I give her my M1 she'll have 16GB RAM, 10-core GPU, 1TB SSD which is more than plenty for whatever she would throw at it. Maybe she would care about the color...

For the M2 is was thinking of a 8core GPU though. As aside from an occasional small video edit or training an machine learning model, I hardly use the GPU and from what I read it gets hotter and drains the battery faster so.
 
Mr West said:
No not really. And she won't notice the difference anyways I think. If I give her my M1 she'll have 16GB RAM, 10-core GPU, 1TB SSD which is more than plenty for whatever she would throw at it. Maybe she would care about the color...

For the M2 is was thinking of a 8core GPU though. As aside from an occasional small video edit or training an machine learning model, I hardly use the GPU and from what I read it gets hotter and drains the battery faster so.
Click to expand...

Be careful about what you 'read.' There are people that like to create issues where none really exist and then over think things. In day to day operation I notice no difference between my m1 and m2 in terms of heat or battery. They both are cool and they both run forever (i.e. all day long on battery under normal use). I do charge my devices every night, so I couldn't tell you if one got down to 45% one to 50%, to me both run great.

Apple silicon is really good at figuring out what it needs to do to get the job done and sips power accordingly. So only when it NEEDS all 10 cores running max will it generate heat and use extra power, and I like having that headroom when I need it (not often). I have seen the videos under artificial conditions that try to set up that this degrades performance, and they try to say worse than the M1, but the reality is no, the M2 does trump the M1, even when it gets hot. Which, btw, never does under normal day to day.

edit: I should add, that while I don't notice a difference between my M1 and M2 day to day in terms of heat or battery, I do enjoy carrying and working on my M2 more. I like the brighter screen, the better sound, and even the more squared off design makes it easier to carry in my opinion.
 
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Mr West said:
Damnit, I was just about to pull the trigger on the M2 :). I would go from 16GB (the max on an M1) to 24GB of RAM though. I'm still conflicted, the M1 is serving me well, but getting another one feels like a waste.

The upgrade might be small, but I squeeze a lot of the power from the system from time to time. I just don't want a Pro, too thick and heavy and I prefer fanless.
Click to expand...

The upgrade can be significant. Nobody has asked you your use case yet… if you fiddle around video editing at all then the fully loaded M2 will outperform your M1 comfortably. The gen-on-gen upgrade from M1 to M2 for ProRes and 24GB of RAM matter there a fair bit. Even without them you’re looking at about 18% CPU and 35% GPU uplift which is above normal for a single silicon generation of the past decade+.

Since we’re fans of anecdotes here, I’ll use me. My MBPro has 32GB of RAM (because it’s more than I require presently but 16GB is insufficient) but I can’t shake the niggle that RAM will be the reason I upgrade my computer before it begins to be noticeably “slow” (when I can tell it’s working but I have to wait on it). My 2014 5K iMac is still operational (32GB as well), however it was replaced as my daily machine when it started to become noticeable to me that it wasn’t as snappy. Nearly 7 years.

Anyhow: get iStat and find out what your RAM and CPU pressure actually is and you can make an informed choice. Or dream of the future and get what your heart wants…
 
leifp said:
The upgrade can be significant. Nobody has asked you your use case yet… if you fiddle around video editing at all then the fully loaded M2 will outperform your M1 comfortably. The gen-on-gen upgrade from M1 to M2 for ProRes and 24GB of RAM matter there a fair bit. Even without them you’re looking at about 18% CPU and 35% GPU uplift which is above normal for a single silicon generation of the past decade+.

Since we’re fans of anecdotes here, I’ll use me. My MBPro has 32GB of RAM (because it’s more than I require presently but 16GB is insufficient) but I can’t shake the niggle that RAM will be the reason I upgrade my computer before it begins to be noticeably “slow” (when I can tell it’s working but I have to wait on it). My 2014 5K iMac is still operational (32GB as well), however it was replaced as my daily machine when it started to become noticeable to me that it wasn’t as snappy. Nearly 7 years.

Anyhow: get iStat and find out what your RAM and CPU pressure actually is and you can make an informed choice. Or dream of the future and get what your heart wants…
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I do often come to the limits of my RAM, so 24 is defintely an upgrade.

My use case is mostly data engineering. However, most of the heavy lifting is on cloud instances, that's one of the reasons why I left the Pro-lineup. For an increasing number of industries, the era of local heavy computing is coming to an end. Nowadays, data science and engineering solutiong almost exclusively run in the clouds, so a light laptop with a good internet connection is all you need.

I don't really edit videos, but I got a new phone and might play a bit with cinematic mode for short family or travel movies to share.
 
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