Undecided what Mac as a replacement

[smallzoo]

I currently have an early 2015 MacBook Pro 13" which has been brilliant.

I am a developer so dont use it for very intense tasks such as graphics

Sadly the screen has just decided to break. I have had a quote from a UK Mac company for £540 to fix it which is probably only what the MacBook is worth !

So, looking for an updated laptop ideally under £900. The same company has suggested the following

MacBook Pro 15" 2018 Touch Bar
CPU 2.2 Ghz Intel i7, 16 GB, 256 GB SSD (fast drive)
Cost £ 905

Apple MacBook Pro Retina 13 Inch
Intel Core i5 2.30 GHz (2017),16GB ,256GB Flash SSD
Cost £ 795

Apple MacBook Pro Retina 13 Inch
Intel Core i5 2.00 GHz (2016),8GB 256GB Flash SSD
Cost £ 645

But I have also been told to take a look at the 2020 MacBook Air

e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08N5N1WBH/


Also...should I be looking at a 15" to give me more visible workspace for development


Any views ?

Thanks

 

[heifetz7]

if you have a choice, why not get a 2020 air with an external monitor?

 

[clevins]

2020 M1 Air. More powerful than the others, great battery life, beats the hell out of your 3rd option - I just upgraded from that 2016 version to the Air and it's not even close.

 

[smallzoo]

Thanks a lot

I presume they dont do a 15" so that at least solves that choice !

Is there anyone spec with the air I should lean towards ?

 

[clevins]

I have an 8/512 Air that I grabbed on the refurbished store (https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/mac-mini-macbook-air). But I knew I might upgrade to the redesigned Air if it comes out this year, so....

If you're planning to keep it awhile I'd get 16G RAM and whatever SSD you need. I only had about 240g of stuff to store, so the 512 was fine.

There's not any option to choose clock rate etc on t he M1. You can choose 8CPU/8GPU to 8/7. I went 8/8 just because.

PS: NOTE NOTE NOTE: The Air only supports a single external screen. Make sure you're ok with that.

 

[TechRunner]

Get the Air. The others are saddled with that "wonderful" keyboard.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

 

[ian87w]

I currently have an early 2015 MacBook Pro 13" which has been brilliant.

I am a developer so dont use it for very intense tasks such as graphics

Sadly the screen has just decided to break. I have had a quote from a UK Mac company for £540 to fix it which is probably only what the MacBook is worth !

So, looking for an updated laptop ideally under £900. The same company has suggested the following

MacBook Pro 15" 2018 Touch Bar
CPU 2.2 Ghz Intel i7, 16 GB, 256 GB SSD (fast drive)
Cost £ 905

Apple MacBook Pro Retina 13 Inch
Intel Core i5 2.30 GHz (2017),16GB ,256GB Flash SSD
Cost £ 795

Apple MacBook Pro Retina 13 Inch
Intel Core i5 2.00 GHz (2016),8GB 256GB Flash SSD
Cost £ 645

But I have also been told to take a look at the 2020 MacBook Air

e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08N5N1WBH/


Also...should I be looking at a 15" to give me more visible workspace for development


Any views ?

Thanks

Unless you must have intel CPU, go with the 2020 M1 Air, and get an external monitor if you need more desktop space. Buying an intel mac at this point in time is not really recommended unless you must have intel (eg to run native x86 Windows).

 

[Jack Neill]

I would steer clear of anything with a butterfly.

 

[smallzoo]

I run parallels on my MacBook Pro ( early 2015 ). Can I still run parallels on the 2020 M1 Air ?

 

[ian87w]

I run parallels on my MacBook Pro ( early 2015 ). Can I still run parallels on the 2020 M1 Air ?

Okay, get an intel macbook then.
Parallels works on Apple Silicon, but then you need Windows on ARM, which is only available as Insider Preview, I believe. So if you have things to do with Windows, get intel. Easier and less compatibility problems.

 

[smallzoo]

Its ok. Just checked Parallels is supported for the M1 chip
thanks

 

[ian87w]

Its ok. Just checked Parallels is supported for the M1 chip
thanks

It does, but you still need Windows on ARM. You cannot use regular Windows.

 

[Fishrrman]

Fishrrman's rules for used MacBook buying:

DO NOT BUY:
MacBook Pro 13" -- 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
MacBook Pro 15" -- 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
ALL of these have the disastrous "butterfly keyboards" that are highly-prone to failure. Although Apple has a free replacement program running for 4 years "from new", when that time expires YOU will pay for the repair.
And it's NOT CHEAP -- $750 for even a single key gone bad.
That's because the entire top case has to be replaced... even for a single key failure!

DO BUY:
MacBook Pro 13" -- 2020
MacBook Pro 16" -- 2019 and later.
These have the new "magic" (scissors) keyboards, as did the 2015 and earlier MBPs. These keyboards have been very reliable.

 

[smallzoo]

Thanks for that

Is the MacBook Pro 13" 2020 that much better than the MacBook Air of the same year ?

Its about £2-300 more and as I said I dont do graphics design or intensive apps , just coding

 

[clevins]

Thanks for that

Is the MacBook Pro 13" 2020 that much better than the MacBook Air of the same year ?

Its about £2-300 more and as I said I dont do graphics design or intensive apps , just coding

No, it's not. But as others have said, you CANNOT run x86 Windows under M1 Parallels. You can run ARM Windows, but not every app works well under that. If you MUST run Windows apps and see that as a requirement for the future, I'd get a separate Windows machine.

Put another way, I'd buy the 2020 Air and apply the money you would have spent getting the 13" Pro to a Windows box if you need Windows.You might also want to wait and see if they announce a revision to the Air which is supposed to hit this year, but that depends on how long you can live with your current setup.

If you DO anticipate running a VM on the Air, get 16g RAM, NOT 8.

PS: The entry level Pro can, I think, support 2 external screens whereas the Air can only support 1. So, while the two machines are pretty similar from a performance POV, that might be an issue that sways you. Or not.

 

[wys]

I definitely agree that the "best" course of action is to just get the 2020 M1 MBA and if you absolutely must have Windows then get a separate machine for it. If it doesn't have to be beefy and doesn't have to be a Mac you have a plethora of options, especially something like an Intel NUC used from eBay would only run a hundred or two dollars