Wait for APFS before purchase?

Why don’t you just format it and do a clean install when High Sierra comes out? That way you can use it now, and later when you do your format it’ll be just as fresh as if you just bought it.

 

Even if you wait until High Sierra is released, it likely will have Sierra installed and you have to upgrade to 10.13. When I bought my MacBook Pro in 2015, it had 10.10 installed.

 

Just keep an external backup before updating to High Sierra.....I'm not seeing the concern here honestly.

 

No the benefits of a faster computer for a few months far outweigh any perceived upgrade issues (I have just online upgraded without changing a thing for years no worries) Just make sure you have a good copy of the system on a back up drive and you should be all good.

 

Not really - if your concern has to do with reliability, continuing to use HFS+ for a little while isn't a bad call. I plan on using HFS+ for at least a year after APFS is formally released. APFS looks pretty awesome, but like any new release I expect it to take a little while to reach and then exceed the reliability of what it replaces. That's not a shot against Apple - rather, I've just observed this with most software in general. I'm glad Apple is replacing HFS+ - but HFS+ as of 2017 can still easily and reliably meet my needs, so I can wait a little while before switching my main machines to APFS should any issues arise.

Now is a good time to buy. The Kaby Lake MBPs have good improvements over the Skylake versions, and macOS Sierra is running well. When Sierra was first released, it has A LOT of annoyances. Almost all have been resolved. Waiting for High Sierra to be released means you may be stuck with an OS with many of those early-release annoyances and Apple may not give you the option of reverting to the stable final release of the previous OS.

Also, if you do wait for APFS to come from the factory, by then you will probably also be asking yourself whether you should wait for the next MBP revision with the Coffee Lake or Canon Lake or Lake Superior CPU, resulting in an even longer of cycle of waiting all while you could be achieving better productivity by purchasing now.