Which M2 Air would you recommend?

[Jamestm]

I’m after some advice as to which M2 Air configuration to buy.

I’m a bit out of the game when it comes to buying MacBooks.

I currently use a mid 2010 Pro of which I upgraded the RAM to 8gb and SSD to 512gb many years ago. It still works fine now for light tasks but it’s definitely slow and often crashes, and I obviously can’t update the OS anymore.

I know don’t need a Pro machine, but I want something that’s going to last at least 5 years - 12 years was way too long!

I don’t really do anything other than a lot of browsing (using safari) with multiple tabs open, and using Microsoft office apps (including big files in access and excel). I don’t do any video editing or gaming.

I have a fairly big Photos library, which is about 200gb, and music which is about 100gb, but with the latter, I’m not so fussed about, as I use Apple Music now.

I was going to go with the base model and use cloud storage for photos and music, but then I was reading about the issues with speed on the 256gb hard drive. I was then thinking about upgrading the RAM to 16gb and SSD to 512gb to future-proof it, but do I really need that for what I intend to do with the machine?

What would you recommend?

Side note, I’m not interested in an M1 air, and I have tried using just an iPad before, and it’s not for me.

 

[dumastudetto]

It sounds like you'll want the 512GB storage. I wouldn't really worry about it from a future-proofing perspective, the extreme use cases that really benefit from faster SSD reads/writes won't really affect you, but if you've been comfortably living within 512GB all this time... I wouldn't go backwards.

16GB RAM is an excellent idea from a future-proofing perspective. There's a lot of RAM-hungry applications these days, especially those using technologies like Electron.

So I think you've already basically picked out what you want.

For your usage, you probably won't need to spend the extra $100 on the 10 core GPU option. So I'd go with the lower cost base 256GB model, up the RAM to 16GB RAM and the storage to 512GB, and then wait for delivery of your wonderful new machine.

 

[satcomer]

I’m after some advice as to which M2 Air configuration to buy.

I’m a bit out of the game when it comes to buying MacBooks.

I currently use a mid 2010 Pro of which I upgraded the RAM to 8gb and SSD to 512gb many years ago. It still works fine now for light tasks but it’s definitely slow and often crashes, and I obviously can’t update the OS anymore.

I know don’t need a Pro machine, but I want something that’s going to last at least 5 years - 12 years was way too long!

I don’t really do anything other than a lot of browsing (using safari) with multiple tabs open, and using Microsoft office apps (including big files in access and excel). I don’t do any video editing or gaming.

I have a fairly big Photos library, which is about 200gb, and music which is about 100gb, but with the latter, I’m not so fussed about, as I use Apple Music now.

I was going to go with the base model and use cloud storage for photos and music, but then I was reading about the issues with speed on the 256gb hard drive. I was then thinking about upgrading the RAM to 16gb and SSD to 512gb to future-proof it, but do I really need that for what I intend to do with the machine?

What would you recommend?

Side note, I’m not interested in an M1 air, and I have tried using just an iPad before, and it’s not for me.

Sounds like you need to invest into a smart NAS soon to save space with pictures and audio/video on that NAS! Then get your M1/2 Mini! this way your don't have worry videos will blown away with new computers!