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Would you still buy M1 MacBook Air or M1 MacBook pro?

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Bubble99

macrumors 65816
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Mar 15, 2015
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Would you still buy M1 MacBook Air or M1 MacBook pro?

Well I don’t think Apple sells the M1 laptops any more, but I think Best Buy still sells M1 MacBook Air and M1 MacBook pro. Would you buy it today?

Would you look for M3 laptop or later this year when M4 laptops come out?
 
Yup.
FYI, my family has two m2 Airs and one M3 Macbook Pro.
But yes, m1 is a very good CPU and any notebook with m1 is great.
 
How long are you planning on keeping it? If you can deal with a few fewer years of OS support, I'd say an M1 Mac can be a heck of a deal. My M1 MBA is still a fantastic machine.
 
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About 6-7 years of new versions of macOS followed by 3-4 years of security updates for the last supported version of macOS.

With Intel machines enthusiasts developed Open Core Legacy Patcher that has enabled installing newer versions of macOS on those machines with newer features working to varying degrees of success.

With all the changes associated with the transition to Apple Silicon, we have no idea whether anyone is willing or even able to develop similar software for the M-series machines.

That said, my M1 machines are more likely to lose current OS support long before they become frustrating to use from a hardware standpoint. For the right price I would not hesitate to buy one, but for an extra $100-$200 I would likely err on the side of a machine that will get a few years more support.
 
Bubble99 said:
How long does Apple support MacBook Air?
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It is reasonable to expect the M1 Air to get the 'new' macOS that comes out in late 2028. And you still got a couple years support after.... 2030+ is when it might show a bit of age.
 
meson said:
With all the changes associated with the transition to Apple Silicon, we have no idea whether anyone is willing or even able to develop similar software for the M-series machines.
Click to expand...

Won't be possible is my understanding from following the discussion around this on the OCLP side
 
I keep waiting and waiting ... still running my i7-8700 + 6600xt Hack, as it does everything I need

Almost bought an M1 Max Studio yesterday but decided last second that I didn't want to sign up for cable spaghetti to get 4k/120hz + external NVMe going.

Maybe an M2 Mini if the right deal comes -- I can't decide

May honestly build another much newer Hack, but the GPU situation has stalled at RX 6xxx sadly
 
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Bubble99 said:
How long does Apple support MacBook Air?
Click to expand...
Typically 5 years after they stop selling the MBA M1. Software updates could be another year or two. But Apple is not obligated to support longer than the official guideline.
 
Bubble99 said:
Would you still buy M1 MacBook Air or M1 MacBook pro?

Well I don’t think Apple sells the M1 laptops any more, but I think Best Buy still sells M1 MacBook Air and M1 MacBook pro. Would you buy it today?

Would you look for M3 laptop or later this year when M4 laptops come out?
Click to expand...
I personally wouldnot buy anything M1, I have M1 max, which will last me for another few years before i upgrade to M6 or may be M5. If you are going to keep the laptop for 5-8 years get an M2/M3 or wait for M4 and get M2 at a discount.
 
For what I do on a computer my current base model M1 MBA 2020 is sufficient for everything I do.. and likely will be for the foreseeable future. Just my opinion, but if the average user's workflow isn't increasing every year then they don't need to upgrade their machine every year.. it's just a waste of money. I'm not buying a new MacBook until either my workflow increases or this machine stops working.
 
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I bought an M1 Pro 16inch MBP recently at $1399 from Best Buy refurbished and am very happy with it. 77 cycle counts and 97% battery health!

Way better than the M2 Air I had for about a year.
 
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JPack said:
No, largely because Apple determines OS support based on product launch date. It’s a four year old product now.
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That's responsible computing though, and from the looks of things, there's a lot more 2012 to 2016 macbooks out there than anyone admits.

In the last month I've talked to two people who didn't even pay attention to it, they asked if the M1 was worth buying still. When I looked at their specs they were using old dual core macbook airs w/ 4gb of ram. On guy was a sysadmin using bootcamp all this time, didn't even realize macbooks were able to be faster than a crawl.

So, I'm not sure the crowd that cross-shops 4 year old tech is going to make the jump to newer stuff, even if they should. Seems like getting them to buy anything at all is a chore unless their machine refuses to do their tasks. (Slowness is apparently invisible to them)
 
Badger.with.hat said:
That's responsible computing though, and from the looks of things, there's a lot more 2012 to 2016 macbooks out there than anyone admits.

In the last month I've talked to two people who didn't even pay attention to it, they asked if the M1 was worth buying still. When I looked at their specs they were using old dual core macbook airs w/ 4gb of ram. On guy was a sysadmin using bootcamp all this time, didn't even realize macbooks were able to be faster than a crawl.
Click to expand...

Because they work just fine still for what many people do with them

Seems like responsible consumer behavior to me

We've got to get away from folks upgrading "just because"
Technology need not be this way -- it's so wasteful
 
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Yes, they're still getting major OS updates for at least a 3-4 more years. I'm spoiled my my M2 MBA's screen, so it might be a bit hard for me to adjust to using a M1 MBA again because of that though. Performance-wise, I compared a lot of my tasks on my M2 compared to my partner's M1 MBA, they're nearly identical.

If you don't care about how your laptop looks, the M1 Air is still a great buy in my opinion. My thoughts go with the M1 mini and MBPs as well.
 
Although I have a new M3 MBA, I still use my M1 Max MBP16 for my heavy work and any FCPX editing. Fantastic machine that hasn't missed a beat. Have no plans to give it up any time soon whatsoever.
 
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Here's another vote for keeping what I've got for as long as I can; 8/256 M1 MBP does everything I ask of it, tempered by a 35 year history of buying older computers. I've learned to adjust my computing habits to the ability of the computer I have at the time. This computer is so much more powerful than anything else I've used, though, memory notwithstanding ...
 
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💯

I’ve got an M3 MBP that I use for ML development, but my M1 MBP is still my go to (mostly because I don’t have time to go through 1k+ tabs and bookmark, though once my LLM is done, I won’t need to 😁). Anyhow, the M1 Max is a beast and should be great for quite a while.
 
turbineseaplane said:
I keep waiting and waiting ... still running my i7-8700 + 6600xt Hack, as it does everything I need

Almost bought an M1 Max Studio yesterday but decided last second that I didn't want to sign up for cable spaghetti to get 4k/120hz + external NVMe going.

Maybe an M2 Mini if the right deal comes -- I can't decide

May honestly build another much newer Hack, but the GPU situation has stalled at RX 6xxx sadly
Click to expand...

I didn't know that Hackintosh was still a thing these days. I used to build them years ago but have since switched to Apple hardware. Are there any limitations with macOS nowadays?
 
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