Air or 14" Pro or stay as I am? A little advice/help welcome

[cjbryce]

Long-time MacBook Pro user, currently own a both a late-2013 i7 and mid-2014 i7, both quad core, 16Gb RAM and 15" screens. I have a home office set up with an external HD webcam, speakers, 4K UHD USB-C monitor and a Magic Keyboard and Mouse.

I do not game, or edit videos or compile code. I don't often even watch videos/use the TV app as I have Apple TV for that.

My work is usually Zoom/Teams, Safari/FireFox and mostly MS Office where even the documents I work on aren't particularly large and in any given Excel workbook there's rarely more than 5-10 sheets with barely any macros.

I'm not often on the road and I'm ok with dongles for when I need them, but I am lazy about carting stuff around (I have an iPad Pro, and that actually works well for me when on the go).

Since Big Sur is (effectively) the end of the road for my laptops, I'm debating whether I should now invest in either

MacBook Pro 14" base spec 16Gb/512Gb or​

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M1 MacBook Air 8Gb/512Gb or​

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M1 Mac mini 8Gb/512Gb (although I do have a preference for a laptop but could keep the 2014 for that I suppose)​

The price difference of £899->£1249->£1899 is not insubstantial!

 

[elvisimprsntr]

My upgrade cycle is when Apple stops supporting with new OS updates. I traded in my '14 MBP ($230 USD) back in June to bring down the cost of a '20 M1 MBP. Bought on Amazon Prime Day which lowered cost even more. Restored the new M1 MBP from a TM backup worked flawlessly.

A M1 Pro/Max might be overkill for your use case, but if you have spare coins, go for it.

 

[mmkerc]

Unless you have a burning desire or need for Monterey I would not upgrade at this time. I would wait until the next iteration of Mac laptops come out presumably the end of next year. I upgraded my 2013 Mac Pro (trashcan) to an M1 Mini and am very happy with it, but I am delaying upgrading my 2013 Air as I think they are still working out configuration issues. Biggest one for accessories and connections, I do not want to carry around a hub with my laptop but when I am working from home like to plug into dual 32" monitors and different peripheral devices.

That said, given your uses I would be looking at the Air or 14" MacBook Pro. Likely overkill for you but because you cannot upgrade later I would bump the ram to 16GB, and if still have spending money the hard drive to 1TB. Like I said I prefer not to carry additional hubs or drives with a laptop.

 

[Spock]

Seems a new MacBook Air or its replacement is on the horizon, I would hold off as long as you can. I use my computer for about the same thing as you and my M1 MacBook Air is one of those rare times in all my years using the Mac where my day to days tasks seem noticeably faster. The last time is when I went from an 366 MHz iBook G3 to a 1 GHz PowerBook G4. I love my MacBook Air and it is only going to get better.

 

[cjbryce]

Well, the outcome is that, for once, I'm using my sensible head and I'm keeping the MacBook Pros for the very occasional on-the-road use and I've ordered an M1 Mac Mini 8Gb/512Gb for home office use because

a) it was on offer at £849 at Currys/PC World and
b) I get a further 7.5% discount at that store
c) I can't be bothered with all the bloody leads to my MacBook Pro and my monitor has a USB-C hub built-in

 

[mmkerc]

I think you will be pleased with the M1 Mini. Depending on the number of accessories you have you should think about getting a Thunderbolt hub. I have Belkin's, and OWC hubs both have worked well (I have a ton of crap connected). I have heard the CalDigit is also a good hub.

 

[cjbryce]

I think you will be pleased with the M1 Mini. Depending on the number of accessories you have you should think about getting a Thunderbolt hub. I have Belkin's, and OWC hubs both have worked well (I have a ton of crap connected). I have heard the CalDigit is also a good hub.

Thanks.

I'll see how I get on with the hub in the monitor. TBH the only other accessories are a webcam and an SSD, so hopefully I'll not really need a proper hub.

A bit different to using the MacBook which I have to plug into monitor, webcam, power, external SSD. I'm hoping the fixed Mac Mini - fixed power of course - will just be USB-C into the monitor and the webcam and external SSD can hang off the back of that (literally). Otherwise you're right a Thunderbolt hub is next.