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Exclusively buying base models seems to be the best course of action.
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agree....that sentiment not often found here...16gb seems to be enough for most appsVery surprisedWhat was your scenarios of usage?
The only regret I have in buying the base spec 2018 I did is the paltry storage. Beyond that, it would have been wasted money to buy anything else for my use.
There are absolutely use cases where buying more is possibly worth it to the individual however, with the price of Apple's upgrades it's a bit rarer.
There are absolutely use cases where buying more is possibly worth it to the individual however, with the price of Apple's upgrades it's a bit rarer.
A variety of factors come into play. I bought the base 14 inch macbook pro and performance wise it is great but the storage of 512gb is not going to work for me.
The cheaper option is to custom build a base model and up the storage. The problem is shipping times are a month out and the upgraded stock model is available now for pickup. I will pay for the bump in CPU and GPU and a 1tb SSd and 96 watt charge even if I dont really need the higher CPU performance so I can get the machine a month earlier.
The cheaper option is to custom build a base model and up the storage. The problem is shipping times are a month out and the upgraded stock model is available now for pickup. I will pay for the bump in CPU and GPU and a 1tb SSd and 96 watt charge even if I dont really need the higher CPU performance so I can get the machine a month earlier.
The idea sounds good but is this still a good strategy given that Apple changed the game by punishing those who buy the base model with slower SSD which performs worse than that of the corresponding previous generation. If trade-in with Apple 2-3 years later, I wonder if we lose more money buying the base models vs. the next step-up model with a faster SSD.
I think this reeeally depends on the specifics. I bought an M1 Air a couple years ago and got the base model because, at the time, my use case was writing, web stuff, email, etc. My usage changed, though, and now it's an issue.
My graphic design work started ramping up and I got a steady gig doing it. While I have an iMac to do that work, I still found myself using that Air for design when I travelled (the job being remote, I can often do this). Now that 256 GB SSD is turning into a liability as it quickly fills up with large documents. I have resorted to keeping a flash drive plugged in when I'm working, which is a massive PITA. The 8GB of RAM has not actually been a huge issue, from what I can tell.
My graphic design work started ramping up and I got a steady gig doing it. While I have an iMac to do that work, I still found myself using that Air for design when I travelled (the job being remote, I can often do this). Now that 256 GB SSD is turning into a liability as it quickly fills up with large documents. I have resorted to keeping a flash drive plugged in when I'm working, which is a massive PITA. The 8GB of RAM has not actually been a huge issue, from what I can tell.
Yep, that is one strategy all right that apparently fits your use case. Others pride themselves on keeping machines for 8 years considering themselves thrifty. And some of us have other ways of using our time than fretting over such minutia, life is short. Get the specced up machine and move on without worry. Call me a moron if you want, but yeah its my money to spend as I want, and I want to be able to use my computer in ways I can't even predict now without worrying.
I think buying two machines to 'test drive them' with the intent to return one is sketchy. Bottom line is, sure, Apple allows that, but it costs Apple and what costs Apple is passed on to all of us. So I am subsidizing your right to test drive without you doing the work of reading reviews that say the same thing so you could have just settled on the one beforehand. Guess that does make me a moron lol.
I think buying two machines to 'test drive them' with the intent to return one is sketchy. Bottom line is, sure, Apple allows that, but it costs Apple and what costs Apple is passed on to all of us. So I am subsidizing your right to test drive without you doing the work of reading reviews that say the same thing so you could have just settled on the one beforehand. Guess that does make me a moron lol.
I agree. I am still using a 2014” 15 MacBook Pro 8 years later, not to be thrifty but because it simply just worked. It’s done really well but I honestly should’ve upgraded in 2021 because of the lack of updates, battery, etc. I’m still using it and I’ve pushed it hard.
I keep going back and forth with getting something like a base model air and running it for 2 years and getting something else, or getting a pro and holding for another 8 years. The middle ground is where I have a hard time making a decision on what to get because I know that’s the sweet spot. Keep for 3-4 years and then sell. The question for me comes down to my needs and if a base spec (even an air) will suffice or will I be bottlenecked in a year or two. It seems the math is better on even a 14” pro. Though I would prefer the 16” screen. My most taxing thing is some light video editing which even an air can handle. But my needs change from time to time. When I first got this 2014 pro, I was doing a lot of video editing and design work for my businesses. Now I do less and have mostly others doing it for me. But I still do some here and there. Everything else I do can be easily handled by any base mac. I’m just too indecisive about this because I want to get it “right” even though there’s no such thing.
The MBP base configs still have fast drives, even at "only" 3 GB/sec. It is slower than the previous M1 at 5 GB/sec. But many will not even notice since one the app is loaded and running the remainder of execution is faster. The only caveat However, if a 1/2 sec or so slower loading an app bothers someone, they can go from 512GB to 1 TB for $200.
For the MBP 16" base config, do I need to be concerned about swap/page related issue?
I don’t have enough experience with Silicon Mac. In Intel Mac Era, I only bought 16GB-1TB models for over ten years.
This M2 MBP may be just a stepping stone until the 3mm M3 arrival. If the current model had a 3mm M3 chip, I would just go for 1TB.
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I believe the 14 and 16 M2 both have the single drive module which causes the slower speed. When you go to 1TB there are 2 modules.
When upgraded to the M1 MacBook Pro in 2020, I went with the base model, but upgraded the storage to 512 GBs. With Windows 11 now officially available this changes my perspective about the specifications I go with in the future. I am likely to go with the base model Max model of the MacBook Pro.