Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows

[kazmac]

In my experience, having a Windows is somewhat luxury expenditure: because it doesn't hold value so well as Apple products.
For example, i bought $1000 Lenovo and it has some problems with build quality. Luckily i have a return window until january. In case if i wouldn't return it, then i will be "stuck" with a Win laptop - because nobody would be willing to pay me close to $700-1000 for my used laptop. And when finally after 3-5 years I will be ready to replace it with newer model, i will get almost nothing for it.
With Macs your are saving yourself some money when upgrading in the future, because they hold their value well because of the hype around it and of course build quality.

Some validity there sure, but I‘ve had shaky build quality on Macs and iDevices too. They are not built the way they used to be. My family uses Windows machines so I can always sell them cheaper or hand them down.

That said, the Mac Mini set ups mentioned here sound great. Always wanted a Mini, but I’ll wait. The 16gb Mini would be plenty for me Mac-wise now.

 

[maflynn]

In my experience, having a Windows is somewhat luxury expenditure: because it doesn't hold value so well as Apple products.

I run hot and cold on this line of thought. I'm not disagreeing with them holding on value, but we don't buy computers as investment tool to make money off of. We (at least I) buy computers and they depreciate in value as they get used. True Macs depreciate slower, but the fact remains both Macs and PCs the value decreases.

I also don't buy a product with an eye towards re-selling it, but rather wanting to use it up (so to speak). I get what you're saying, you get more when you sell an older Mac, which helps offset the cost of a new Mac


On the other hand, if I use the seeming cadence of upgrade every 2 or 3 years that I seem to see in the MBP forum, I think buying a PC every 2 or 3 years will still come out to be better use of money then a Mac even when you factor in re-selling them and their market values.

 

[JohnnyGo]

SJ analogy still holds true.

If you need to haul cargo, a pickup truck is your best option. If you need to carry people, a minivan will work better. If you need to go fast by yourself, a sports car is always the best option.

Depending on which software (Adobe, games, AR/VR, coding, Office, etc) and which workload someone needs to use, Windows vs MacOS becomes a quantifiable decision.

For general use, however, the decision is not clear cut. One has to factor disposable income, the “status” factor, the casual gaming requirements, etc in order to make the decision.

The fact that Macs could run windows (and you could recently invest in eGPUs to enhance graphics power) made the decision to go the MacBook route easier for some.

Apple Silicon macs will have to sway user the old fashioned Mac way: it has to do all the little things better. Connectivity, browser performance, file management, cloud sync, read/write speeds, launching apps, all have to work better than in Windows computers.

From what I have gathered from reviewers, Apple is in the right path. But neither Microsoft nor Intel are dead. Intel is wounded and needs a quick turnaround to avoid becoming a legacy player.

 

[ctjack]

we don't buy computers as investment tool to make money off of.

I totally agree with you and that is a true statement. I don't consider my laptop purchase as an investment, but rather usual purchase of tool/electronics.
The problem i face is that i bought a 10750H/1660ti configuration with a bad build quality, while i wanted 4800H/2060 setup. So the only thing that saves me now is holiday returns, otherwise the deal would be closed and i am the owner of this laptop.
If everything goes fine with your purchase, it boils down to the 2-3 years (maybe more) of use until it is fully depreciated and you don't care what happens next to the laptop. If it sells for something - you will be pleased for getting a nice "tip". If not, then you can pass it to relatives or just dump it.
But in case you were wrong with your purchase decision, then it will run a little bit extra on Win PC to change your gears rather than on Macs. This problem arises from the fact, that Win laptops are replicable in PC desktops. So the person who is watching my win laptop offer also has an option of going non-portable desktop way, which will leave me with only customers interested in portable laptop. While with Macs, people are interested in Apple product and you can't buy yourself cheaper desktop version of it.

 

[pshufd]

I totally agree with you and that is a true statement. I don't consider my laptop purchase as an investment, but rather usual purchase of tool/electronics.
The problem i face is that i bought a 10750H/1660ti configuration with a bad build quality, while i wanted 4800H/2060 setup. So the only thing that saves me now is holiday returns, otherwise the deal would be closed and i am the owner of this laptop.
If everything goes fine with your purchase, it boils down to the 2-3 years (maybe more) of use until it is fully depreciated and you don't care what happens next to the laptop. If it sells for something - you will be pleased for getting a nice "tip". If not, then you can pass it to relatives or just dump it.
But in case you were wrong with your purchase decision, then it will run a little bit extra on Win PC to change your gears rather than on Macs. This problem arises from the fact, that Win laptops are replicable in PC desktops. So the person who is watching my win laptop offer also has an option of going non-portable desktop way, which will leave me with only customers interested in portable laptop. While with Macs, people are interested in Apple product and you can't buy yourself cheaper desktop version of it.

I consider my i7-10700 desktop an investment tool. During the day, it is running Think or Swim and Active Trader Pro and my other trading tools and I built this to run my trading tools and to run them with a very cool and low-power system. And quiet of course.

My previous system was a 2008 Dell XPS Studio with SSDs and 48 GB of RAM. It actually worked quite well but it ran hot.

I can just change the motherboard and CPU if I want something with more horsepower. Doing your own build is a great way of assuring build quality and quality components.

 

[ctjack]

My previous system was a 2008 Dell XPS Studio with SSDs and 48 GB of RAM. It actually worked quite well but it ran hot.

Those were the golden age for Dell, i still have 2011 XPS 15Z from that time - working fine after 9 years and toddler jumping on it every morning.

I can just change the motherboard and CPU if I want something with more horsepower. Doing your own build is a great way of assuring build quality and quality components.

This is the best option, but only suitable for people with permanent place. Also there is some "magic" in the fact that you can bring your win gaming laptop to your "cabin in the woods" or parents' house.

 

[Jason2000]

Looks like I am back to mixed OS. Borked my iMac by doing an erase and restore (the OS is corrupted) and returned the M1 Air due to Beach Balls, weird internet issues etc. I’ll wait on the M chip Macs, but Apple needs to fix their software. macOS, iOS and iPadOS: Every OS has issues, some severe.

Needed a Windows machine for work, so I went with a Tiger Lake HP Envy. I’ll hold off on gaming machines until I am more comfortable with W10.

So this and the iPad Air will do.


What I want and what I need are two different things right now. So need wins out.

You have more issues with Apple hardware than I have ever seen in my 51 years of being alive. I am just the opposite. I am not sure I have ever had an issue with any Apple hardware I have purchased, and its a lot, including my new M1 Air which is probably the best laptop I have ever used. Apple has hit it out of the park. Anyways good luck with whatever you end up with. You seem to jump around ALOT.

 

[c0ppo]

You have more issues with Apple hardware than I have ever seen in my 51 years of being alive. I am just the opposite. I am not sure I have ever had an issue with any Apple hardware I have purchased, and its a lot, including my new M1 Air which is probably the best laptop I have ever used. Apple has hit it out of the park. Anyways good luck with whatever you end up with. You seem to jump around ALOT.

I had dust under iMac 27 screens. My former iMac 27 5K also had ghosting issues. Also had multiple keyboards failures on MBP 2016-2018. Also had a GPU die on my 2011 MBP 17". In the last ten years, only mac that never had any issues for me was MBP 15" 2014. That machine was given to my niece, and runs great even today (I've replaced the battery two times).

Now, I will probably have issues on PC side as well. But given the premium I pay for Apple, there is no excuse for all those problems. But even with everything I've said above, I probably would have never leave Apple if it weren't for keyboard issues. I tend to use my keyboard. A lot. And since butterfly keyboards came out, my MBP was always in repair shop every 2-3 months. And it would take them about 2 weeks to get it fixed.

That was it for me.

 

[ctjack]

You have more issues with Apple hardware than I have ever seen in my 51 years of being alive. I am just the opposite. I am not sure I have ever had an issue with any Apple hardware I have purchased, and its a lot,

On my iphone se2020 sometimes can not open clock, calculator, camera from the locked screen/home screen. This happens due to OS lags and not hardware malfunction.
My wife's 12 pro max suddenly stopped video recording and quit camera app once it got 3 instagram notifications while shooting. She also mentioned other glitches.
My parents were happily using iphones since 5 and had no problems. So back then they had less software glitches than they do now.
Also youtube has videos about M1 Macs lagging and quitting final cut pro while editing. So the truth is somewhere in the middle.

 

[kazmac]

You have more issues with Apple hardware than I have ever seen in my 51 years of being alive. I am just the opposite. I am not sure I have ever had an issue with any Apple hardware I have purchased, and its a lot, including my new M1 Air which is probably the best laptop I have ever used. Apple has hit it out of the park. Anyways good luck with whatever you end up with. You seem to jump around ALOT.

In the past 3.5 years, yes I have had countless issues with Apple hardware (and, yes, the iPad Air 4 has heat related touch issues now too). My 2020 iPhone SE‘s internet connectivity went south as of September and I occasionally see a white line along the side now. Prior to late 2016, I had few issues.

That said, the HP Envy is hot garbage, unresponsive trackpad and heating up terribly. So back that goes.

I am just trying to find a machine that works.

Enjoy your M1 Air.

 

[pshufd]

Apple has had its problems over the years but most seem to stem from heat issues. I've had at least 8 motherboards replaced due to bad GPUs but that's about it. I've been pretty lucky in picking the model years outside of the GPU issues. I think that the new M-series chips is going to get rid of a lot of Apple's problems going forward.

I do have a minor iMac problem. It appears that there was some condensation on the inside of the glass in a 1/4 inch strip on the left side and it results in a little gray on the edge. I recall seeing the condensation there many years ago. I suppose I could just take the glass off and clean it off - a project if and when I try to replace the HDD with an SSD.

 

[pshufd]

I ordered a 2 TB NVMe drive and it should arrive in a week or two. I'm not sure if I'll just add it to the existing drive (1 TB NVMe + 2 TB SATA3) or it replaces the SATA3. 5 TB SSD is a lot of storage and I've only used one GB of the SATA3 as the NAS. It would be really nice to have a 4 TB NVMe but those are really expensive. I have a bunch of other spare SSDs (2 x 500, 1 x 120) and a bunch of flash drives and I find myself not using them very much with a NAS. About the only time they are useful is when creating a bootable installer.

 

[LiE_]

I really like the MBA, but the base model doesn't have enough memory for me. Plan was to return this one and grab an upgraded 16GB version, but the price starts to creep up and I still need to buy an external monitor.

I'm very fussy when it comes to external monitors, I've tried pretty much all of them, except one. The LG Ultrafine 5K. I've had use of the 27" 5K iMac previously so I know what to expect, I've always been impressed by what it delivers.

So I cannot justify having the upgraded MBA and the 5K monitor. I needed to make a compromise somewhere and being honest, I don't need the portability of the MBA. It will be used statically pretty much exclusively. That naturally lead me to the M1 Mac mini, with 16GB and education discount would cost £808.

The Mac mini BTO won't be here until nearly Xmas and the 5K LG will be here on Wednesday. I'll be using the MBA in clamshell mode until the Mini arrives then return the MBA.

This wouldn't be my flip flop thread without the weekly dose of indecisiveness.

So lets talk about the LG 5K. Lovely monitor, ticks so many boxes. Where I think it lets itself down is in longevity. In the UK it gets a 1 year warranty and LG have a poor reputation for after sales support. This, together with the number of defects this monitor could develop, leave a sour taste in the mouth. I just can't comfortably use the monitor with this hanging over me. A £1200 monitor that may develop issues and isn't backed up by a solid support. You need peace of mind at this price, well, at least I do. It's one of the reasons why I take AppleCare on my products, buy my car direct from the dealer and take extended warranty. I'm not a risk taker with expensive items.

I won't be going the LG 5K route. I still need more screen space but I think I can hold out until later this year. This opens up some options.

A) Keep the base spec MBA that I got for £899 via education discount. Sell it and get the redesigned iMac when that appears.
B) It's a long shot, but Apple may release new monitors. They will be using new panels in the iMacs and mini LED is on the horizon, so the display landscape may be changing in 2021, who knows.
C) Send the MBA back and continue to use my Lenovo as I have been doing for many months.


Undecided at the moment. I don't think I'd lose much on the MBA if I sell inside of 12 months, as I paid education pricing.

Full transparency, I keep looking at shiny PC components. Some seriously nice kit has been released recently. I have to keep reminding myself that I get bored of games way too quickly and seeing pixels on a screen upsets me deeply 😅

 

[kazmac]

This wouldn't be my flip flop thread without the weekly dose of indecisiveness.

So lets talk about the LG 5K. Lovely monitor, ticks so many boxes. Where I think it lets itself down is in longevity. In the UK it gets a 1 year warranty and LG have a poor reputation for after sales support. This, together with the number of defects this monitor could develop, leave a sour taste in the mouth. I just can't comfortably use the monitor with this hanging over me. A £1200 monitor that may develop issues and isn't backed up by a solid support. You need peace of mind at this price, well, at least I do. It's one of the reasons why I take AppleCare on my products, buy my car direct from the dealer and take extended warranty. I'm not a risk taker with expensive items.

I won't be going the LG 5K route. I still need more screen space but I think I can hold out until later this year. This opens up some options.

A) Keep the base spec MBA that I got for £899 via education discount. Sell it and get the redesigned iMac when that appears.
B) It's a long shot, but Apple may release new monitors. They will be using new panels in the iMacs and mini LED is on the horizon, so the display landscape may be changing in 2021, who knows.
C) Send the MBA back and continue to use my Lenovo as I have been doing for many months.


Undecided at the moment. I don't think I'd lose much on the MBA if I sell inside of 12 months, as I paid education pricing.

Full transparency, I keep looking at shiny PC components. Some seriously nice kit has been released recently. I have to keep reminding myself that I get bored of games way too quickly and seeing pixels on a screen upsets me deeply 😅

Suggestion: If you still have the M1 Mac Mini coming then just return the MBA and use the MM and the Lenovo. (((Ye grain of salt advice from your fellow flip flopping femme across the pond.)))

I finally got over my Windows phobia with these latest attempts (both Evo chip laptops that seized in ways similar to my BTO M1 MBA did. So these went back too). Hastened the demise of my iMac though, so I need something now.

Am hoping that Apple release more new hardware this Tuesday. I loved the M1 MBA, but need more horsepower. The M1 low end MBP is not the answer for me.

 

[serpico007]

Welcome to the club. I jump around Linux, Windows and OSX all the time. I don't upgrade annually so that helps. For me, it comes down to hardware and day to day function. Software can always be upgraded and improved, but hardware doesn't change. External peripherals help some what and changing your office layout but that is personal preference. This weekend I rearranged my office and cleaned up both of my desks. Working from home screwed up my feng shui of gaming PC's and personal PC. Haha.

 

[pshufd]

I ran the Late 2009 iMac for a while and it's great but RAM usage keeps creeping up. It had four and used it all and started swapping. I added 8 GB and it crept up and used almost all twelve. So I ordered another 8 to get to 16. The main problem with the Late 2009 iMac and the Core 2 Duo CPU is performance. It's fine for watching YouTube or mp4 videos and doing office stuff but it's not great doing a couple of things at the same time.

So I put a 25 inch Dell QHD display next to it hooked up to my 2015 MacBook Pro 15 (which has six times the CPU power) and I run videos on the iMac with the great display and speakers, and everything else on the MacBook Pro. They are tied together by Synergy so one keyboard and mouse controls both systems seamlessly.

The 2015 MacBook Pro 15 also swaps despite 16 GB of RAM.

The additional RAM should arrive tomorrow.

I would have to buy a thermal sensor cable ($40) if I want to replace the HDD with an SSD. I'm not sure that I need to do this with this setup. This is my entertainment and writing setup. My work setup is on my Windows system. It is amazing how usable ancient Apple equipment is. If one isn't enough, you can set up a KVM cluster for more horsepower.

I am looking at an M1-based Mac and almost pulled the trigger many times. But the shipment dates for 16 GB models holds me back. Apple should have made a lot more of those available in the stores. I am going to wait until I can get something with at least 32 GB of RAM. An M1X with 8 Performance Cores, 32 GB of RAM, and support for 3 4k monitors would blow my Windows PC away. I could run my trading stuff in macOS along with my other office and entertainment stuff.

I have so much old hardware that I can always cobble together something if needed. But this will do for now. It will actually be interesting moving away from Intel. I do not think that I need Intel for anything the way I have my workflow (personal and business) set up right now. I can flow between macOS Intel, AS and Windows Intel.

The news that Microsoft has a Rosetta 2 for Intel running on ARM was really interesting. I think that it will take Microsoft on the order of a couple of years to get a decent WARM offering but that may very well be coming as well.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I ran the Late 2009 iMac for a while and it's great but RAM usage keeps creeping up. It had four and used it all and started swapping. I added 8 GB and it crept up and used almost all twelve. So I ordered another 8 to get to 16. The main problem with the Late 2009 iMac and the Core 2 Duo CPU is performance. It's fine for watching YouTube or mp4 videos and doing office stuff but it's not great doing a couple of things at the same time.

So I put a 25 inch Dell QHD display next to it hooked up to my 2015 MacBook Pro 15 (which has six times the CPU power) and I run videos on the iMac with the great display and speakers, and everything else on the MacBook Pro. They are tied together by Synergy so one keyboard and mouse controls both systems seamlessly.

The 2015 MacBook Pro 15 also swaps despite 16 GB of RAM.

The additional RAM should arrive tomorrow.

I would have to buy a thermal sensor cable ($40) if I want to replace the HDD with an SSD. I'm not sure that I need to do this with this setup. This is my entertainment and writing setup. My work setup is on my Windows system. It is amazing how usable ancient Apple equipment is. If one isn't enough, you can set up a KVM cluster for more horsepower.

I am looking at an M1-based Mac and almost pulled the trigger many times. But the shipment dates for 16 GB models holds me back. Apple should have made a lot more of those available in the stores. I am going to wait until I can get something with at least 32 GB of RAM. An M1X with 8 Performance Cores, 32 GB of RAM, and support for 3 4k monitors would blow my Windows PC away. I could run my trading stuff in macOS along with my other office and entertainment stuff.

I have so much old hardware that I can always cobble together something if needed. But this will do for now. It will actually be interesting moving away from Intel. I do not think that I need Intel for anything the way I have my workflow (personal and business) set up right now. I can flow between macOS Intel, AS and Windows Intel.

The news that Microsoft has a Rosetta 2 for Intel running on ARM was really interesting. I think that it will take Microsoft on the order of a couple of years to get a decent WARM offering but that may very well be coming as well.

Agreed. The lack of ram has also been a huge STOP sign for me as well only because I went from a 2017 MBP (16GB ram) to a 2020 MBP (32 GB of ram) and saw how much of a difference it made. I'm a little special because I run W10 instances in Parallels so ... It's nice not seeing my SSD thrashed with Terabytes of writes every week (32 GB vs 16 GB). I have almost 0 swap going on.

Due to the fact that I also have a 2020 MBP - I'll probably wait for the M2 or M3. Running Windows is, for now a must for me.

Agreed on Microsoft taking a few years. That's what I'm going to wait for as well.

 

[pshufd]

Agreed. The lack of ram has also been a huge STOP sign for me as well only because I went from a 2017 MBP (16GB ram) to a 2020 MBP (32 GB of ram) and saw how much of a difference it made. I'm a little special because I run W10 instances in Parallels so ... It's nice not seeing my SSD thrashed with Terabytes of writes every week (32 GB vs 16 GB). I have almost 0 swap going on.

Due to the fact that I also have a 2020 MBP - I'll probably wait for the M2 or M3. Running Windows is, for now a must for me.

Agreed on Microsoft taking a few years. That's what I'm going to wait for as well.

I run a macOS VM (16 GB) and a Windows 10 VM (8 GB) and having 64 GB makes that easy. The extra RAM give you a lot of extra flexibility. If Microsoft gets WARM running along with their version of Rosetta. Then it may be possible to run a WARM VM that also runs Windows 10 Intel programs. I will use Crossover for now for my one issue. If it doesn't run on Crossover on AS, then I would have to continue running it on Windows 10.

What to do with all of this other hardware though?

 

[lcseds]

I picked up an M1 MB Air 16GB and 1TB SSD. Oh my this thing takes a lot of my complaints away. Runs wonderful with no fans. Super light. Stays cool even when Youtube videos are running. A 15" would be the ultimate for me. Good comeback for Apple here.

 

[pshufd]

Just saw the specs of the Core i9-11900k: 8 cores, 250 Watts TDP.

I don't need to know the performance numbers. This is pretty pathetic from Intel.

 

[ctjack]

I am the true flip-flopper at the moment. Going to return my 17 inch win laptop and buy m1 Air with external display, because i can not tolerate retina screen for work.

 

[LiE_]

I’m currently on an M1 MBA, went with the absolute base model to see if it would work but for me I need more memory. So while I still have this I have 8/8 16/512 on the way, I will then return this base spec.

Its so good having a completely silent machine. I want to eventually add an external display, ideally the 5K LG Ultrafine but it’s not cheap.

Fully back in Apple ecosystem now. It feels so right.

View attachment 1681185

Is that office or home. Do you like the black background or would a picture be nice?

I feel that we should have a third category now: Windows, macOS Intel and macOS ARM as Intel and ARM are quite different right now.

I did it, I put up a frame. I think the saying needs no explaining considering this thread 😁

Also a nice contrast in this photo to how the office looks in "night mode" 😉

 

[maflynn]

Also a nice contrast in this photo to how the office looks in "night mode" 😉

Nice setup.

My eyes are too old for me to work off of my laptop full time. I need a large display, but your setup is really nice.

 

[LiE_]

Nice setup.

My eyes are too old for me to work off of my laptop full time. I need a large display, but your setup is really nice.

Thanks!

The M1 MBA is just a stop gap until we get refreshed iMacs. I did toy with the idea of getting an M1 Mac Mini and 5K Ultrafine but just not convinced spending nearly £1200 on a monitor with 1 year warranty, from LG who have poor after sales.

 

[pshufd]

Thanks!

The M1 MBA is just a stop gap until we get refreshed iMacs. I did toy with the idea of getting an M1 Mac Mini and 5K Ultrafine but just not convinced spending nearly £1200 on a monitor with 1 year warranty, from LG who have poor after sales.

I have all Dell monitors and am quite happy with them. I have 3x4k at 27 inches and 3xQHD at 27 inches. They make rock-solid products. I don't know what their pricing is compared to LG.