Have you sold or given away your Apple Silicon Mac because you didn't buy a high enough end (or because you bought too low end) of a configuration?

[bobcomer]

I bought an M1 MBA, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and performance was good most of the time, but when I really pushed it, it got quite warm to the touch and it throttled the speed enough to be noticeable. So it really wasn't resources that were short, but active cooling that I should have known I would need.

So I traded it in on a Mac Studio Max, which I also traded in on a M1 Mini Pro eventually because it had the whine. I think I'm done trading in machines for some time to come as I'm happy with what I have now.

 

[A1423]

I always upgrade the system one level above what I need. So I’ll never run into the issue of not buying enough in anything other than storage. If I end up utilizing it for a different career path I’ll deal with it then.

 

[wegster]

Not the Apple Silicon one (yet?) but that's the history for several of my past MacBook/MBPs.
Even when able to upgrade som parts, chipset limitations still hit, so ran my MBP 15 C2Duo with 2 drives in it and max RAM until RAM and CPU were bottlenecking for work, then a plastic 13" MacBook, also upgraded the drive and maxed RAM to double 'max per Apple' and used it until bottleneck.

My 2015 MBP with 1TB and 16GB unfortunately ran out of both storage and RAM, although the (Intel) CPUs weren't overly impressive in performance jumps across generations, while Apple had nothing (laptops) > 16GB RAM for several years until I bought the 2019 MBP16 2TB 32GB - gave away the prior aforementioned laptops and a few other devices to kids at my wife's school during the COVID shutdowns (school 'claiming' everyone had devices, but no, and no, an ancient phone doesn't work for remote elementary school, sorry..)

I just picked up an M1 Max 64GB 2TB 14" MBP... I didn't need to get rid of the 2019, but I also have a long history of responsibility for purchasing datacenter servers and developer systems, etc., so also buy my own in general 'with some room to spare.' I don't foresee 'needing' to replace my M1 Max MBP anytime soon, and it's on AppleCare for another 2 years. I may kick myself as the GPU cores become more performant on M2/3/4, but short of a 'why not/present to me for big occasion' I'll likely be hanging on to the 14" MBP until 2026, maybe longer (I typically try to get 4 years or so)....but none of these were base machines.

My wife is rocking one of the last Intel MBAs - for her work as a teacher, 8GB and 512GB SSD is fine and she loves it. If she hits a performance bottleneck (unlikely), or storage, it'll have gotten some good use and time out of it bye then so no regrets. (Amusingly, I used to buy her 13" MB Pros, but somehow she had a knack for killing them, both in unusual ways, as in pick it up and it powers off. Thought I had a fix in a frayed internal cable, ran stress tests, used the thing all day long after replacing, no problems - a day later, it's 'dead' again for her, so now - no MBPs, only MBAs for her ).

Note on all of them, they were far from 'immediate' issues - I got the expected time out of all of the systems mentioned and specced them appropriately for their expected use and lifespan with me, or with an upgrade that I knew going into it I'd be doing (when you still could). The upgrade prices are massive profits for Apple (Samsung Pro or WD Black SSD vs similar Apple 'upgrade' at 3-4x the cost, same for RAM) and it hurts, but it's just more motivation to hang onto a properly specced system longer.

 

[boss.king]

Nope, I bought a machine with a bit more ram and storage than the machine it was replacing and have had no issues so far. If anything, my new machine is overkill for my needs, but I plan to run this thing until it dies so that’s not a bad problem to have.

 

[GaryPDX]

USB-C has such a small port and a lot of people use dongles, hubs, etc. which place strain on the port from gravity. I very seldom use the USB-C ports - going more for wireless access, and, of course, I use Magsafe all the time.

If my 2020 M1 had MagSafe, I wouldn't have my delightful 15" MBA. It's only money.

 

[drmeatball]

I did. Mac Studio Ultra M2 w/ 64GB and 1TB internal. Just not enough for me.

Returned the whole thing and built another hackintosh.. Radeon 6950XT, AMD 7950x, 192GB DDR5, 4 4TB (internal) and 3 2TB NVMEs (Thunderbolt enclosures from when I had the studio).

AM5 hacks are fantastic. The 7xxx series CPUs having the missing instructions that made audio and Adobe apps have problems under AM4. Radeon 6950xt benches faster than the 60core GPU in the Studio M2 and the 7950x (non-3d) doesn't have any of the big.LITTLE core nonsense than later Intel CPUs have.

 

[throAU]

Nope, but I gave away my 2020 intel MacBook air (16GB / 1TB) to the GF for that reason. CPU just completely inadequate.

 

[maternidad]

I did. Mac Studio Ultra M2 w/ 64GB and 1TB internal. Just not enough for me.

Returned the whole thing and built another hackintosh.. Radeon 6950XT, AMD 7950x, 192GB DDR5, 4 4TB (internal) and 3 2TB NVMEs (Thunderbolt enclosures from when I had the studio).

AM5 hacks are fantastic. The 7xxx series CPUs having the missing instructions that made audio and Adobe apps have problems under AM4. Radeon 6950xt benches faster than the 60core GPU in the Studio M2 and the 7950x (non-3d) doesn't have any of the big.LITTLE core nonsense than later Intel CPUs have.

I’m curious what your use case is.

 

[streetfunk]

i had to: (this is vs. music making in my case)
very early M1mini. 8GB/512.
Quasi a test buy, while i was on it to buy a good hackintosh.
I had no clue if the M1 would be good. So, i opted for a small one with lesser resale loss, in case.
The 8GB RAM was little, but worked out for me for -my- music making.
512Gb SSD did not work out, based on much plugin installations ( samples go extern).
Switched to M1mini, 16GB / 1TB. (Ofcourse i had to upgrade to 16GB of RAM).

4 Months later the M2/M2pro came out. Some 6 Months earlier than anticipated.
I´m entirely single Core CPU speed dependend for what i´m doing.
So, i switched after just 4-5 months over to a M2pro Mini.
Went small ( again just 16GB RAM) by intention......for lesser resale loss when the M3 comes.
It works out with 16GB. But 32GB would have been "nicer".
Due to lotsa installations of VST plugins is a 1TB SSD now also allready on the shorter side.
Will have to opt up on RAM and SSD on my next buy.

 

[spiderman0616]

I had the original entry level M1 MacBook Air, and bought it specifically to see if Apple Silicon was the real deal. Once I knew it was, I switched up to an M1 MBP.

 

[profH]

I deeply regret buying an M1 Air with only 8GB (the machine itself was a trade in on the last-Gen Intel MBA in the same chassis that I felt very burned by); doing so has led me down a series of poor and not cost-effective purchasing decisions.

Basically, when I discovered a year ago how much more powerful the M1 MBA was than all my pre-existing Intel machines for scientific calcaultions (an iMac Pro and a 16" MBP) I wanted to use it docked with an external monitor as a main home office machine for several more years before buying something new. But, the RAM limitation made this impossible; work + a VM + an external monitor pushed it to sluggishness. Instead of sucking it up and trading it in -again- for another M1 MBA I way overbought (a 16" M1 Pro Max) which is also living in sort of a no man's (amazing docked with an external monitor, but too cumbersome to almost ever use as a laptop). Presently considering an MBA 15" with 16GB to supplement these - which feels exactly like what I wish I'd had to begin with starting all those years ago with the 15" Touch Bar debacle. I generally feel overwhelmed with too many choices, too many computers, and too much $$ lost in depreciation from making purchases that were not a good value per $ for their respective niches in my workflow.

 

[jagolden]

No, I’m good, no regrets.
16” MBP, M2 Max, 2TB, 64g.

 

[6749974]

I once bought a 16" pro M1 with 512GB SSD only, because I though something like 'if I manage storage smartly, the 512 should be sufficient"...... and the upgrade to 1TB was SOOO expensive.
And then the 512GB were not enough or, more precisely, it was a constant struggle to not cross the border, which drove me crazy.
So I finally bit the bullet, sold the 521 model and bought me the hugely expensive 1TB version. It took me a while to 'digest', but the storage extension made my life much easier.

P.S. 'optimize storage' with iCloud was not an option, as I needed all of my data to be backed up in Time Machine and in a cloud based backup service.

SSD write speed slows down as they get full. It’s best not to exceed 75% capacity if writing speeds matter. For this reason I too went with 1TB, but more so because like you I’m tired of “managing” a 512GB drive. It’s so nice no longer worrying about drive space, isn’t it?

 

[6749974]

No, I bought a M2 MacBook Air with 10 GPU, 24GB RAM and 1TB storage to meet a very specific purpose, and it works admirably for that. Zero regrets on that purchase, it was a better choice than I even knew at the time, and I wouldn't change anything about it.

I am overworking the M2 Air far beyond what it really should be doing or what I planned, simply because of how much more powerful it is than my Intel iMac in many ways. But the plan all along has been to eventually replace the iMac with another desktop model. If they come out with a solid big iMac (27"+) that'll be a day 1 purchase for me. If they don't, I'll eventually get a Studio and the Air can return to its original purpose with fewer instances of getting overworked.

We have the same configuration 10/24/1. Love it and wouldn’t go less on specs. 24GB RAM ended up being the perfect amount. I actually had a 32GB M1 Max Mac Studio and returned it in favor of the M2 Air because very few things take advantage of the extra GPU outside of gaming and I don’t need active cooling.

 

[sdfox7]

No, I don’t regret it. I bought a silver M1 MacBook Air with 8GB and 256GB.

I bought it because I wanted to buy an Apple Silicon Mac and take advantage of the Apple Education discount before I finished college. At $799 plus a $150 Apple gift card I think I got an excellent deal!

I have many computers/laptops in the house, but this was my first Apple Silicon experience. Most of what I do is web based and it is more than fast enough for my use case. My 2012 MD101 that I upgraded to 16GB RAM and SSD is still fast!!

 

[OrenLindsey]

I got the 14-inch MacBook Pro M2 Pro with 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD in May. I'm planning to keep it for about 5 years. Got it refurbished for about $2400 iirc.
I upgraded from a 2015 dual-graphics 15-inch MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM. It was very nice but had literally no battery life.

 

[highmayhem]

I got a Day One 14" M1Pro MacBook Pro with 16gb RAM and a 1TB SSD. It continues to serve me very well.

 

[Internaut]

I’ll probably give my late 2020 MacBook Air to a family member. I can manage 8/256 but the base M1 Pro MacBook Pro is far better for me. I had the Air lined up as the perfect office laptop to take to meetings while the corporate Dell was docked. Three years later, there is still no office.

 

[bhall110]

I got a Day one M1 MAX 64gb 4tb spec. Way over kill. Reasons I wont get into I needed the computer day one and that was the only model they had at the store with 4tb of storage.

 

[richmlow]

I deeply regret buying an M1 Air with only 8GB (the machine itself was a trade in on the last-Gen Intel MBA in the same chassis that I felt very burned by); doing so has led me down a series of poor and not cost-effective purchasing decisions.

Basically, when I discovered a year ago how much more powerful the M1 MBA was than all my pre-existing Intel machines for scientific calcaultions (an iMac Pro and a 16" MBP) I wanted to use it docked with an external monitor as a main home office machine for several more years before buying something new. But, the RAM limitation made this impossible; work + a VM + an external monitor pushed it to sluggishness. Instead of sucking it up and trading it in -again- for another M1 MBA I way overbought (a 16" M1 Pro Max) which is also living in sort of a no man's (amazing docked with an external monitor, but too cumbersome to almost ever use as a laptop). Presently considering an MBA 15" with 16GB to supplement these - which feels exactly like what I wish I'd had to begin with starting all those years ago with the 15" Touch Bar debacle. I generally feel overwhelmed with too many choices, too many computers, and too much $$ lost in depreciation from making purchases that were not a good value per $ for their respective niches in my workflow.

Without knowing all the details of your workflow/needs, I'm not sure why you are purchasing Apple laptops / Airs (Apple Silicon) for scientific computing. Laptops will typically throttle under heavy workload. The RAM limitations of Apple Silicon also present a challenge.

I think that you should be looking at a higher-end Mac mini or a Mac Studio with a minimum of 32GB RAM.


richmlow

 

[George Dawes]

It's shame apple charge SO much for ram and ssd and it's non upgradeable , all built in , that's the biggest issue I have with apple silicon tbh

I guess Steve would be proud as it's what he was always aiming for

I went with a Mini M2Po 32gb 12core /19 Gpu/16 , 2tb - total overkill but unfortunately to cover myself in the medium term necessary , managed to buy it over 2 years PayPal so won't notice it too much

 

[drmeatball]

I’m curious what your use case is.

I hate the term (I’m an old fart) but basically content creator. All things multimedia and developery.

Lots of Adobe Suite, Logic, VMs (Briefly experimented with Windows and Linux ARM, seemed fine under Parallels 18).

I also do a lot of game dev stuff with Unity (HDRP) and picking up more and more Unreal Engine.

In the past 128GB was perfect, but I went with 192GB mainly because I could 👍 .

The deal breaker for the studio really was storage. I bought 2 different TB4 Hubs (OWC and CalDigit) and would get constant drive disconnects.

Bypass the Hubs and the external TB drives are fine, but most PC motherboards only have 2 TB ports hence getting a hub.

 

[theorist9]

I hate the term (I’m an old fart) but basically content creator. All things multimedia and developery.

Lots of Adobe Suite, Logic, VMs (Briefly experimented with Windows and Linux ARM, seemed fine under Parallels 18).

I also do a lot of game dev stuff with Unity (HDRP) and picking up more and more Unreal Engine.

In the past 128GB was perfect, but I went with 192GB mainly because I could 👍 .

The deal breaker for the studio really was storage. I bought 2 different TB4 Hubs (OWC and CalDigit) and would get constant drive disconnects.

Bypass the Hubs and the external TB drives are fine, but most PC motherboards only have 2 TB ports hence getting a hub.

As you of course know, your M2 Ultra has 6 x TB4 + HDMI 2.1. Thus I'm just curious: How much are you connecting, such that it's not possible possible to connect all monitors and storage drives directly?

Specifically, your Ultra should accommodate a total of six directly-connected monitors + ext. storage drives (5 TB + HDMI) (those are what you'd want to connect directly), plus a directly-connected TB hub (along with 2 x USB-A) for everything else.

And if that's not sufficient, would that make you a good candidate for the Mac Pro, since then you could instead add internal PCIe-based storage?

Or is the issue that you need to switch between the Ultra and a PC and thus, for convenience, you have all your storage on hubs so you only have one cable to switch instead of several?

 

[mr_jomo]

Not so far: all the hand-me downs have been according to "the plan": 8/256 macBooks taking the kids through high school ('vintage' intels), and a couple of lower-end Mx Airs (one 16/512 for a comp. science major) taking another pair of kids through University.

 

[Lucas!]

Not me ... but my friend did! 😉

He purchased an M2 iMac from Apple and then sought help from Apple Support to transfer data from his 2016 27 inch iMac to the new machine. It was only after about half an hour that the support adviser twigged that nearly 2 TB of data on the old machine wouldn't fit onto the 250 GB SSD on the new computer. My friend sent his new computer back to Apple within the 14 days cooling off period and got his money back.

Now he, like me, is waiting to see if Apple will launch a replacement for the 27 inch iMac.