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I feel like i'm alone to dislike M1/what is it good for (Merged Mega Thread)

Lyndon92

Lyndon92

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 26, 2022
50
66
Hey everyone,

I recently had a M1 Mac Mini, 1TB Storage, 16 gb of RAM. I never had M1 Mac before, just "Classic" Intel Mac. ?

And you know what ? I kept it 2 months, and sold it.

I have a really "mixed" feeling about that M1 chips.

Of course, M1 chips have really very great performances. I was impressed to see a Mac Mini with such perfs.

But there a couple of things i really can't stand with that M1 chips.

1/ Zero upgrade possiblity.

Let's be clear, i always hated that apple decision to solder components, BUT i can admit it gives advantages about performances.
But what i feel is like Apple saying "You won't touch inside our machines. We will do everything possible to make it non-upgradeable. Don't touch our computers. You should pay 2X or 3x times the normal price with our configuration."

Look at the poor Luke Miani who had a hope when he opened his Mac Studio... He tried swapping the modules and got 100% locked by Apple. I could feel hope in his eyes, but reality came back very fast ?

Of course, Apple was never reputed for making upgradeables machines. We all know that Steve Jobs didn't want this.
But at least, most of machines before 2012 could be upgraded with RAM and new Hard drives. I think it was really the minimum Apple could offer to customers. And i'll be honest, i always enjoyed that.
Look at 2020 iMac, memory was still accessible.

In my mind, i really can't stand to be stuck with my machine. I know if i want to change anything in my machine, i have to change the whole machine. And i really feel sad about it.

I feel like : Having a very great machine but being prisoner of it.

2/ Lack of compatibility

Of course, Rosetta is good, and ARM chips are just like the transition from PowerPC to Intel in the mid 2000's. It's totally normal that it lacks of compatibility.
However, i've been so much used to run multiple systems like Linux or Windows, additional to MacOS that it frustrates me a lot.
I won't expand on this topic, i think it's useless.

BTW, i feel very mitigate about M1 Computers, and i feel very alone. Everyone seems to love it so much.
Anyone feeling like me ? ?
 
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L

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,677
I think you summed up two main reasons not to choose a Mac, if one cares about these things, that is. Regarding compatibility: Linux and (most of) Windows run in virtual machine on M1, so if it’s productivity tools you are looking at, there are very few drawbacks here.
 
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steve62388

steve62388

macrumors 68040
Apr 23, 2013
3,100
1,962
It would be nice if things were upgradable, but the fact they can’t be shouldn’t be a surprise anymore. They have been that way for a long time.

The compatibility issue will resolve itself over time. Overall I’ve been quite impressed with how smoothly it’s gone.
 
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Andrea Filippini

Andrea Filippini

macrumors 6502
Jun 27, 2020
394
339
Tuscany, Italy
Lyndon92 said:
Hey everyone,

I recently had a M1 Mac Mini, 1TB Storage, 16 gb of RAM. I never had M1 Mac before, just "Classic" Intel Mac. ?

And you know what ? I kept it 2 months, and sold it.

I have a really "mixed" feeling about that M1 chips.

Of course, M1 chips have really very great performances. I was impressed to see a Mac Mini with such perfs.

But there a couple of things i really can't stand with that M1 chips.

1/ Zero upgrade possiblity.

Let's be clear, i always hated that apple decision to solder components, BUT i can admit it gives advantages about performances.
But what i feel is like Apple saying "You won't touch inside our machines. We will do everything possible to make it non-upgradeable. Don't touch our computers. You should pay 2X or 3x times the normal price with our configuration."

Look at the poor Luke Miani who had a hope when he opened his Mac Studio... He tried swapping the modules and got 100% locked by Apple. I could feel hope in his eyes, but reality came back very fast ?

Of course, Apple was never reputed for making upgradeables machines. We all know that Steve Jobs didn't want this.
But at least, most of machines before 2012 could be upgraded with RAM and new Hard drives. I think it was really the minimum Apple could offer to customers. And i'll be honest, i always enjoyed that.
Look at 2020 iMac, memory was still accessible.

In my mind, i really can't stand to be stuck with my machine. I know if i want to change anything in my machine, i have to change the whole machine. And i really feel sad about it.

I feel like : Having a very great machine but being prisoner of it.

2/ Lack of compatibility

Of course, Rosetta is good, and ARM chips are just like the transition from PowerPC to Intel in the mid 2000's. It's totally normal that it lacks of compatibility.
However, i've been so much used to run multiple systems like Linux or Windows, additional to MacOS that it frustrates me a lot.
I won't expand on this topic, i think it's useless.

BTW, i feel very mitigate about M1 Computers, and i feel very alone. Everyone seems to love it so much.
Anyone feeling like me ? ?
Click to expand...
Your concerns are legitimate.
They're the reasons why I stay on old Intel Macs.
Lack of compatibility I hope will be fixed in a couple of years via OS updates. Anyway now Apple OS runs on proprietary architecture (Silicon) and no more on Intel. Intel can be ugly and bad but it runs on the vast majority of computers so there is more interest to develop apps and compatibility for these computers. Apple users are few, and Apple Silicon users are even less.
About soldered hardware there is not much to do, it's an Apple policy.
At least, anyway, to extend lifespan and guarantee privacy, storage should be accessible by user.
 
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Lihp8270

macrumors 65816
Dec 31, 2016
1,143
1,608
1) You cannot get Low Power RAM modules in any other package. To move away from soldered RAM, they’d need to lose performance and increase power consumption.

2) This was the reason that I sold my M1 MBP, ok my requirements may not have been mainstream, but compatibility affected me. My OH also uses software daily for work that has reported compatibility issues on AS too.

This will come in time, but I can’t wait for it to possibly happen.
 
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C

cthompson94

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2022
812
1,164
SoCal
so it really isn't M1 per say.. it is just the path that Apple has chosen to go the past I don't know how many years? While the lack of upgradeability affect people differently the entry level base line models (what majority will purchase) is not a bad deal at all like the M1 MBA. The change was bound to happen at some point for better or for worst and that's what helps drive our future tech. Sure the lack of being able to swap hardware as the need arises sucks, but that isn't a new thing to us Apple users. ARM has it's benefits and downfalls, but you really couldn't expect everyone to just keep with the same underlying tech for decades.
 
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T

theluggage

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2011
8,012
8,444
...I don't much like the non-upgradability either.

In the case of the RAM, there's a good technical reason - LPDDR (low-power) RAM has to be soldered in (machines from other makers with LPDDR RAM) anyway, and Apple gets a performance advantage by incorporating it into the SoC package. The main "problem" I have is Apple's "hidden extras" wheeze of having a fairly mediocre 8GB RAM in the base spec machines and charging their ridiculous $200-per-8GB upgrade rates.

For SSD, the unavoidable technical limitation is that, with the SSD controller on the SSD, you can't have regular M.2 slots with NVMe or SATA interfaces, so it's always going to need proprietary Flash modules. However, Apple could still provide SSD updates - and they do for the Mac Pro, which has the same technical limitations because the SSD is controlled by the T2 chip. They could do the same for the Mac Studio but, so far, they prefer not to. At least the Mac Studio is repairable - unlike the soldered-in SSD in the Mac Mini. Soldered-in SSD is awful, not because of user upgrades, but because Flash memory does suffer wear (in away that most other solid state electronics doesn't) and really, really needs to be replaceable. OK, the stats say that the typical SSD shouldn't fail during a typical product lifetime - but it could be prematurely aged by a software fault.

However, saying:

Lyndon92 said:
In my mind, i really can't stand to be stuck with my machine. I know if i want to change anything in my machine, i have to change the whole machine.
Click to expand...

...is a bit irrational as reason for dumping a machine that you've bought, without some clue as to exactly what it is you want to upgrade. I don't think that sort of upgradeability is as important today as it was in the 80s/90s, when specs were doubling every 18 months. Even then, I used to assemble my own PCs, and while some things did get upgraded later, that was usually a result of skimping on the original spec - when substantial improvements became available, or you wanted to used new applications, everything was due an upgrade and the shiny new graphics cards needed AGP instead of ISA, or PCI instead of AGP, or PCIe instead of PCI, and the new faster/bigger hard drives needed the next version of IDE, then SATA, the newer processors needed a new motherboard, which needed a different type of RAM... etc. and it made more sense to start over and re-purpose the old machine as a server or something.

Today, progress has slowed down a bit, and a 3-year-old machine is no longer a doorstop fit only for landfill. So, when you do get to the "must have an upgrade" stage, maybe instead of throwing away half the innards of your old machine in the course of an upgrade, it makes more sense to keep/sell/pass on your old machine as something that is still working and useful?

I think the only real "night and day improvement" upgrade I did this century was to replace the HD of my 2011 MBP with a SSD. That was also a zero-waste upgrade because the old HD replaced the optical drive, and the old optical drive went into an external USB enclosure. I'm sure lots of other people did likewise, but, I think that might have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity... (being cynical, since it really did make it feel like a new Mac, that may be why Apple started doubling down on user upgradability...)

Lyndon92 said:
However, i've been so much used to run multiple systems like Linux or Windows, additional to MacOS that it frustrates me a lot.
Click to expand...
Yes, if you need to run other x86 operating systems, M1 is not a good thing for you. Looks like Windows 11 for ARM is a solved problem - but with two big caveats of being unsupported by MS and still relying on emulation/translation to run x86 apps, while Linux on ARM is pretty well supported, and less tied to binary compatibility, - unless you have to work with x86 binaries.
 
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Yebubbleman

Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
May 20, 2010
6,024
2,616
Los Angeles, CA
Lack of upgradability isn't new. It started in MacBook Pros in 2012, and got to the point where it's as bad as it is now in current MacBook Pros in 2016 and then across the entire MacBook range in 2019. It was always bad in all 21.5" Intel iMacs and is functionally no different from a user perspective with the M1 iMac. The Mac mini at least gave you RAM upgradability most recently, but yeah, having a Mac mini with neither upgradable storage nor upgradeable RAM is a bummer.

The lack of Boot Camp or natively (or even virtually) run x86 OSes is a real drawback, especially after being spoiled with the ability to do so for the last 15 years. Though, at least for virtual machines running Windows or Linux based OSes, doing so on non-Apple hardware will cover that need. It's running past x86-only macOS releases (as well as Big Sur, which is a supported OS for x86 virtualization, but not Apple Silicon/arm64 virtualization) that sort of suffers here. Then again, the experience of a macOS VM has never been as good as simply having another native Mac running that version of macOS. It was only in Big Sur that we got any form of 3D acceleration anyway.

So, yeah, there are certainly drawbacks. And, like you, I'm not stoked on them. But, longer term, it's not as big of a deal. And, thankfully, you can still find Apple Certified Refurbished versions of 2020 13" MacBook Pros and 27" iMacs as well as 2019 16" MacBook Pros.
 
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alien3dx

alien3dx

macrumors 68020
Feb 12, 2017
2,193
524
Lyndon92 said:
Hey everyone,

I recently had a M1 Mac Mini, 1TB Storage, 16 gb of RAM. I never had M1 Mac before, just "Classic" Intel Mac. ?

And you know what ? I kept it 2 months, and sold it.

I have a really "mixed" feeling about that M1 chips.

Of course, M1 chips have really very great performances. I was impressed to see a Mac Mini with such perfs.

But there a couple of things i really can't stand with that M1 chips.

1/ Zero upgrade possiblity.

Let's be clear, i always hated that apple decision to solder components, BUT i can admit it gives advantages about performances.
But what i feel is like Apple saying "You won't touch inside our machines. We will do everything possible to make it non-upgradeable. Don't touch our computers. You should pay 2X or 3x times the normal price with our configuration."

Look at the poor Luke Miani who had a hope when he opened his Mac Studio... He tried swapping the modules and got 100% locked by Apple. I could feel hope in his eyes, but reality came back very fast ?

Of course, Apple was never reputed for making upgradeables machines. We all know that Steve Jobs didn't want this.
But at least, most of machines before 2012 could be upgraded with RAM and new Hard drives. I think it was really the minimum Apple could offer to customers. And i'll be honest, i always enjoyed that.
Look at 2020 iMac, memory was still accessible.

In my mind, i really can't stand to be stuck with my machine. I know if i want to change anything in my machine, i have to change the whole machine. And i really feel sad about it.

I feel like : Having a very great machine but being prisoner of it.

2/ Lack of compatibility

Of course, Rosetta is good, and ARM chips are just like the transition from PowerPC to Intel in the mid 2000's. It's totally normal that it lacks of compatibility.
However, i've been so much used to run multiple systems like Linux or Windows, additional to MacOS that it frustrates me a lot.
I won't expand on this topic, i think it's useless.

BTW, i feel very mitigate about M1 Computers, and i feel very alone. Everyone seems to love it so much.
Anyone feeling like me ? ?
Click to expand...
it just a tool for work as 3 year you need to upgrade. Either x86 nor arm m1 . still 3 year depreciation
 
ct2k7

ct2k7

macrumors G3
Aug 29, 2008
8,382
3,439
London
Whilst I have an M1 Mac, I feel my days on the Mac are numbered. The cost of potential upgrades is front loaded and my workload isn’t very predictable at times, moreover, I feel most of the engineer workloads I’m on tend to favour x86 (ARM isn’t that prevalent in HPC workloads and cloud services aren’t in a rush to move to ARM).

I do miss being able to work on the Mac Pro and change things as I needed.
 
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jerryk

macrumors 604
Nov 3, 2011
7,421
4,208
SF Bay Area
Buy an older mini, or if Linux, Windows, and upgradable components are key something like a NUC.

Me I quit trying to upgrade computers. Even my deskside Windows/Linux machine would require a motherboard replacement to get the CPU sockets for the later processors and latest DDR5 memory modules. And of course, my RTX 3070 GPU cards are becoming old school now days.
 
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luke_warm22

macrumors newbie
Mar 8, 2022
6
7
I had a really frustrating time with my m1 iMac at first certain webpages would grind really slow and take ages to load that would open instantly on my older intel Mac. since ive updated to Monterrey though its been rectified
 
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s.g.w

macrumors newbie
Mar 29, 2011
14
25
I would like to perform internal upgrades to my....
TV
Washing machine
Tumble Dryer
Sofa
Coffee Table
Carpet
Floor Lamps
Log burning stove
etc

From being on the side of "This is a PITA" why I can't do my own upgrades.
I am actually getting why Apple are taking the route they are.
 
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Arctic Moose

Arctic Moose

macrumors 68000
Jun 22, 2017
1,599
2,133
Gothenburg, Sweden
Lyndon92 said:
Anyone feeling like me ? ?
Click to expand...
Would it be nice to have the option to upgrade? Sure.

Have I done this many times when it was still an option? Of course.

Would I sacrifice the benefits for the option to still be able to do so? Hell no.

I really don’t understand what the big deal is, you can easily sell your existing computer and buy the “upgrade” you want for minimal loss, in many cases with a smaller difference than what the replacement parts would have cost you. I’ve been “upgrading” computers, phones and iPads this way for years.
 
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