Dear MacRumors members,
I love reading the forums and, from time to time, I find myself coming to you with questions too. I've been the happy owner of a 2020 13" MBA M1 8/512 for a bit over a year now and I can truly say that this machine is fantastic. I'm a university student, almost an alumni now, as I'm writing my thesis at the moment and will be starting working next March. I used to own a 2018 13" MBP 16/512 and, before that, I had a 2016 15" MBP 16/256. I truly disliked the butterfly keyboard and had so many issues with it (went twice to the Apple Store to fix the keyboard because of dust blocking keys), hence why I sold both models for the same reasons. Although the 15" MBP that I bought orginally when it came out in 2016, was also a bit too big for me as a student.
My current MBA is brilliant as I said, but I wish I had gone with more RAM. I could get my hands on the 8/512 version last year for a very decent price and I did not need the 16GB of RAM because I was traveling much and I was away from external monitors. Now that I am back home and frequently connecting it to my 32" 4K display while using many applications simultaneously (photo editing, Office suite, playing music,...), the "Swap Used" is frequently very high because of the lack of RAM. MacOS rarely asks me to close apps due to the lack of memory (that's also a good thing about having a large SSD, plenty of Swap available) but the computer is not as snappy as I would like it to be.
Someone from my family needs to replace her ageing MBA in the upcoming months and maybe this is the opportunity to sell mine to her and get a new one with more capability.
Thanks a lot!
I love reading the forums and, from time to time, I find myself coming to you with questions too. I've been the happy owner of a 2020 13" MBA M1 8/512 for a bit over a year now and I can truly say that this machine is fantastic. I'm a university student, almost an alumni now, as I'm writing my thesis at the moment and will be starting working next March. I used to own a 2018 13" MBP 16/512 and, before that, I had a 2016 15" MBP 16/256. I truly disliked the butterfly keyboard and had so many issues with it (went twice to the Apple Store to fix the keyboard because of dust blocking keys), hence why I sold both models for the same reasons. Although the 15" MBP that I bought orginally when it came out in 2016, was also a bit too big for me as a student.
My current MBA is brilliant as I said, but I wish I had gone with more RAM. I could get my hands on the 8/512 version last year for a very decent price and I did not need the 16GB of RAM because I was traveling much and I was away from external monitors. Now that I am back home and frequently connecting it to my 32" 4K display while using many applications simultaneously (photo editing, Office suite, playing music,...), the "Swap Used" is frequently very high because of the lack of RAM. MacOS rarely asks me to close apps due to the lack of memory (that's also a good thing about having a large SSD, plenty of Swap available) but the computer is not as snappy as I would like it to be.
Someone from my family needs to replace her ageing MBA in the upcoming months and maybe this is the opportunity to sell mine to her and get a new one with more capability.
- I immediately thought the MBP 14" would be a perfect candidate here with plenty of ports, 16GB of RAM as standard and great prices as low as €1900 even in Europe. I sometimes also would like my MBA to be a bit bigger to have two apps side-by-side and still be comfortable, is it the case with the extra inch?
- This is why I'm also lurking on the MBP 16" which seems to have a bigger battery life too. But would it be portable enough? I like being able to plug/unplug my MBA from my desk to my bed for instance. However, I guess I'll be less on the move than now when I start working next year because I'll have my work laptop with me during the office hours.
- The MBA M2 seems also to be a good candidate. However, I found its price a bit expensive and the 16GB RAM version is rarely available outside of the Apple official website.
- This might sound overwhelming, but there is also the option of adding another machine to my current setup (so keeping the MBA) and buying a Mac Studio which is a bit overkill now but will provide me with plenty of power for the years to come and also have the ability to become my home server/NAS, with the ability to stream files (videos especially on Plex/Infuse) remotely. But maybe keeping two machines is redundant and time-consuming.
- A quick comment on my iPad. I own the 2017 10.5" iPad Pro and although I use it for writing with the Apple Pencil and watching videos, I don't think I'll ever switch to the iPad for my laptop needs. Prices for the newer Pro models are so close to the MBA prices and it's a true struggle to rely on the Files, MS mobile Office, Mail,... apps. I see it with plenty of uni students, including my friends using it as a daily driver, and I'm convinced it's not efficient for me.
- As for my work computer, I'll receive a Windows laptop from my employer (Lenovo Thinkpad) but I won't upload personal files on it because I like everything to be siloed between my personal and work lives (at least that's my current reasoning).
Thanks a lot!
