When to upgrade from Intel to Apple Silicon?

[Chomp81]

On April 2020, I bought a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), which works amazingly well and I love, controversial opinion, I love the Touch Bar.

With the launch of Monterey, and having features that Intel Mac Won't Support; when would be the best time to make the upgrade? Now, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years?

Today I could get ~£800 for my MacBook to put for a new one. It'll depreciate faster now; but is a hefty price to pay...

 

[mcnallym]

Upgrade when there is something that need to do that your current box cannot do. Whilst these features maybe nice, does the lack of them stop your workflow.

I kept my 2009 mini till 2018 as did the job but lack of os support and figured time to update.

I plan to migrate to a new M1 Pro/Max mini when out so can consolidate from mini and video editing hack to 1 machine.

 

[matram]

I bought my 2019 16” at launch. I will likely wait for the second generation.

If you have not hit a performace bottle neck on your old machine why upgrade now. May be better to wait and see.

 

[EugW]

If you are one of the minority that loves the Touch Bar and the machine works perfectly for you, then it makes no sense to upgrade at this time. If I had to vote, I'd say upgrade in 5 years or when the computer breaks, whichever comes first. Your 2019 Intel Mac will still be supported in 2026, at least with security updates. Or if you like to always have the latest OS, then upgrade when Apple stops giving you that, perhaps in 2025ish.

It's lame that Apple is artificially limiting support for some small features in Monterey on Intel Macs, but when you look through the list of features, they're pretty inconsequential for most people. They fall into the Who Cares? category for me. For my primary machine, I'm sticking with my 2017 iMac for the foreseeable future. For my secondary machine I may upgrade in 2022, but that's because it's a 2007 (!) Mac Pro stuck on 10.11 El Capitan.

 

[Bob_DM]

I went last year for the M1 mini 16 Gig Ram to replace iMac 2011 base (geüpgraded with SSD and 32 Gig RAM) mainly because stuck at High Sierra.
It’s definitely faster for Photoshop, Lightroom and most for InDesign. But the iMac is still useable …