Would I be insane to replace a 1-year-old Intel MBA to get M1?

[MacRazySwe]

I upgraded from the 2018 to the M1 MBA.

People on the forums weren’t joking, it’s a sensational leap. I’m not a power user by any means, but the way this thing opens apps and the general response time is really something else. Then there is the battery life. I’ve used mine for three days without charging (light user, like I said). The keyboard is also better, although I never had any trouble with the butterfly keys.

I’ve yet to manage to sell my old one, which would usually give me buyers remorse, but in this case I just don’t care. The experience from using the new one is totally worth it!

 

[srbNYC]

Sounds so good. Was the Migration process easy?

 

[ADGrant]

Just do it. You currently have a computer that in a year will be worth half what you can get for it now. And you will have a brand new machine that will last a very long time and not have that annoying fan issue.

I disagree with the resale argument. I would upgrade because the MBA with the butterfly keyboard wasn't a particularly good machine to begin with. It has that lousy keyboard, an incredible bad cooling system (the fan is not connected to the heatsink) and a really slow Intel CPU.

If the OP had a higher end Intel MBP with the magic keyboard I think it might be a tougher question. I think there will be a market for the Intel 16" MBP for a while but there is no reason for anyone to buy an Intel MBA at this point.

 

[pldelisle]

Does migration work seamlessly even with the Intel-to-M1 change?

I don’t like migration. I prefer to move my data myself and always start from a clean OS install. It avoids a lot of problems.

 

[srbNYC]

I'm pretty Mac fluent, but I think that may be sophisticated for me.

 

[redcaptrickster]

I don’t like migration. I prefer to move my data myself and always start from a clean OS install. It avoids a lot of problems.

I'm the same. I really don't want to carry forward my bad behavior (installing/uninstalling crappy apps) in my Library folder to each new MacBook I purchase. If I need something, I manually move it before wiping the machine.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Don't migrate - start totally fresh on an ASi machine

 

[KShopper]

I migrated from my 2020 MBA to my M1 MBA. I had done a clean install to my 2020 MBA earlier this year, however.
No issues, was up and running in like 15 mins.

 

[srbNYC]

Doing it manually scares me. Afraid I’ll forget something and then wipe machine to sell it

 

[1240766]

I have an almost-year-old MBA (Retina, 13-inch, 2019) with a 1.6 GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB of RAM and 512 GB storage, and I'm happy with it.

And, yet, all the talk about the amazing speed and battery of the M1 MBAs has me tempted. I could get $540 in an Apple Gift Card for my trade-in (to use for my current Apple TV subscriptions), and pay no sales tax with my B&H credit card. I'm eyeing the 16GB RAM/512GB MBA for $1698 (with AppleCare).

I'm so tempted, I but I also think it would be insane to swap out such a new machine that's behaving well. Can anyone help save me?

Why would that be insane?

You only die once, you live everyday....if you want to get thee new Mac and you can do without hurting your finances and/or taking alway from your family then by all means do it!

 

[turbineseaplane]

Doing it manually scares me. Afraid I’ll forget something and then wipe machine to sell it

?
You should **always** have a full backup (if not two) of your machine, particularly if getting rid of it.

 

[drsox]

Just £1? Sounds like a bargain. I haven't sold an item on eBay in a long time, but I remember there used to be an eBay item sale fee + a PayPal fee. Is there no longer a PayPal fee?

Yes, +3% for PayPal.

 

[dukebound85]

yes. it is most definitely a want vs need. however its your money

 

[pmiles]

If you can afford to buy the next generation ARM Mac due to be announced in less than 6 months as well as the new M1, then do it. If not, wait. You're impulse buying based off of want... and you will seriously want the next model more than you want this one when it gets announced.

 

[1240766]

If you can afford to buy the next generation ARM Mac due to be announced in less than 6 months as well as the new M1, then do it. If not, wait. You're impulse buying based off of want... and you will seriously want the next model more than you want this one when it gets announced.

that is about right

When the new one comes (which nobody has any idea of what will be like, just lots of speculation) if I feel the want of getting it, why not? But, til them, instead of waiting and just hearing about how awesome these machines are I would rather live in the present and enjoy them!

 

[petterihiisila]

Does migration work seamlessly even with the Intel-to-M1 change?

It did for me. Graphics related, Office 365, general tinkering with Homebrew/terminal/scripts. All good. The transition felt as if there was no transition at all. Just more speed and battery life. Big Sur has the same bugs. Few new ones.

Developers and audio plugin users should check for updates from their software vendors. Some plugins don’t yet work and Homebrew isn’t fully arm64 compatible yet (openjdk etc). Docker just came out with a beta. Virtual machines are still sketchy.

If you don’t use any of the above or go mostly with mainstream software, in all likelihood it’s pretty smooth.

 

[srbNYC]

Thanks!

 

[nquinn]

I sold a maxed out MacBook Pro 16 inch for an M1. I hated that machine, and I mean hate. Too big, too heavy, too slow, and ran too hot. I didn’t buy my Intel MBP 16” until March, so I only had that doorstop for nine months.

Interesting - I use a 16" MBP from work and it's quite nice. Fast and runs nowhere near as hot as some of my older 13" macbook pros. With that said I mostly just use it for typical office type work and web browsing and rarely push it except for an occasional handbrake video encoding (where fans do spin up).

 

[srbNYC]

Gulp. Placed the order (and gave a few extra $$ to some charities to alleviate the guilt). Thanks, everyone.

 

[darngooddesign]

Doing it manually scares me. Afraid I’ll forget something and then wipe machine to sell it

Your personal files are only in the user folder. Copy the whole thing over to an external drive, and then copy each subfolder over one at a time; verifying that each app's files are on the new machine. iCloud will make sure that contacts, calendar, bookmarks, etc. are there automatically. Once you have verified everything is on your M1, then sell your old one. Think of it as a really good way to organize your files.

PS. There are backup apps which will clone your entire computer over to an external drive; do that as your final step for additional peace of mind.

 

[4sallypat]

Gulp. Placed the order (and gave a few extra $$ to some charities to alleviate the guilt). Thanks, everyone.

Do let us know how much trade in you were offered ?

 

[ADGrant]

It did for me. Graphics related, Office 365, general tinkering with Homebrew/terminal/scripts. All good. The transition felt as if there was no transition at all. Just more speed and battery life. Big Sur has the same bugs. Few new ones.

Developers and audio plugin users should check for updates from their software vendors. Some plugins don’t yet work and Homebrew isn’t fully arm64 compatible yet (openjdk etc). Docker just came out with a beta. Virtual machines are still sketchy.

If you don’t use any of the above or go mostly with mainstream software, in all likelihood it’s pretty smooth.

I doubt too many users of the Intel MBA were using them for development, at least not with Docker or other Linux virtualization tools.

I recently setup an M1 MBA for my wife's school. They have been using Intel MBAs for general office tasks. Everything they needed already had ARM versions but I did install an Intel binary (the Sublime text editor) so I could test out Rosetta.

 

[petterihiisila]

I doubt too many users of the Intel MBA were using them for development, at least not with Docker or other Linux virtualization tools.

Curiously enough, I know someone who bought an M1 Air for exactly that. Curious to hear how he'll get things done with it. x86 workloads are obviously going to be difficult, but for arm64 it's increasingly doable. And compilers/scripts work very fast with the M1.

 

[ADGrant]

Curiously enough, I know someone who bought an M1 Air for exactly that. Curious to hear how he'll get things done with it. x86 workloads are obviously going to be difficult, but for arm64 it's increasingly doable. And compilers/scripts work very fast with the M1.

I was referring to the old Intel MBA not the new M1 MBA. For a developer building apps for iOS or MacOS the new M1 MBA is certainly sufficient. If you want to run Docker, it seems a little too early to me. However, as Linux on ARM starts to grow its Cloud market share, the Apple Silicon Macs will become a great development option for those work loads.

My point was that someone using an Intel MBA right now for general office work probably isn't going to have an issue migrating. MS Office is Native, Chrome is native, all the Apple apps are obviously native.

 

[srbNYC]

Do let us know how much trade in you were offered ?

Two offers on the table right now. $840 from someone online if I can ship it to Texas, but I'm not sure how we'll work out payment, etc. And $630 from Mac Of All Trades.