I've been trying to put my thoughts together about the new m1 max macs. I originally meant to write this as a comment on the apple unleashed post, but the more I wrote the more I realised that this warrants its own post for some serious discussion.
I'd like to know what you all think about the m1 max macs after reading this.
I do and don't want the m1 max macs.
I want it because, well, it's cool. It's really, really cool. The power. the potential. Magsafe. And the limitless power of freedom it promises.
But here's the thing. I have a base model macbook air. For work, I use a 16 inch intel MBP with an i7 (not by choice lol). Because of that, I have some sort of comparison.
The macbook air I use blows the socks out of intel. And I looked in activity monitor today. It says that I use only about 20% of my m1's processor, and that's on a good day when I'm "working" it. Right now as I'm drafting this article, it says I have idle 93.28% of my processor.
I consider myself a semi-power user. I'm not the crazy techy I used to be, but I'm also not a complete novice who doesn't know how to harness the power of a laptop to do what needs to be done.
I'm a light coder. I have a few apps on the app store. I love messing around in XCode. I also love virtual live trivia, which envolves having a zoom window and a chrome tab open at the same time.
Recently I've gotten into hosting jackbox games nights for my friends. (Yes it can be done, but this is not the time or place to explain how. I'll put together a separate guide on that if people want that.). That's even more intensive: you need the jackbox games window, a chrome tab (for your own controller), and the zoom window sharing your screen. But even that can't touch more than 20% of my processor. These are by no means the only things I do on my computer, but I'd say they are the most intensive.
So the question would be: what would I actually "do" with more power? I can't answer that. And for the prices these new macbook pros are going at ($2000 for the cheapest of them vs. my $1000 macbook air), combined with cheap external SSD options to bridge the SSD gap and the loss of a few hours of battery life to the more power hungry M1 max chip... it's a hard sell to me TBH. Even if you want more SSD, you can get up to 2tb onto your macbook air, and you'd still be saving quite a bit of money considering you'd still have to pay the same (or at least a very similar) premium on top of the new macbook pro price to meet your storage needs.
Not discouraging anyone from getting these, if you feel you need that power. But I'd say before you get caught up in Macbook pro fever, take a long, hard look at your use cases and think about what you might be giving up (price, some battery life, and sheer size and weight of the computer itself, and that's just what I can think of right now) vs. what you would be gaining. Don't forget, the M1 is still a viable option.
I think that's my takeaway from my thoughts today. The M1 is still a viable option. It's still the best option for me. So I'm going to voluntarily forego this cycle, and keep cruising through life with my trusty macbook air. But you? You do you, boo!