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Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

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Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#31

Post by codegeek »

ashtonkem wrote: post #30
ksec wrote: post #15

2015 MacBook Pro is still the best in many regards. Better Keyboard with more Key Travel than the new Magic Keyboard. Sane Trackpad Size so you dont accidentally move your cursors every few months while typing. MagSafe that actually work the way it is intended if you are clumsy. Reliability seems to be so much better. 2016 MacBook Pro has Flexgate, Staingate, Butterfly keyboard, SSD Failure, Thunderbolt Frying CPU, a…

I have no idea why laptop keyboards are so important to people; they’re all terrible. Use a better, external keyboard when you’re stationary, your wrists will thank you. Especially since it seems like even pre-pandemic laptops operated 80% of the time from a fixed position anyways.

I don't prefer using laptop keyboards but that doesn't mean I want shitty laptop keyboards. You may not always be around your connected keyboard (travelling, away from the workstation etc) and you really don't want to feel pissed when typing.

Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#32

Post by codegeek »

ksec wrote: post #15

2015 MacBook Pro is still the best in many regards. Better Keyboard with more Key Travel than the new Magic Keyboard. Sane Trackpad Size so you dont accidentally move your cursors every few months while typing. MagSafe that actually work the way it is intended if you are clumsy. Reliability seems to be so much better. 2016 MacBook Pro has Flexgate, Staingate, Butterfly keyboard, SSD Failure, Thunderbolt Frying CPU, a…

I bought a refurbished MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) in late 2015. I have some weird issues in rebooting but it works like a charm overall and I don't even know if I have a need to upgrade. I will continue to wait another 2-3 years before thinking of an upgrade.

Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#33

Post by messe »

febrianrendak wrote: post #19
sradman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My philosophy isn't to wait for /better/ hardware, so much as to wait for /tested/ hardware. The M1 is essentially what would have been the A14X for the iPad. I don’t consider it first-gen technology. macOS for ARM is first-gen but it seems to exceed expectations across the board.

its exceed expectations as everyday computing device, but lacking many features for power users. Can't run docker, virtualization isn't here yet. I hope M2 will come with these features.

> Can't run docker, virtualization isn't here yet

Both of those are available on M1. Virtualization was even demoed in the keynote discussing the switch to ARM.

Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#34

Post by messe »

sradman wrote: post #28
febrianrendak wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its exceed expectations as everyday computing device, but lacking many features for power users. Can't run docker, virtualization isn't here yet. I hope M2 will come with these features.

I suspect macOS Virtualization [1] will be addressed with software updates rather than new silicon. Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) transitions incur tradeoffs and the mobile-like SoC architecture of the M1 has to make hard decisions about what goes in the SoC (e.g. Ultra Wideband doesn't seem to be included in the M1). I suspect that something like a M1X, an M1 scaled with additional cores and more memory capacit…

> suspect macOS Virtualization [1] will be addressed with software updates rather than new silicon

It's already here. No updates to software or hardware needed.

Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#35

Post by floatingatoll »

Wait. You're content with your current mac and Homebrew with M1 support only came out a week or two ago. Give it more time to bake. The first wave of M1 products was literally "replace the mainboard component only and leave everything else unchanged", the second wave will probably include iPhone-quality webcams and fancy audio and stuff.

(If you were interestedly in contributing time and patches to fixing M1 software issues on M1, then you could of course get one for that, but you'll want to keep your existing Mac as your primary work computer.)

Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#36

Post by runjake »

It initially wasn’t a concern, but the “only one external monitor” thing is really starting to get to me. Otherwise, performance, battery life, and lack of heat and fans are great.

I will probably upgrade the moment a new one comes out, if I haven’t fled macOS yet.

Edit: yes, I know about DisplayLink. I don’t do third-party kernel drivers, and the cost for a good DP module is more than I want to blow.

Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#37

Post by daviddever23box »

The biggest use case is the amazing battery life; this gives you, as a writer, the ability to work within your stream, then set the device down later in the day when you're ready to take a break.

Come back in an hour or so, and you're nearly fully juiced up.

Performance-wise, with appropriate software (i.e., M1-compatible, and none of this Rosetta stuff), it'll be faster than your 2015 MBP, even with half the RAM.

I recommend the MBA-M1 with 512 GB storage; the 8 GB RAM is plenty, and still has better effective memory bandwidth than my Core i9-9980HK MBP 15 (with twice that). Really.

Also - latest FFmpeg is compatible: https://isapplesiliconready.com/app/FFmpeg

Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#39

Post by _0w8t »

speedgoose wrote: post #5

Buy the hardware when you need it. Better hardware will always be coming. Is your 6 years old laptop still good enough? Wait. Do you want/need a new faster laptop with an exceptional battery life now? Get a MacBook pro M1.

If I need to get a M1 Mac, I will not bother with Pro. Surely under sustained load it is like 20% faster as Air throttles down, but if this important, then I guess just get a desktop which will still be faster despite using older Intel CPUs.

The big plus of Air is that it is completely passive and silent. As such it will last longer. Depending on the dust level one may need to open the notebook each 6 months or even more often to vacuum clean and to avoid any throttling due to dust accumulation.

Re: Ask HN: Buy the M1 MacBook Pro or Wait for M2?

#40

Post by twmiller »

m463 wrote: post #3

Thinking historically, maybe wait? There are a lot of things that don't work natively yet (maybe most of them) The iPhone 1, first macbook pro intel, all were refreshed with more capable models. Personally, I'm wondering what an apple-cpu mac pro will look like... if they refresh quicker than 6 years :)

I picked up a M1 Mac Mini. I honestly cannot tell the difference between a native and a non-native app on this thing. The Rosetta 2 emulation is mind blowing.
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