[megraf]

I have a work issued M1 Max, which has an incredible amount of computational power.

I wanted a personal computer, and purchased an identical machine, M1 Max, 64Gig, whatever. I realized 4 days later that it wasn't possible for me to push my personal machine anywhere near this machines limits. I returned it, and bought an extremely cheap ($240?) MacBook Pro, i5 - 2017.

It hasn't slowed me down, and my strategy is to use macOS and not sign in with my Apple ID. No Mac App Store, iCloud, etc. I use App tamer and little snitch to eke out any performance gains possible... it's an excellent machine, and I'm so happy with it.

I want to thank Apple for introducing this express route in the rat race, which has lead to an extremely friendly second market of intel, and 1st generation M's.

I implore you to ask yourself if you really need the next generation, or even the previous one before purchasing

[whywhywhywhy]

> MacBook Pro, i5 - 2017

Sorry but this is the worst machine Apple has made in possibly around 20 years. Feels heat constrained in it's own chassis, fan turns on at the drop of a hat, battery not big enough for sustained work and started durning off at 20% on older units when you open a video call, charger it ships with not powerful enough to jump start from empty without a 5 minute wait, keyboard feels gross makes too much (ugly crunchy sounding) noise and keys jam from everyday dust.

M1 was heaven after that shambles and I can never go back to hot, noisy and low battery laptops after this.

[bearjaws]

Is there a name for this type of person? Who will just waste any amount of time possible to get a 1% performance improvement.

I see it all the time in the overclocking community, and more seldomly in the portable space.

[twh270]

In my young years I had little understanding of the value of time, and would spend an inordinate amount of time on eking out that last little bit of perfection (whatever "perfect" looked like to me, anyway).

Bragging rights fits in here as well for a certain cohort. "Oh, you got 5.551Ghz, not bad but I'm at 5.5511Ghz".

Another classic example of this is uptime bragging for some linux fans, as a way to both one-up each other and to one-up the Windows community, which (more so in the past) had pretty awful uptimes due to various bugs and the need to reboot after making config changes. (We used to joke: "You have moved your mouse, please reboot Windows for this change to take effect.")

I think most people in this kind of community though just enjoy tinkering and maximizing performance/whatever.

[leetharris]

The heat, battery life, speakers, microphone, display, connectivity, and more have improved in that time as well. I'd rather have a low end new Mac than a high end old Mac.

[bearjaws]

Seriously the M1 Air will crush the 2017 MBP, why you would choose louder and less battery life after being comfortable spending $2000 is beyond me.

[dangus]

And now your platform is going to stop getting OS builds potentially as soon as next year because Apple switched to a new architecture. There’s a reason that system cost less than an iPad.

Apple was basically begging Intel users to upgrade to Apple Silicon at the most recent keynote. I think Sonoma is the last Intel build. Apple drops a ton of technical baggage if they can stop supporting Intel.

The machine you should have purchased is the M1 MacBook Air. You can find a used one in the $500-600 range or a new one in the $700’s and it will smoke the 2017 Intel system while returning double the battery life and making zero noise with its fanless design. It’s comfortable on a lap and doesn’t get hot.

Look, it’s bad that technology is disposable, but if you buy a Mac you are getting ~8-10 years of feature updates and an additional ~2 years of extended support security updates. Maybe after that you’ve got OpenCore Legacy, but that won’t help you if Apple doesn’t release binaries on your processor architecture.

If you buy a PC you’ve got a system that is better designed for alternative operating systems and long-term support. But when you buy a Mac that’s just part of the deal, you’re in the platform. I consider my Mac system to be more of a leased tool and I’ve accepted its limited lifespan as part of the compromise of that platform.

If you buy Apple’s previous architecture you’re getting a much worse experience, and there’s history to back up that fact. What you did was equivalent to buying an iBook G4 in 2008. Your system is going to either be a brick or a jankier-than-average Linux box in 2-3 years (i.e., a ThinkPad makes a better Linux box than a MacBook).

Finally, if you don’t even use iCloud or an Apple ID I’m not sure what the appeal of a Mac is in the first place, especially one that isn’t on a particularly unique or advantageous architecture. I’ve got a Mac because I prefer an iPhone and I’m kind of stuck with it if I want to send texts from my computer. If you’re not even using anything involving an Apple ID you might as well be on Linux or Windows.

[konart]

I don't think buying a new Macbook (or any computer) sooner than after 5-7 years of use is pretty meaningless for most cases.

But going for a 2017 one is simply strange considering the differences in all areas. I switched from 2019 Pro to M2 Air and it's simply wonderfull. It's twiceas powerfull and completely silent and cold.

2019s Pro was good, but it's not nearly as fast for photo editing and hot as hell even if you just code in nvim.

[tristor]

Honestly, you made an incredibly irrational choice. You went from what is likely a $2500 machine to a $250 machine that is more than 10x worse, but you could have gone from a $2500 machine to a $1200 machine that is less than 2x worse by buying a new M1 MBA or similar instead.

The fact you seem proud of this choice and are holding it out as some sort of virtue as if the difference between an Intel Mac from 2017 and an M1 Mac is inconsequential clout chasing is the cherry on top. The efficiency gains alone in the higher performance and lower power usage make running a non-M1 Mac an environmental loss in comparison, considering that as you so clearly point out, Mac's have extremely long usage lifespans.