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As mundane and common as the information I’m about to share may be, it’s the reality of MacBook ownership for many - dare I say most? I don’t buy new MacBooks. I get them refurbished from MicroCenter, Apple, or elsewhere. In 2024, I picked up a 2021-released 14” M1 Max MacBook Pro w/ 2 TB and 64 GB for $1800 from Microcenter. Because Apple is so hostile to repairs, I have been paying for AppleCare+ and will continue for some time. But I don’t see myself truly needing to replace this machine for another 2-3 years. It’s my daily driver for BBedit, some IDEs, music apps, Firefox with dozens of tabs, Mail, Messages, iTerm2 with half a dozen tmux sessions. True - my computing needs are not demanding. But for those of us who offload commuting to remote servers and mostly use thin clients, the computer is a joy to use. I’ve been dabbling in Ableton Live Suite 12 Lite, which came with my Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88 MKII midi keyboard, and this machine never breaks a sweat. The M-series are seriously as close to BIFL as a consumer laptop can be. Meanwhile, my wife’s daily driver is a 2013 13” MacBook Air w/ 128 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM. And an Intel i7 from that era. I won’t defend this though. She’s insane, and I don’t know how she lives with herself. I purchased it used from a Craigslist seller to be my daily driver 14 years ago, and it lasted until I upgraded to a 2020 M1 MacBook Air base model, which I later donated to a friend in need. |