Anyone else find their M series Macs so fast they just don't see the need to upgrade until it breaks?

Soldato
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As title really. Seen the new M4 series launch today, and they are shiny and new and lovely, but my M1 is doing great, still plenty fast enough - I applaud apple for updating stuff, but did they half shoot themselves in the foot making them so fast ?

I do heavy daily photo and video work, and its totally great.

At this point I don't foresee myself updating until M7 or 8 ? (if that), or whenever this MBP dies.

They are expensive, very, but you do get a long life from them I suppose!
 
I have an M1 pro and a M3 pro. 16 and 18gb respectively.

Will get rid of one, and I'm seriously considering that being the M3! I don't notice the difference for what I use it for and it will fetch more money.

They will last me until 32/36gb becomes the standard or Apple hobble the machines by not giving them new OS updates. Whichever happens 1st! People who bought 8gb M1s must be starting to feel some slowness, I would have thought.

If I got the itch next year, the new 16gb minimum Ram for M4 would mean I could get even get the lowest end model (which I assume will be announced this week).

Edit: had M1 air originally, with 16gb Ram. I only moved back to the pros for the extra ports tbh.


rp2000
 
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Yep, only reason I've upgraded to the new Mini is because I made a foolish mistake in getting the 16" MacBook Pro. I don't take it with me anywhere, it's sat on the desk in clamshell and it's just pointless. I wish I'd have gone for the M1 Mini with 16GB and that'd have been fine for me, but alas I didn't and this has been the first real change and it's got everything I want and it's smaller. This will easily last me years and years for what I do - which is mostly code/automation/platform/terminal stuff.

I'll be honest though I'm already considering trying it out, and then trying a base model out and sending it back. I've got to reign myself in from buying new things which I don't need, bought the M4 iPad Pro and that was the most pointless purchase I've ever made haha.
 
Not sure this is unique to Apple, it’s just welcome to computers as of 5 years ago.

Once they get fast enough for day to day use, there really isn’t any need to upgrade for most people.

I mean there are still people running Sandy Bridge and it’s acceptable if all you are doing is a bit web browsing etc. That’s a 10 year old CPU on 32nm at this point.
 
I bought my M2 literally the other day, and was kind of expecting the M4 to show up - with the iPad and everything else getting that bump, it just made sense to the degree that in my mind...I was only ever going to pull the trigger on an M4 iMac if it came in a 27" variant as for me, my i9 iMac is sorely missed to this day but I wanted to switch to silicon. No regrets! I was a little ****** off when I found out that the HDMI output only does 60hz, but even that wasn't a dealbreaker as I found a way to just use display port.
 
I considered selling my M1 MBA (povvo spec 256/8) the other day but then after using it maybe twice in the last week I don't think I will. It's quick, it has all the software I want to use and it's just beautiful. Pair that with if I sold it I'd only get povvo spec iPad money back for it so no point now. Keep until it dies.
 
Or until the OS no longer receives updates. Usually before the hardware gives out!
 
As many others have already mentioned I don't think about upgrading, I reckon with my daily usage I'm not even pushing say 15% of what this thing is capable of (base model M3 Pro Macbook Pro).

24GB of ram would be nice even though this constantly has around 6GB free! Owning a Mac is very much a buy once cry once situation.
 
I primarily work with the Adobe Creative Suite and my old M1 iMac was definitely starting to feel slow before I upgraded to an M2 Max Studio.

The Studio can still handle everything I throw at it but it is starting to feel sluggish with certain big PSD files and After Effects comps

Doesn’t help that any PSD that uses AI Generative Fill suddenly triples in size… but I would put most of the blame on Adobe rather than Apple.

I’m certainly not thinking about replacing the Studio.

My 2015 MBP is on its last legs but I have other priorities before I drop £3-4k on a replacement.
 
I've got an M2 Mini currently and have an AW3225QF connected via HDMI which is stuck at 4K 60Hz. Main reason for upgrading to the M4 Mini for me is so I can now run it properly at 4K 240Hz.
 
M1 mini 16gb here and it's very easy to get caught up and upgrade. I must admit I've looked at it but I cannot think of anything I do that bothers it in the slightest. By far the best computer I've ever owned. I don't game on it and have had no issues batch processing files in photography apps. I don't know what use people are using them for that need to upgrade but I'm not one of them.

The only issue for me is ports. 2 usb c isn't enough. But then neither would the M4 because it doesn't have usb a, so I'd still need a good hub which would use the usb c port extra on the back. I don't like the ports on the front, I like the clean look.
 
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