Macbook Air / Mac Mini / Ipad Pro advice

smogsy

smogsy

smogsy

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I want to get one of the above for myself.

I cannot decide what is best for me So I thought id ask for help
Would be nice to hear the benefits or drawbacks of each choice & get real user feedback

Use case:
Id like to replace my windows gaming machine for every but gaming, with possible idea in long-term future to cloud game.
If im not gaming on my PC im doing the following

  • email
  • web browsing
  • troubleshooting other people issues via Remote desktop like suites
the idea would be to use one of these as a desktop with keyboard & mouse & ultrawide monitor (1440p) & possibly around the house depending on type choosen (i really dont know how likely that is)

background
Code: 
i have a mac-book pro for work and love it.
already in the eco-system with iphone14,watch,4 apple TV's & old ipad

my plan would be to get a thunderbolt dock & swap cables through a dock like caldigit ts4.

Gaming
Long term future might be to swap my 5900x/7900xtx for cloud gaming or Some form of gaming other than windows. although i have 1000 games on steam i only play 20 of them & always with a controller so maybe i coulkd swap to xbox or steam deck v3.
 
MacBook Air if you want portability, or Pro if you have the extra budget. RDP/SSH programs IMO are generally poor on iPad and you can't do proper multi tasking, I'm always reaching for my MacBook Pro when I have to do that sort of work, iPad to me is YouTube/browsing/email only for me.
 
MacBook air is pretty much unbeatable for portability and has more than enough power for your use case. Any of the generations would smash through any of those tasks.

You could always get a MacBook Air m1 and an iPad for the cost of a pro!
 
With a main powerful PC for gaming and maybe other heavy tasks, I’d go for the MacBook as well. Go and try some/look for yourself if you can to see which form factor. I have an old MBP without much power now and it does everything my gaming PC doesn’t. E.g. general browsing, all apple apps, administering other machines and devices (e.g. NAS/servers/networking on SSH and web). I use it mostly at my desk but also around the house and on the sofa etc. and if you do support others I’ve taken it out and about with me for tech support duties. Usually with a USB network adapter as that’s about the only normal useful port my mid-2014 doesn’t have.

If you’re already in the ecosystem there’s tonnes of great features you can use across devices.

EDIT: Even done some basic software development on my MBP and it was good. Older Intel ones I’d now avoid for that though - my work machine is an M1 and that is leagues ahead in performance, so I think you’d be happy with one.
 
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MacBook Air or Pro depending on if you want the extra grunt or not.

Having tried using a Ipad Pro (M1) in exactly this configuration - docked to a 1440p UW + Mouse & KB (BT) I found the experience, at best, borderline ok. I was kind of expecting something akin what I can do with DeX from my Fold3 (wired) but the experience was, in my opinion, one of frustration born from the reality not matching my own expectations. Little annoyances with Stage Manager and window management vs DeX amongst other things (scrolling on a non Apple input device was terrible) gradually ate away at my patience.

No doubt there were things I was missing or better ways of doing things, but at that point I had already checked out.

Now got my M3 MacBook Pro hooked up via a single Cable and its brilliant in comparison. Oh and I have charged it, er, twice in the two weeks I have had it so far. I had to charge the Zephyrus G16 again last night after 4 1/2 hours use remoting into my server (MacBook kept failing to trigger the bios / boot menu).

On the plus side my wife is loving the Ipad for her novel planning / writing. :)
 
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