Are the ARM Macs really worth it?
I’m debating getting a MacBook to make an iPhone app. Looking at eBay, no one seems to want the Intel Macs anymore. You can get an i9 from 2019 with 32gb for less than $1000. I use almost the exact same model for work and it seems to work great honestly. Are the arm MacBooks really worth the premium? It will cost double to triple the price to get one with 32gb of ram. I wanted to hear from someone who did the upgrade.
I use JavaScript for my job a lot and my test suites run 50% faster on m chip Mac’s compared to a 2019 i7
I found a refurbished m1 14” 32/512 for $1350 at MicroCenter. M1/2 deals have slowly popped up. I’d try to find one
That’s pretty damn good. I’ll keep an eye out. That’s about what I want to spend.
Yes. They’re a massive upgrade over the intel Macs, the whole experience is much better (performance, battery life, efficiency, display, etc). The first gen M1 MacBooks still hold up incredibly well
Ya I bought a refurbished 14 in with the M1 Max processor last year-ish + used a family-friends Apple employee discount on it, after the m2s came out. The new m3s aren’t even that much better it looks on early reporting. The main performance gain comes from switching over to arm over Intel it looks https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/17ka91d/m3_pro_18_core_only_10_faster_than_m2_pro_19_core/
They are so good that it’s written into the constitution as a right to bear ARMs
If your app is simple and doesn’t require much compilation or you aren’t in a hurry and are willing to wait for builds, the i9 is fine.
Ha- more money wasted on slow test cases = slower devs. An artist/developer/engineer/scientist is only as effective as the tools provided. When there’s a mismatch between the demanded output and speed/quality of the tools provided I’ve gotten in fights over management in two of my last jobs and for fired from both. Then I end up getting better jobs who provide higher quality work-gear than the last and it makes me giggle
My daily driver for personal work is a t480s. It’s about $200 on eBay. It works fine. It runs fast with Arch. I’ve done a lot of consulting work with it.
There's no comparison.
My work servers start in 20 secs compared to 2-4 minutes. Worth it
Battery life on the ARM Macs is downright incredible compared to the power-hungry Intel stuff but the main reason to get one is for ongoing OS and app support which is already impacting Intel models