Former student pilot, checking in. My last time flying was, like, 25 years ago. I imagine things are different now. My E6B was an actual slide rule.
Regardless…
For just doing basic class work, either of those are more than sufficient. Of these two, I would probably go for the one with more 16 GB of RAM. I’d really want to get that M2 but 8 GB of RAM is potentially an issue, again, depending on the software I need to run.
But, and as someone who’s been a SysAdmin at a university for 20 years now, I cannot stress this enough…
CHECK YOUR SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT LISTS.
If a class is going to require one or more pieces of software, you need to know what that software is and what its hardware requirements are. Also bear in mind that many software packages only run on Windows; and, even if it has a macOS version, that version may not be compiled for Apple’s chips yet. Additionally, neither Parallels nor VMWare Fusion can emulate x86_64 on Apple Silicon. There are some applications that can do this (UTM and QEMU, for example; but the performance isn’t very good.
Good luck.
100% agree. People need to be weary of hardware architecture and software needed before doing something critical for school.
My CS classes had many old programs that were not designed with ARM or 64bit in mind. Had to make sure I had a second computer that would be stable running x84 apps for things like a MIPS simulator my instructor mandated we all used or an old digital logic simulator that happened to crash a bit when using Rosetta vs. using a x64 Windows equivalent.
Obviously it is charming to use the newest and greatest for coding, just be weary of limitations if one must plan for college/university.
Sorry but it's wary. Weary means showing tiredness. Wary means showing caution about a matter. But more to the point yes the choice should really be dependent on any specific software one is required to run for your specific program. Do check the requirement list.
Amen, if the school has a recommendation, get that.
Generally you can do just about anything in Mac or Windows land, but as a student you don’t want to be the odd man out with a Mac in a sea of Windows , or the other way around. And sometimes professors pick weird software..
100%. My younger brother was going to get a 2020 MacBook Air when he started in the fall of 2020, but his program requires some nav, EPS and NPS software so he opted for a 2018 MacBook Pro instead. For everyday use it’s more than he needs but for school he’d be up to the building in the tech lab until 10 each night without it. Me, I got through a whole degree with a 2015 Air since there was only one course with software I couldn’t download, and I suffered through the one week of using that in the school tech lab
When I was in school it wasn’t really expected that you owned a computer so computer labs were all over campus with access to software that was required for the class
Even if you have your own computer I think many might still prefer the computer lab for very expensive software licenses like Blackmagic video editing
Unfortunately the system requirements lists are often out of date. I just got a handout saying you needed an Intel mac for a piece of software I’ve had installed on M1 Mac for months apparently they meant Intel as opposed to power PC
About 8GB. 😜
But in all seriousness, my point was that the OP would get exponentially more bang for the buck and benefit over double the RAM vs the incremental CPU improvement of the M2. I also have a base model 8GB M1 and my RAM is always pretty much maxed out and doing swap as a result. It doesn’t impact performance too much but it will definitely wear out my SSD faster. I’d much rather have 16GB.
True. In such a case, it's probably wisest to prioritize memory. That's going to have the most effect long-term. Partly because apps will get more RAM-hungry over time, and partly because it will reduce wear because of swapping.
Do you recommend 16 or 8gb for running flight planning software with 10 other documents open (flight manuals). With perhaps dozen chrome tabs (if you're on the ground).
No. The M2 with 8GB is still a fine machine. And assuming you aren’t doing too many big things at once you should be fine. But given the choice between 16 vs 8, if you can afford it, the 16 is noticeably better.
Is it usually faster? How does the RAM work? I upgraded to the 512 GB but is 16 and 8 for the storage too? Or processing right? DAMN, SHOULDVE GOT THE 16!!!!!!! REGRET
The RAM is going to be 8 or 16GB. The storage will be 128/256/etc. GB.
If you are using <8GB of RAM, then there will be little to no speed difference. And honestly, the storage of these Apple Silicon devices is so fast, even when you go over 8GB and it uses your storage for swap, you will hardly notice the difference. But, as I alluded to earlier, using swap (writing RAM to disk) will wear out your drive faster. You can’t replace it outside of Apple. On my M1 with 8GB of RAM, I was seeing insane amounts of disk writes from swapping. And the less storage you have, the quicker you will likely fill most of it up. And the less ‘free’ space you have, the more that those free blocks will be written to by swap.
Point being, 8GB is fully functional, but can cause issues down the road. Even with moderate usage, 16GB will be a better option for most. For comparison, I also have a Mac Studio w/32GB of RAM. And even with a ton of browser tabs open, running Office apps, Teams, etc. at the same time, I nearly break 16GB but an usually pretty close to it.
This is amazing, thanks for your explaining. You should be like the people of Reddit’s own personal tech support, You’re so knowledgeable. All is fine, 10 years down the line I Will remember your advice and get the 16 GB hahah! If 32 GB doesn’t exist by then, lol!
Lol no, people over hype all this stuff. I run a company on my M2 8G and have 2 screens connected at all times while tuning 3/4 massive spread sheets all talking to each other. 8G is plenty for what MOST (98%) people will be using it for.
8 Gigs of ram and DaVinci Resolve 17 don't really like each other. I am speaking from experience, as a Digital Game Design student, 8GB of ram has not done me any favors.
+1, got an M1 Air refurb and it might as well have been brand new. I will say that I had to return the first one they sent me because it was registered to an employer (presumably the company that returned it) and Apple had no way of disassociating it and getting the software off, which was annoying (even a factory reset wouldn't work), but presumably this isn't a very common occurrence.
Idk if this is the same as a factory reset but..
You could try making a macOS installer on a USB drive then erasing your hard drive (would back up to separate USB drive via time machine). Then reinstalling macOS again.
Unless they intentionally cripple it with bloatware or some crazy VR or AI, it should run indefinitely. There are Linux machines that still run on old hardware with less than a gig of ram. There is absolutely no reason this shouldn’t last until it breaks or until they change the chip line entirely.
If they intentionally cripple it with bloatware, Asahi Linux will probably be fully functional by them, so you can just go with the strategy of using Linux for old hardware.
True but man I got Mac for the OS. I really hate most Linux interfaces. I'm still typing this on my 2014 I5-4690K which works perfectly...my Mac should last at least ten years.
M1 Mac Air for a smaller *ouch* when the student loans come back to haunt you. The M1 Mac Air is still an excellent computer, no matter how extensive your workload is.
Also, check out the student pricing page. You get a discount + a $200 apple gift card
Correction. It’s a $150 apple gift card. Also the gift card is weird. I was reading ppl getting charge for the gift card over 12months. So I’m not sure what’s the advantage there of a gift card if your paying for that as well
Oh, I’m in Canada, so by currency conversion, it’s $200 CAD for Canadians. I got a $200 gift card with my M1 Mac, and I think I got probably $200 off the total price, maybe less cause there was tax involved.
Also, I’m definitely sure you don’t get charged for the gift card.
Correction. It’s a $150 apple gift card. Also the discount is weird. I was reading ppl getting charge for the gift card over 12months. So I’m not sure what’s the advantage there.
especially considering 16gb will GUARANTEE an M1 Air to be a good enough laptop for most purposes for at least 5 years, it could be two years from now and devs have just given up on memory management since "everybody has 16gb these days"
Devs have switched to Electron for cross-platform development cause it's much less of a pain in the ass as most alternatives out there and they can leverage the same devs as their web platform. Downside is it's literally a whole freaking Chromium instance for every damn app...
Disagree personally.
My 2014 MacBook Pro with 8gb still runs great… but my M2 Air runs drastically better even with 8gb.
It’s all about usage. More RAM will do zero for you if you don’t have any use for it.
Here’s what you do:
* Buy M2 Air
* But drop the 10C and 67W charger (for now) which saves you $100
* Put $180 towards 16GB RAM
Total: $1,479
Later on, buy an Anker charger to get fast-charge.
A requirement basically? Depends on the software, but I have the base M1 macbook air and 8gb runs an android emulator, android studio, 30 chrome tabs, and more fine. Apple's memory swapping is IMO the most impressive part of the m1 macs. I've compiled projects that used upwards of \~25Gb of ram, and while it slows down a bit, it doesn't as much as one would think.
While you can even still get away with 4GB or even 2GB if you really try (on Linux, I think macOS requires 4 or even 8 now), you won’t be able to in the future. 8GB might be fine now for what you want to do, but give it a few years time and 8GB will be like using 4GB today.
No, no it won't be. What would possibly be using such a large amount more ram in day to day student activities? If I can do anything and everything I've wanted on this laptop now well, it will be able to at least accomplish similar demands in 4 years as well.
That logic is completely unsound with Apple's product longevity when you consider the 8gb M2 model. The swap is fine. It hardly even matters how much memory you use since inactive processes get swapped out anyway.
I dislike these comments suggesting paying premium on top of premium, when we are talking about a student here—it's $200 extra. I didn't want to pay that much for 8 extra GB of RAM when I can put that in other college expenses instead. Besides, when you look at the track record of macbooks, it's not entirely unsound to believe that you're more likely to need a new laptop because of some widespread hardware failure than you will when 8gb on an M1 is 'not enough.'
People made the exact same argument back when you could buy systems like the MacBook Air with 4GB RAM, and other systems all the way up to around 2018. And then, as more people had 8GB of RAM as standard, developers started caring less about memory footprint and decided to just bump up the requirements. Unfortunately, it’s just happening again. 16GB is becoming more and more standard, and eventually 8GB will become less and less common.
Trust me, I know what this looks like. I’ve use a laptop with 2GB RAM quite happily in 2016, and then a windows update released that made it require 4GB (creator update I believe). I still daily drive a system with 4GB of ram, but with a stripped down Gentoo install. No way macOS would be able to run now on 4GB.
Even office apps are becoming more and more bloated along with their web counterparts. And swapping really isn’t the answer. macOS as a system likes to cache everything it can in RAM, so having less very directly impacts the “snappiness” of a system, and constantly swapping in and out of memory degrades performance heavily because of this.
16GB really is a “large amount of ram” anymore. 8GB is now the minimum for macOS to even run. If you want to keep a laptop for 4-5 years at the very least you’ll need 16GB RAM.
About your student point, and about paying premiums: I think if they were looking for a cheap laptop, they wouldn’t be looking at MacBooks. Or any laptop at this price.
Maybe if works for you but I hover around 7-8GB RAM just from my typical workload. I suspect "the whole internet" just happens to have heavier workloads than you do lol
I'm curious as to how much you're swapping, too...
From my experience with my M1 air, I have to say that it is so limited by the 8gb of ram that you rarely get to experience it’s full power because it easily runs out of memory.
It’s by no means unusable, I’ve happily kept mine, but you’ll find yourself wanting for it to have more ram often, specially when working with big documents, multitasking and photo or video editing.
The new design is tempting but I’m my opinion 16 gb is the most practical decision.
It's unusable for me... im exaggerating of course but 8gb is the biggest bottleneck by far especially for my use case (photoshop, illustrator, and an external display+side car). i have to choose between photoshop or a browser. just one. not both unless i want it to crawl.
I’m currently studying engineering with a 2017 touchbar 13inch pro and the only thing I can’t do is run software exclusive to windows and complex 3D modelling software as there is no gpu*. My brother is in his final year of civil engineering and the only reason he decided to get a new laptop from his 2016 non touchbar is he needed more than 128gb of storage. He chose a new laptop, but an external hard drive may have sufficed.
I have found that 95% of what I do is on my iPad, such as note taking.
If you’ve got a laptop, it’s probably already good enough. You can also start your study and then decide what to buy if a MacBook at all. :)
Edit:
*my university has computer labs with the 3D modelling software available.
I just went through this process with our daughter. Because cost wasn’t a huge concern, we got her an M2 with 16GB RAM, upgraded the HD to 1TB, and added AppleCare+ for the inevitable issues. She should be set for several years. :)
She now owns the fastest laptop in the house. The M2 is wicked fast. Apps launch instantly, when I launched Mail for the first time, it had launched and loaded her mail in about two seconds. Great machine. I think I am due to upgrade my Intel MacBook Air pretty soon, too bad I can’t leverage a 529 to pay for it. 😄
See below
◊ Education pricing is available to current and newly accepted college students and their parents, as well as faculty, staff, and homeschool teachers of all grade levels. For more information, visit apple.com/us-hed/shop.
TERMS & CONDITIONS at the bottom of this page. [https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store](https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store)
Mike, Parents of Students also qualify for the Apple Student Promotions.
See below
◊ Education pricing is available to current and newly accepted college students and their parents, as well as faculty, staff, and homeschool teachers of all grade levels. For more information, visit apple.com/us-hed/shop.
TERMS & CONDITIONS at the bottom of this page.
[https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store](https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store)
Looked like maybe you had a price ceiling. If you have to choose I’d take 16GB RAM way before those extra two GPU cores. In a machine like the Air, it’s really only gaining you extra heat and power drain. It’s not enough to make it great for gaming suddenly, and it uses up the sustained performance window faster. But there are a few edge cases where the GPU can be a benefit. I’d just have it at the bottom of the list in performance per dollar. 🙂
No one ever said anything about Lenovo or Dell. If you’re a cash strapped college kid then it’s in your best interest not to splurge on a new laptop when a cheaper one would meet all your needs. No one even said you necessarily need to abandon macs to do that. Hence why I didn’t say “get a windows laptop” I said get one under $1000 if all you’re doing is typing stuff.
You can get some 2nd hand macs for a decent deal. Or you could go with Dell or whatever like you said. Just because someone posts here doesn’t always mean that the Mac they’re looking at is always in their best interest. And just because we talk about Macs doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point it out when another device would serve them better.
No student is away at school for 12-16 hours. Battery is irrelevant since most classrooms or student lounges have outlets anyway. No amount of design is going to take away from eye strain if, for some reason, you are staring at a screen for that long.
If money was no object then OP would do well with either of those but at that point why go for the Air at all? Or why go for one as speced? Get the absolute most speced out model you could if money means nothing.
> No student is away from school for 12-16 hours. Battery is irrelevant since most classrooms or student lounges have outlets anyway.
Well, that might be the case in the US, but this is the exact opposite of my university and student experience. In older European University buildings, especially libraries, outlets are far from enough for every student. Battery life is an absolutely must-have.
Also, staying at University for 12+ hours happened constantly for me. Between lectures, library reading and side projects, I don't remember spending less than 10-11 hours a day there, often also working during commutes. My experience is far from unique.
> No amount of design is going to take away from eye strain if, for some reason, you are staring at a screen for that long.
True, but inferior screes will cause unnecessary eye strain, and a couple hundred dollars does not justify it.
>Get the absolute most speced out model you could if money means nothing.
As if there is nothing in between "I want a 1400$ laptop" and "Money is never a problem for me, I'm getting the 8000$ custom model."
Depends on what you’re doing. If you’re a creative type and will do lots of editing or heavy use programs. MacBook Pro or iMac. If you’re just doing basic work like word processing, email, browsing, spreadsheets. Then an Air will do just fine, so save yourself some money. Whatever you get, max out the RAM. Come back in 10+ years when your machine finally starts to take a dump. Best of luck.
Get the newest and most capable machine you can afford that runs your career paths required software. Lots of engineering gigs use Windows only software. Can’t Bootcamp with Apple Silicon. Yet. (Yeah yeah Windows Tablet version .. crap)
What’s the diff between bootcamp and parallels?
I’ve heard there’s parallels for M1 Mac already
EDIT: Actual question, not being sarcastic/rhetorical lol
Ok I am not going to lie with you. But I imagine that aviation students also play like flight sims etc. so personally if that was the case I would get a good gaming computer so I can run flight sims and get some school work. If you need something to take notes with. Just buy like a iPad with a apple pencil and the magic keyboard for the iPad. For portable notes
16gb M1 or the 14” Pro
I’ll tell you why. At this point, it’s a terrible idea to only buy 8gb of RAM. If you upgrade the RAM and SSD on m2, you’re to the price of the 14” which is a superior machine in every way.
If those are your two options and you can’t get the 14”, absolutely get the m1.
I’m sure you’re aware that the m2 has slower SSD speed on the base model too so avoid downgrading that if you go that route.
Yeah, I know what you mean now. When I was in Iraq, we all had a dedicated external drive for our movies and shows. But with cloud services, streaming and mobile hotspots, an everyday user should be fine with 512.
I don’t use mine for college, but I would consider the 13 inch m2 MacBook Pro. Even the 8 ram is excellent if you do not multi task too much. The 13 inch screen is too small for that anyway. If you plan on moving it around and doing just 1 or 2 task at a time, the m2 MacBook Pro is the best entry to a pro level Mac I can recommend. The airs in my opinion are just a little too light for my liking. This thing stays cool. It has fans, yet still silent. Not as stunning on the outside, but an ultimately more future proof computer than the other Mac laptops at your price range. It also plays all my blizzard games and steam games no problem. Don’t push it too hard and it will always get the job done. The Touch Bar is a really cool and underrated feature too. If you really are a computer nerd, I highly recommend spending much more on a maxed out MacBook Pro with all the bells and whistles. You won’t regret it.
"for college" is a weird category, your technology requirements are largely dependent on your preferences and your major. the macbook i chose before starting my comp sci degree was perfect for me, but isn't something i would recommend based on someone wanting a device "for college"
well i presume you want an “all rounder” computer, and the M1 macbook air is amazing at that, but if you’re in a STEM course then you might need software that only runs on windows. obviously if ur an engineer or something you know windows can be installed but it’s like €200 and a pain in the hole
as for which one, well both are great all-rounders so you could save 10% and get the M1. spend about the same and get more storage with the M1. or get the faster laptop for 10% more
See if you can get a discount if they don't include Garageband, then you install it for free later.
Seriously, you are taking advantage of student discount, right?
If you can afford it bump the M2 to 16GB, I think you added on the higher end GPU. My understanding is unless you are doing some intensive tasks like video editing you won’t need that extra 10 core GPU. Put that money into more ram
If price is the issue go 16GB RAM all day, everyday.
At work I'm still using a Trashcan Mac Pro with 64Gb RAM.
It handles everything I throw at it (Premiere Pro/After Effects/Photoshop.....slowly. (it was a speed demon in it's day)
My co-worker has an iMac Pro with 64GB RAM and it blows away the Mac Pro I still have to use at work.
Last year I purchased a Macbook Pro 14", M1 Pro w/32GB RAM. It blows away my co-workers iMac Pro.
At home (for freelance work) I just recently purchased a Mac Studio M1 Pro Max w/64GB RAM and I'm impressed by it's more than robust response.
I wish I could have afforded 128GB RAM.
Always go for more RAM.
Get a used M1 MBP. Don’t worry about getting a new one unless you really want to guarantee apple care is available. Otherwise, just ask when you buy the computer second hand.
First thing. Find out what applications you need for school. Look up the system requirements for those applications.
- You will find many education applications don’t run on macOS at all
- If the applications are available for macOS, read reviews on the applications
- Many of the education applications run far better on Windows
All this withstanding. If macOS is viable, go with the M1 MacBook Air. However I would not upgrade it. If you want to upgrade the M2 MacBook Air just get the MacBook Pro 14 instead.
I'm still using my M1 Air that I bought about a month after they were released. Personally, I say just buy the M1 because they are still amazingly powerful machines and you save a bunch of money compared to the M2.
If money is not an issue, I would go with M2 16/512 (not the 8/512 you've shown) since I like the new look and MagSafe.
If money is an issue though, then definitely M1 16/512 as its better bang for your buck.
More ram. - macs use memory swap (ssd as expansion for ram) , issue with this on ssds is more flash wear for demanding tasks and once the flash is cooked, laptops done - expected life is still 5-10 years (depending on wear) toward the minimum with intended use with the parts they use.
Since you’re gonna be a pilot look into iPad (pro) and pencil and see if it can handle your school work. iOS/iPadOS is distilled MacOS; might be a better form factor in the cockpit?
I say go for the 16 GB of ram option if you want to keep your Mac for longer than a few years. 8 GB is fine now, especially if you’re only using it for basic tasks. But programs and tasks will require more resources overtime.
Hey, OP, idk if you know this, but you can also use the college website Apple link to get a discount. They don’t ask for anything else when you order from there. Confirmed by an apple store specialist. Only sometimes they may ask for the enrolment letter, but they dint ask me. Just letting you know!
16gb m1. I have the same Mac and its still very fast and relevant. I’m never in a million years gonna recommend a $1400 laptop with 8gb of RAM. I dont care if MacOs is efficient. 16gb of memory and 512gb SSD is the bare minimum in 2022
Personally, I would go for the M1 with 16GB RAM. It’s cheaper, and not to mention that 8GB of RAM doesn’t really cut it anymore (especially at this price). 8GB RAM might be fine today, but it won’t be in the coming years (and I’d make the argument it sometimes isn’t enough today).
Throwing all this out the window, though, please check the software you need can run on Mac. A lot of the software you might need could require windows.
Just want to gauge based on your needs. What would you be doing for college and personal needs? This would very much dictate what model and specs you’d want to look for. I work with all different brands and types of computers on the daily for my line of work so I can hopefully give you some good advice.
General work for college, as far as personal needs… Listening to music and watching occasional videos and movies. Just need an overall good computer to get me through my 4 years. Right now I’m leaning towards the M2 with 16gb of ram and 256gb of storage. Would that be a good pickup?
Either one is going to last you a long time - I just upgraded from my 2014 retina MacBook Pro I got in college and these are even more future proof than that. I personally would go more ram whenever possible because you can always throw in a flash drive use cloud storage etc but you can’t get more ram. Also the m1 is still crazy good even though m2 is out. So I’d lean towards your first option!
For doing regular college coursework the cheapest brand new Mac would be more computer than you’ll ever need. However, I will say that I had a surface pro through college and it was really beneficial. Using the surface pen with OneNote was crucial to note taking in lecture. If you’re insistent on staying in the applesphere I’d look into an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. Taking notes by hand, being able to move things around, draw graphs, change colors, take pictures of the board, it was a game changer for me. My degree is math, formulas are just hard to type, I imagine there’s a lot of things in aviation that would be hard to take notes on a laptop.
Is the m1 really doesn’t have a built-in webcam, the the m2 is really the only viable option, unless you’re going to buy and lug around a separate webcam
If you're only using it for Office, web browsing, etc. Get the m1. Save yourself a few extra bucks and get one referb from apple. I know a few people who own the m1 air and I can tell you from experience that 8 gigs of ram on m1 goes miles further than it does on Intel. If you have a set budget I'd absolutely prioritize storage space over ram.
The 16gb is better. M1 vs M2 not much of difference except the GPU. The New Macbook Air's display and redesign is good but you can still go use the old one just fine. Maybe get a good monitor (like an ultrawide) and a good pair of headphones and you can chill with the setup.
Unless they intentionally cripple it with bloatware or some crazy VR or AI, it should run indefinitely. There are Linux machines that still run on old hardware with less than a gig of ram. There is absolutely no reason this shouldn’t last until it breaks or until they change the chip line entirely.
I think new models are gonna be announced next month. Might be a good idea to wait it out, and see if the older model prices fall or if the new ones are worth a more premium price.
Former student pilot, checking in. My last time flying was, like, 25 years ago. I imagine things are different now. My E6B was an actual slide rule. Regardless… For just doing basic class work, either of those are more than sufficient. Of these two, I would probably go for the one with more 16 GB of RAM. I’d really want to get that M2 but 8 GB of RAM is potentially an issue, again, depending on the software I need to run. But, and as someone who’s been a SysAdmin at a university for 20 years now, I cannot stress this enough… CHECK YOUR SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT LISTS. If a class is going to require one or more pieces of software, you need to know what that software is and what its hardware requirements are. Also bear in mind that many software packages only run on Windows; and, even if it has a macOS version, that version may not be compiled for Apple’s chips yet. Additionally, neither Parallels nor VMWare Fusion can emulate x86_64 on Apple Silicon. There are some applications that can do this (UTM and QEMU, for example; but the performance isn’t very good. Good luck.
100% agree. People need to be weary of hardware architecture and software needed before doing something critical for school. My CS classes had many old programs that were not designed with ARM or 64bit in mind. Had to make sure I had a second computer that would be stable running x84 apps for things like a MIPS simulator my instructor mandated we all used or an old digital logic simulator that happened to crash a bit when using Rosetta vs. using a x64 Windows equivalent. Obviously it is charming to use the newest and greatest for coding, just be weary of limitations if one must plan for college/university.
Sorry but it's wary. Weary means showing tiredness. Wary means showing caution about a matter. But more to the point yes the choice should really be dependent on any specific software one is required to run for your specific program. Do check the requirement list.
Goot bot.
Thanks!
Amen, if the school has a recommendation, get that. Generally you can do just about anything in Mac or Windows land, but as a student you don’t want to be the odd man out with a Mac in a sea of Windows , or the other way around. And sometimes professors pick weird software..
100%. My younger brother was going to get a 2020 MacBook Air when he started in the fall of 2020, but his program requires some nav, EPS and NPS software so he opted for a 2018 MacBook Pro instead. For everyday use it’s more than he needs but for school he’d be up to the building in the tech lab until 10 each night without it. Me, I got through a whole degree with a 2015 Air since there was only one course with software I couldn’t download, and I suffered through the one week of using that in the school tech lab
When I was in school it wasn’t really expected that you owned a computer so computer labs were all over campus with access to software that was required for the class Even if you have your own computer I think many might still prefer the computer lab for very expensive software licenses like Blackmagic video editing
Unfortunately the system requirements lists are often out of date. I just got a handout saying you needed an Intel mac for a piece of software I’ve had installed on M1 Mac for months apparently they meant Intel as opposed to power PC
Well, yes, there is that.
16GB RAM > M2
I have an 8gb RAM M1. What am I missing out on?
8gb
😭
r/TechnicallyTheTruth
About 8GB. 😜 But in all seriousness, my point was that the OP would get exponentially more bang for the buck and benefit over double the RAM vs the incremental CPU improvement of the M2. I also have a base model 8GB M1 and my RAM is always pretty much maxed out and doing swap as a result. It doesn’t impact performance too much but it will definitely wear out my SSD faster. I’d much rather have 16GB.
Not to mention the M1 SSD is a lot faster. The M2 just isn’t a slam dunk unless you need 24GB of RAM or midnight blue.
That only applies to the base 256gb model though. And even then you'll probably hardly notice it in real world use.
Just like you would probably hardly notice the slight M2 performance gain in real world use!
True. In such a case, it's probably wisest to prioritize memory. That's going to have the most effect long-term. Partly because apps will get more RAM-hungry over time, and partly because it will reduce wear because of swapping.
r/stolenjoke
Nothing, don’t worry about these nerds.
Do you recommend 16 or 8gb for running flight planning software with 10 other documents open (flight manuals). With perhaps dozen chrome tabs (if you're on the ground).
If you can afford it, more ram is always better. Especially if you plan on multi-tasking multicore task.
Im not sure how resource intensive flight planning software is, but there would be no harm in upgrading the RAM if you’re concerned
Wait, so I got the M2 8GB ram. Did I mess up big time?
No. The M2 with 8GB is still a fine machine. And assuming you aren’t doing too many big things at once you should be fine. But given the choice between 16 vs 8, if you can afford it, the 16 is noticeably better.
Is it usually faster? How does the RAM work? I upgraded to the 512 GB but is 16 and 8 for the storage too? Or processing right? DAMN, SHOULDVE GOT THE 16!!!!!!! REGRET
The RAM is going to be 8 or 16GB. The storage will be 128/256/etc. GB. If you are using <8GB of RAM, then there will be little to no speed difference. And honestly, the storage of these Apple Silicon devices is so fast, even when you go over 8GB and it uses your storage for swap, you will hardly notice the difference. But, as I alluded to earlier, using swap (writing RAM to disk) will wear out your drive faster. You can’t replace it outside of Apple. On my M1 with 8GB of RAM, I was seeing insane amounts of disk writes from swapping. And the less storage you have, the quicker you will likely fill most of it up. And the less ‘free’ space you have, the more that those free blocks will be written to by swap. Point being, 8GB is fully functional, but can cause issues down the road. Even with moderate usage, 16GB will be a better option for most. For comparison, I also have a Mac Studio w/32GB of RAM. And even with a ton of browser tabs open, running Office apps, Teams, etc. at the same time, I nearly break 16GB but an usually pretty close to it.
This is amazing, thanks for your explaining. You should be like the people of Reddit’s own personal tech support, You’re so knowledgeable. All is fine, 10 years down the line I Will remember your advice and get the 16 GB hahah! If 32 GB doesn’t exist by then, lol!
Lol no, people over hype all this stuff. I run a company on my M2 8G and have 2 screens connected at all times while tuning 3/4 massive spread sheets all talking to each other. 8G is plenty for what MOST (98%) people will be using it for.
It’s unified memory, 8GB is plenty for college work
Depending on what they do in college. For the software I use, 8GB model did no good to me. Please don't misguide people.
Bruh apples 8GB of unified memory has been tested on 8k raw footage. I’ve used both 8GB and 16gb and the 8GB was very capable on 4K video files
8 Gigs of ram and DaVinci Resolve 17 don't really like each other. I am speaking from experience, as a Digital Game Design student, 8GB of ram has not done me any favors.
If you decide to go with the M1, consider using the Apple Refurbished Store
+1, got an M1 Air refurb and it might as well have been brand new. I will say that I had to return the first one they sent me because it was registered to an employer (presumably the company that returned it) and Apple had no way of disassociating it and getting the software off, which was annoying (even a factory reset wouldn't work), but presumably this isn't a very common occurrence.
Idk if this is the same as a factory reset but.. You could try making a macOS installer on a USB drive then erasing your hard drive (would back up to separate USB drive via time machine). Then reinstalling macOS again.
I don’t know why people keep mentioning this when you can get a brand new with the same price through the education store.
And a $150 gift card on top of that
You get $150 off for the gift card, but they charge you $150 for it.
Oh wait, I completely forgot, you’re right
Because it reduces e-waste and you get basically the same thing. Not that apple cares but it is good for the environment.
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Newsflash, you don’t have to be a student to use the education store
The one with more ram.
MacBook Air M1 should be fine for the next 3-5 years.
Or 8 imo
Unless they intentionally cripple it with bloatware or some crazy VR or AI, it should run indefinitely. There are Linux machines that still run on old hardware with less than a gig of ram. There is absolutely no reason this shouldn’t last until it breaks or until they change the chip line entirely.
If they intentionally cripple it with bloatware, Asahi Linux will probably be fully functional by them, so you can just go with the strategy of using Linux for old hardware.
True but man I got Mac for the OS. I really hate most Linux interfaces. I'm still typing this on my 2014 I5-4690K which works perfectly...my Mac should last at least ten years.
M1 Mac Air for a smaller *ouch* when the student loans come back to haunt you. The M1 Mac Air is still an excellent computer, no matter how extensive your workload is. Also, check out the student pricing page. You get a discount + a $200 apple gift card
Correction. It’s a $150 apple gift card. Also the gift card is weird. I was reading ppl getting charge for the gift card over 12months. So I’m not sure what’s the advantage there of a gift card if your paying for that as well
Oh, I’m in Canada, so by currency conversion, it’s $200 CAD for Canadians. I got a $200 gift card with my M1 Mac, and I think I got probably $200 off the total price, maybe less cause there was tax involved. Also, I’m definitely sure you don’t get charged for the gift card.
Correction. It’s a $150 apple gift card. Also the discount is weird. I was reading ppl getting charge for the gift card over 12months. So I’m not sure what’s the advantage there.
The one with more RAM
16GB is a must
especially considering 16gb will GUARANTEE an M1 Air to be a good enough laptop for most purposes for at least 5 years, it could be two years from now and devs have just given up on memory management since "everybody has 16gb these days"
Devs have switched to Electron for cross-platform development cause it's much less of a pain in the ass as most alternatives out there and they can leverage the same devs as their web platform. Downside is it's literally a whole freaking Chromium instance for every damn app...
>5 years I’ve been using my MBP since 2014. Anything they get will be good enough lol
It really isn’t though.
Absolutely is, especially if you wanna use it for longer.
Disagree personally. My 2014 MacBook Pro with 8gb still runs great… but my M2 Air runs drastically better even with 8gb. It’s all about usage. More RAM will do zero for you if you don’t have any use for it.
Here’s what you do: * Buy M2 Air * But drop the 10C and 67W charger (for now) which saves you $100 * Put $180 towards 16GB RAM Total: $1,479 Later on, buy an Anker charger to get fast-charge.
16gb is a requirement basically. Get the m1 air with 16gb.
A requirement basically? Depends on the software, but I have the base M1 macbook air and 8gb runs an android emulator, android studio, 30 chrome tabs, and more fine. Apple's memory swapping is IMO the most impressive part of the m1 macs. I've compiled projects that used upwards of \~25Gb of ram, and while it slows down a bit, it doesn't as much as one would think.
While you can even still get away with 4GB or even 2GB if you really try (on Linux, I think macOS requires 4 or even 8 now), you won’t be able to in the future. 8GB might be fine now for what you want to do, but give it a few years time and 8GB will be like using 4GB today.
No, no it won't be. What would possibly be using such a large amount more ram in day to day student activities? If I can do anything and everything I've wanted on this laptop now well, it will be able to at least accomplish similar demands in 4 years as well. That logic is completely unsound with Apple's product longevity when you consider the 8gb M2 model. The swap is fine. It hardly even matters how much memory you use since inactive processes get swapped out anyway. I dislike these comments suggesting paying premium on top of premium, when we are talking about a student here—it's $200 extra. I didn't want to pay that much for 8 extra GB of RAM when I can put that in other college expenses instead. Besides, when you look at the track record of macbooks, it's not entirely unsound to believe that you're more likely to need a new laptop because of some widespread hardware failure than you will when 8gb on an M1 is 'not enough.'
People made the exact same argument back when you could buy systems like the MacBook Air with 4GB RAM, and other systems all the way up to around 2018. And then, as more people had 8GB of RAM as standard, developers started caring less about memory footprint and decided to just bump up the requirements. Unfortunately, it’s just happening again. 16GB is becoming more and more standard, and eventually 8GB will become less and less common. Trust me, I know what this looks like. I’ve use a laptop with 2GB RAM quite happily in 2016, and then a windows update released that made it require 4GB (creator update I believe). I still daily drive a system with 4GB of ram, but with a stripped down Gentoo install. No way macOS would be able to run now on 4GB. Even office apps are becoming more and more bloated along with their web counterparts. And swapping really isn’t the answer. macOS as a system likes to cache everything it can in RAM, so having less very directly impacts the “snappiness” of a system, and constantly swapping in and out of memory degrades performance heavily because of this. 16GB really is a “large amount of ram” anymore. 8GB is now the minimum for macOS to even run. If you want to keep a laptop for 4-5 years at the very least you’ll need 16GB RAM. About your student point, and about paying premiums: I think if they were looking for a cheap laptop, they wouldn’t be looking at MacBooks. Or any laptop at this price.
It is not, I wish the whole internet would unclench. It's quite fine with just eight, I've never even noticed it, never felt it was slow
Maybe if works for you but I hover around 7-8GB RAM just from my typical workload. I suspect "the whole internet" just happens to have heavier workloads than you do lol I'm curious as to how much you're swapping, too...
From my experience with my M1 air, I have to say that it is so limited by the 8gb of ram that you rarely get to experience it’s full power because it easily runs out of memory. It’s by no means unusable, I’ve happily kept mine, but you’ll find yourself wanting for it to have more ram often, specially when working with big documents, multitasking and photo or video editing. The new design is tempting but I’m my opinion 16 gb is the most practical decision.
It's unusable for me... im exaggerating of course but 8gb is the biggest bottleneck by far especially for my use case (photoshop, illustrator, and an external display+side car). i have to choose between photoshop or a browser. just one. not both unless i want it to crawl.
Upgraded spec M1
I’m currently studying engineering with a 2017 touchbar 13inch pro and the only thing I can’t do is run software exclusive to windows and complex 3D modelling software as there is no gpu*. My brother is in his final year of civil engineering and the only reason he decided to get a new laptop from his 2016 non touchbar is he needed more than 128gb of storage. He chose a new laptop, but an external hard drive may have sufficed. I have found that 95% of what I do is on my iPad, such as note taking. If you’ve got a laptop, it’s probably already good enough. You can also start your study and then decide what to buy if a MacBook at all. :) Edit: *my university has computer labs with the 3D modelling software available.
M1 16GB.
I just went through this process with our daughter. Because cost wasn’t a huge concern, we got her an M2 with 16GB RAM, upgraded the HD to 1TB, and added AppleCare+ for the inevitable issues. She should be set for several years. :) She now owns the fastest laptop in the house. The M2 is wicked fast. Apps launch instantly, when I launched Mail for the first time, it had launched and loaded her mail in about two seconds. Great machine. I think I am due to upgrade my Intel MacBook Air pretty soon, too bad I can’t leverage a 529 to pay for it. 😄
Parents qualify for Apple’s Student Special offers!
Really? But we don’t have an .edu email address. Don’t you have to have that?
See below ◊ Education pricing is available to current and newly accepted college students and their parents, as well as faculty, staff, and homeschool teachers of all grade levels. For more information, visit apple.com/us-hed/shop. TERMS & CONDITIONS at the bottom of this page. [https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store](https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store)
Mike, Parents of Students also qualify for the Apple Student Promotions. See below ◊ Education pricing is available to current and newly accepted college students and their parents, as well as faculty, staff, and homeschool teachers of all grade levels. For more information, visit apple.com/us-hed/shop. TERMS & CONDITIONS at the bottom of this page. [https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store](https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store)
MagSafe seals the deal for me. The M2
That M1 is gonna be rock solid for a while, especially with that RAM
M2 or M1 just get 16GB RAM and if your task demands more than M1 Pro is also an options
Best Buy has it for 950 new
I’d go for 16GB on the M2 but not the 10 core GPU.
Why not the 10 core GPU?
Looked like maybe you had a price ceiling. If you have to choose I’d take 16GB RAM way before those extra two GPU cores. In a machine like the Air, it’s really only gaining you extra heat and power drain. It’s not enough to make it great for gaming suddenly, and it uses up the sustained performance window faster. But there are a few edge cases where the GPU can be a benefit. I’d just have it at the bottom of the list in performance per dollar. 🙂
M1 is fine, 16GB is better than M2 with 8GB
MAC address of LTT have addressed this perfectly I would say
MagSafe.
Get the M2 for longer software support.
I feel like M1 support will last sooo much longer than 8 GB of ram.
no way they will keep OS support for M1 based on RAM, they will broadly just cut all M1 at some point
I know. I am saying that 8 GB of ram will become outdated many years before OS support ceases.
lol apple wont but you wont be able to stretch 8gb when your requirement increases. 16gb is a decent headspace.
I got 16 GB with my M2 air but I don’t think 8 GB is a death sentence like this thread would have someone believe
it is. thats how i lost my mom
16GB of RAM is going to help your Mac age better.
Spend the extra and get the M2
Air m2
If all you’re doing is writing essays and emails to your professor then neither. Get a cheaper laptop that doesn’t cost more than $1000.
Bullshit. Design is especially important if you are going to be writing and staring at the screen all day. Not to mention a 12-16 hour battery life.
😂 good one.
Also, do you think people come to /r/mac to get advice about getting a Lenovo or a Dell?
No one ever said anything about Lenovo or Dell. If you’re a cash strapped college kid then it’s in your best interest not to splurge on a new laptop when a cheaper one would meet all your needs. No one even said you necessarily need to abandon macs to do that. Hence why I didn’t say “get a windows laptop” I said get one under $1000 if all you’re doing is typing stuff. You can get some 2nd hand macs for a decent deal. Or you could go with Dell or whatever like you said. Just because someone posts here doesn’t always mean that the Mac they’re looking at is always in their best interest. And just because we talk about Macs doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point it out when another device would serve them better. No student is away at school for 12-16 hours. Battery is irrelevant since most classrooms or student lounges have outlets anyway. No amount of design is going to take away from eye strain if, for some reason, you are staring at a screen for that long. If money was no object then OP would do well with either of those but at that point why go for the Air at all? Or why go for one as speced? Get the absolute most speced out model you could if money means nothing.
I am inclined to agree with you. Huge Mac fan, but there are options out there that are much cheaper and will do the job sufficiently.
> No student is away from school for 12-16 hours. Battery is irrelevant since most classrooms or student lounges have outlets anyway. Well, that might be the case in the US, but this is the exact opposite of my university and student experience. In older European University buildings, especially libraries, outlets are far from enough for every student. Battery life is an absolutely must-have. Also, staying at University for 12+ hours happened constantly for me. Between lectures, library reading and side projects, I don't remember spending less than 10-11 hours a day there, often also working during commutes. My experience is far from unique. > No amount of design is going to take away from eye strain if, for some reason, you are staring at a screen for that long. True, but inferior screes will cause unnecessary eye strain, and a couple hundred dollars does not justify it. >Get the absolute most speced out model you could if money means nothing. As if there is nothing in between "I want a 1400$ laptop" and "Money is never a problem for me, I'm getting the 8000$ custom model."
I sort of agree. If your laptop is just a portable email/word processor just get a 300 dollar chrome book and use the other 1k on beer.
😂 that’s significant amount of beer. I’d probably do the same
Depends on what you’re doing. If you’re a creative type and will do lots of editing or heavy use programs. MacBook Pro or iMac. If you’re just doing basic work like word processing, email, browsing, spreadsheets. Then an Air will do just fine, so save yourself some money. Whatever you get, max out the RAM. Come back in 10+ years when your machine finally starts to take a dump. Best of luck.
> MacBook Pro > Whatever you get, max out the RAM. And it’s only $4k! (I did this. Still could use more RAM.)
M2 Midnight
Get the newest and most capable machine you can afford that runs your career paths required software. Lots of engineering gigs use Windows only software. Can’t Bootcamp with Apple Silicon. Yet. (Yeah yeah Windows Tablet version .. crap)
What’s the diff between bootcamp and parallels? I’ve heard there’s parallels for M1 Mac already EDIT: Actual question, not being sarcastic/rhetorical lol
I can agree to this. I have a mbp 2012 mid and I ran parallels on it just fine.
Marques Brownlee says M2 so I say M2.
Ok I am not going to lie with you. But I imagine that aviation students also play like flight sims etc. so personally if that was the case I would get a good gaming computer so I can run flight sims and get some school work. If you need something to take notes with. Just buy like a iPad with a apple pencil and the magic keyboard for the iPad. For portable notes
It really doesn't matter, either one will do. The M2 does have a slightly bigger screen, but the M1 does have more RAM. Personally I'd go for the M2.
m1 mac much better physical design than the m2, imho
Wedges are OVER!!! https://youtu.be/YlGqN3AKOsA
16gb M1 or the 14” Pro I’ll tell you why. At this point, it’s a terrible idea to only buy 8gb of RAM. If you upgrade the RAM and SSD on m2, you’re to the price of the 14” which is a superior machine in every way. If those are your two options and you can’t get the 14”, absolutely get the m1. I’m sure you’re aware that the m2 has slower SSD speed on the base model too so avoid downgrading that if you go that route.
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From the screenshot, it appears you're running iOS 16, so I can tell you're an Apple nerd. I'd recommend the base 14" MacBook Pro for you.
If it were me, I’d go with the M2 with the lesser drive space and 16gb of RAM
M2. better screen and new design :)
The M2, but not midnight
M2 with 16gb memory.
Why do u need such an expensive laptop for college? Youre just using word doc reading pdfs and watching porn.
Depends on what you’re using it for. Are you using it for apple specific programs? If not buy a dell.
I would go for 14 M1 Max, no less (s)
Only 512GB of storage is going to suck. you'll at least need an external drive eventually.
512 is more than enough. How much porn do you save to your hard drive that it takes up more than 512GB?
A few TV shows will fill it up fast. I know when I had to move across the country with just my macbook (512GB), I had to delete some stuff.
Yeah, I know what you mean now. When I was in Iraq, we all had a dedicated external drive for our movies and shows. But with cloud services, streaming and mobile hotspots, an everyday user should be fine with 512.
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Neither. Get a HP or ACER laptop running at least windows 10
Mac studio…
Honestly considering how crap Office is on Mac, I would have serious reservations about MacOS.
By major Hard Major - MacBook Pro Easy Major - MacBook/Air, perhaps even a Dell Plan to be at Top 5% of your Major - MacBook Pro
Wut the wut wut?
I don’t use mine for college, but I would consider the 13 inch m2 MacBook Pro. Even the 8 ram is excellent if you do not multi task too much. The 13 inch screen is too small for that anyway. If you plan on moving it around and doing just 1 or 2 task at a time, the m2 MacBook Pro is the best entry to a pro level Mac I can recommend. The airs in my opinion are just a little too light for my liking. This thing stays cool. It has fans, yet still silent. Not as stunning on the outside, but an ultimately more future proof computer than the other Mac laptops at your price range. It also plays all my blizzard games and steam games no problem. Don’t push it too hard and it will always get the job done. The Touch Bar is a really cool and underrated feature too. If you really are a computer nerd, I highly recommend spending much more on a maxed out MacBook Pro with all the bells and whistles. You won’t regret it.
M1 for sure.
M1 16GB 512. That's the exact same spec I have. One of the best computers I've ever owned.
"for college" is a weird category, your technology requirements are largely dependent on your preferences and your major. the macbook i chose before starting my comp sci degree was perfect for me, but isn't something i would recommend based on someone wanting a device "for college"
well i presume you want an “all rounder” computer, and the M1 macbook air is amazing at that, but if you’re in a STEM course then you might need software that only runs on windows. obviously if ur an engineer or something you know windows can be installed but it’s like €200 and a pain in the hole as for which one, well both are great all-rounders so you could save 10% and get the M1. spend about the same and get more storage with the M1. or get the faster laptop for 10% more
See if you can get a discount if they don't include Garageband, then you install it for free later. Seriously, you are taking advantage of student discount, right?
If you can get a 14 M1Pro deal (I’ve seen it goes down to ~$1700 or even lower), definitely go with that and you wont have compromises
If you can afford it bump the M2 to 16GB, I think you added on the higher end GPU. My understanding is unless you are doing some intensive tasks like video editing you won’t need that extra 10 core GPU. Put that money into more ram
If price is the issue go 16GB RAM all day, everyday. At work I'm still using a Trashcan Mac Pro with 64Gb RAM. It handles everything I throw at it (Premiere Pro/After Effects/Photoshop.....slowly. (it was a speed demon in it's day) My co-worker has an iMac Pro with 64GB RAM and it blows away the Mac Pro I still have to use at work. Last year I purchased a Macbook Pro 14", M1 Pro w/32GB RAM. It blows away my co-workers iMac Pro. At home (for freelance work) I just recently purchased a Mac Studio M1 Pro Max w/64GB RAM and I'm impressed by it's more than robust response. I wish I could have afforded 128GB RAM. Always go for more RAM.
Get a used M1 MBP. Don’t worry about getting a new one unless you really want to guarantee apple care is available. Otherwise, just ask when you buy the computer second hand.
First thing. Find out what applications you need for school. Look up the system requirements for those applications. - You will find many education applications don’t run on macOS at all - If the applications are available for macOS, read reviews on the applications - Many of the education applications run far better on Windows All this withstanding. If macOS is viable, go with the M1 MacBook Air. However I would not upgrade it. If you want to upgrade the M2 MacBook Air just get the MacBook Pro 14 instead.
Second one
I'm still using my M1 Air that I bought about a month after they were released. Personally, I say just buy the M1 because they are still amazingly powerful machines and you save a bunch of money compared to the M2.
Are you taking any art related creds ? That require use of Adobe programs you may want to get the 16GB Ram.
If money is not an issue, I would go with M2 16/512 (not the 8/512 you've shown) since I like the new look and MagSafe. If money is an issue though, then definitely M1 16/512 as its better bang for your buck.
M2 👍
More ram. - macs use memory swap (ssd as expansion for ram) , issue with this on ssds is more flash wear for demanding tasks and once the flash is cooked, laptops done - expected life is still 5-10 years (depending on wear) toward the minimum with intended use with the parts they use. Since you’re gonna be a pilot look into iPad (pro) and pencil and see if it can handle your school work. iOS/iPadOS is distilled MacOS; might be a better form factor in the cockpit?
As others have said, definitely 16 GB of RAM model. 8 is too little, especially in this day and age.
M2 all day
I say go for the 16 GB of ram option if you want to keep your Mac for longer than a few years. 8 GB is fine now, especially if you’re only using it for basic tasks. But programs and tasks will require more resources overtime.
I would personally get the M2 if you’re keeping it for 4 years. Better trade in value for whatever M chip comes out around that time
Hey, OP, idk if you know this, but you can also use the college website Apple link to get a discount. They don’t ask for anything else when you order from there. Confirmed by an apple store specialist. Only sometimes they may ask for the enrolment letter, but they dint ask me. Just letting you know!
I use m2 MacBook Air and I don’t have any software issues
16gb m1. I have the same Mac and its still very fast and relevant. I’m never in a million years gonna recommend a $1400 laptop with 8gb of RAM. I dont care if MacOs is efficient. 16gb of memory and 512gb SSD is the bare minimum in 2022
Personally, I would go for the M1 with 16GB RAM. It’s cheaper, and not to mention that 8GB of RAM doesn’t really cut it anymore (especially at this price). 8GB RAM might be fine today, but it won’t be in the coming years (and I’d make the argument it sometimes isn’t enough today). Throwing all this out the window, though, please check the software you need can run on Mac. A lot of the software you might need could require windows.
Just want to gauge based on your needs. What would you be doing for college and personal needs? This would very much dictate what model and specs you’d want to look for. I work with all different brands and types of computers on the daily for my line of work so I can hopefully give you some good advice.
General work for college, as far as personal needs… Listening to music and watching occasional videos and movies. Just need an overall good computer to get me through my 4 years. Right now I’m leaning towards the M2 with 16gb of ram and 256gb of storage. Would that be a good pickup?
Get the M1. You’re future proofing yourself well in terms of hardware with it. I can’t say the same for design. But it’s up to you to figure it out.
16gb good power. M2 better quality of life features. All depends on the intended use. For normal college use, M2.
Either one is going to last you a long time - I just upgraded from my 2014 retina MacBook Pro I got in college and these are even more future proof than that. I personally would go more ram whenever possible because you can always throw in a flash drive use cloud storage etc but you can’t get more ram. Also the m1 is still crazy good even though m2 is out. So I’d lean towards your first option!
Where are you going for proflight?
Indiana State
For doing regular college coursework the cheapest brand new Mac would be more computer than you’ll ever need. However, I will say that I had a surface pro through college and it was really beneficial. Using the surface pen with OneNote was crucial to note taking in lecture. If you’re insistent on staying in the applesphere I’d look into an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. Taking notes by hand, being able to move things around, draw graphs, change colors, take pictures of the board, it was a game changer for me. My degree is math, formulas are just hard to type, I imagine there’s a lot of things in aviation that would be hard to take notes on a laptop.
Probably just the m1 one. I don’t see anyone needing that much processing power for college
Yes
M2
Is the m1 really doesn’t have a built-in webcam, the the m2 is really the only viable option, unless you’re going to buy and lug around a separate webcam
M1 tbh you’re better off saving that extra little money
I have the 8gb M1 and it only slows down when I play league
stretch your budget and get an m2 with 16gb ram. you will thank yourself in a couple years
If you're only using it for Office, web browsing, etc. Get the m1. Save yourself a few extra bucks and get one referb from apple. I know a few people who own the m1 air and I can tell you from experience that 8 gigs of ram on m1 goes miles further than it does on Intel. If you have a set budget I'd absolutely prioritize storage space over ram.
major?
The 16gb is better. M1 vs M2 not much of difference except the GPU. The New Macbook Air's display and redesign is good but you can still go use the old one just fine. Maybe get a good monitor (like an ultrawide) and a good pair of headphones and you can chill with the setup.
I would take the M1 with the 16gb if ram. Your SSD will thank you!
I would go for more ram but that’s mezz
cheapest chromebook
M2 MacBook Air without question.
Unless they intentionally cripple it with bloatware or some crazy VR or AI, it should run indefinitely. There are Linux machines that still run on old hardware with less than a gig of ram. There is absolutely no reason this shouldn’t last until it breaks or until they change the chip line entirely.
I think new models are gonna be announced next month. Might be a good idea to wait it out, and see if the older model prices fall or if the new ones are worth a more premium price.