Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

My new laptop arrived today, so I'd like to shift my old one asap. Make me an offer!

This one in the comment here.

Apple mini is £450 in HK only issue is no stock until Xmas 🥲

the base model? It's only £499 in the UK with edu discount. If you know anyone who has a student card or university staff ID, flash it at the till and bob's your uncle.

Ola,

I am looking to get a Mac laptop in the next couple of weeks, I have done some research but still a bit undecided and have found I have a few questions unanswered.

First off:

• My budget is around £750, although could stretch a bit.

• I would like a laptop. This is definite, not a mini (I know they are good!).

• I think it has to be an M chip.

• My main aims are photoshopping, and invoicing (I use word and excel). Be good to be able to listen to music on it and browsing at the same time. Pretty basic.

• I know Mac’s are expensive and constantly have new models but would like this to last and I will use it until it dies. Five years minimum I hope for it to work well.

• My previous, I’ve always used ancient imacs my present one is the last one with a dvd drive! It is absolutely on its last legs and takes an age to do anything. YouTube is a memory. As I said, I will use the new one until death. Before that I had another iMac and then prior to that PowerBooks, but all dated when I got them.

• Screen size, bigger would be better but I don’t think an issue if it’s the smaller ones if it is better machine.

What I am looking at:

• I’ve been looking at refurbished ones, and tbh, the CEX 5 year warranty is hard to beat. Have looked at Hoxton Macs, Back Market and it seems curries only do 8gb airs. The zero finance at curries is appealing but looks like they already have money added to the price. But I would like a decent, decent condition to start.

• It seems to me I could get an m2 8gb or really stretch for a 16gb or get an m1 and easily get 16gb with 512 as opposed to 256.

• with the m1’s it looks like the air is probably the better option despite the pro having better speakers, microphone (don’t care) and a brighter display. I am unsure if it has any extra ports, I think they both have two thunderbolts. The pros have that Touch Bar thing which wasn’t well received, I’m not sure if I care, should I? Maybe only if it looks like it is something which will break.

• the m2 is obviously more recent but my needs don’t really require more than the m1 I’m sure, apart from the longevity.

• I am unsure whether the m2 pros and airs differ that much. I know they changed the bodies.

So my questions really are I suppose:

• M2 or better specced M1?

• Following the above, pro or air?

• Also, is 8gb anything a waste and or/ shortsighted?

• Will I have to use a subscription for word and excel or will it have alternatives I can get used to? Or can I get some sort of copy?

Many thanks.

If it hasn’t sold, stretch the budget to £850 and buy the one from @photoben above.

You can get a subscription to Microsoft office, I have one for about £40-£50 a year. But Apple do alternatives, pages for word and numbers for excel which are free I believe..

Will I have to use a subscription for word and excel or will it have alternatives I can get used to? Or can I get some sort of copy?

https://www.openoffice.org/

Anything with an M-processor will be fine. The difference from Intel to M is huge, the difference between M-generations less so. Just buy the best you can afford and you'll be good :)

You won't notice a performance difference, but the M2 Air is significantly different to the M1 Air - it adds MagSafe for power (effectively giving you an extra usable Thunderbolt port) and a slightly bigger screen.

Likewise the 13-inch "touch bar" M1 MBPs use an older chassis design. You do get a bigger battery but a smaller, lower quality screen.

The 14 inch M1 MBPs are excellent and can be great value for money. I've been using one for 2+ years and have no plans to replace it until Apple obsoletes it or I break it. Buy the one a few posts up on this thread!

Yeah totally. My new laptop is great, but a large reason I upgraded is export times being halved, which is helpful with clients breathing down your neck. Apart from that, the M1 Pro is fantastic.

Appreciate the replies.

Am still curious as to whether the 8gb is a waste and the actual differences between 8 and 16 in the m chip models.

Dont think your use case (photoshopping and invoicing) will over exert the 8gb or require the 16gb. It comes down to how much you want to spend, and how likely you are to require extra power in the future.
When you could replace the ram yourself it wasn’t an issue, now it’s an opportunity for angst and second guessing.
Whichever one you choose will be a massive, massive, upgrade over what you are replacing.
Buy what you can afford and don’t beat yourself up about what you could have had

My company ditched 8gb M laptops as they did struggle.
This is my m1 16gb "daily" usage. And I'm not a heavy user (but Webex seems to love all the ram).

Personally I would stretch to 16Gb if possible. The M1 I find insanely fast, and even though I'm switching to an M3/M4 soon I don't think I even need to. Had the M1 since launch

1 Attachment

My AirPods Pro have developed a weird rumble. It’s really odd, it’s almost like a weird feedback loop that reacts to vibration or impact. It only happens if I’m walking quickly or cycling. And it starts off low frequency and begins to reverberate. It stops if I place a hand on it but will begin again when I stop.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Not that, but every minor issue I’ve had has been fixed with a hard reset

lets go!

That's very neat

This is pretty cool. I was considering the bigger storage mini but maybe I’ll go for the base model and chuck one of these on for the 500gb ssd I’ve got gathering dust

I went with the MacBook Air 16gb/512 in the end.

Got it from CEX for the five year warranty. Hopefully never have to find out if that warranty is actually any good but reassuring nonetheless...

Very, very happy so far.

So my daughter had a 2021 14” M1 MacBook Pro and shut it when there was a Bobby pin (?) on the keyboard, which cracked a small part of the screen but the whole screen subsequently failed. She has walked away from it with a new M4 model and I am left with the broken one. I connected to a monitor with USB-C and it seems fully functional, have wiped and reset it and seems fine, but cannot be used as a laptop any more. I looked at replacing screen and there are cheaper OEM parts seemingly available on eBay but I have read that there is some kind of special calibration needed which only Apple and their approved repairers are able to do. Would be interested to know if anyone has an idea of how much it might typically cost with Apple to have the screen replaced and if it would be worthwhile, rather than replacing it myself with OEM part or having it continue to be limited to use in a desktop setting with second screen (my preference obviously would be to have it as a laptop if feasible from cost perspective, and use to replace my 2012 MacBook Pro which is still going strong but not been able to receive OS updates for last few years so probably not a good idea to keep using from security perspective).

Have you acquired it yet? Does it work?

Weird one. I planned to post about my antique iPhone XS and ask if there was any reason it would be running slow. Texting was a chore due to delay from typing and text appearing and other odd things which were very irritating. But today I did the update to 18.1.1 (after deleting a load of stuff to create space) and all is good with the world. Everything is back to the way it was.
This might of use to someone.

no but I will, I need to sort storage options for the base M4 mini .. currently use the satechi hub on M1 mini with NVME SSD inside

Is this a bad place to ask about getting a cracked non subscription version of InDesign for Mac?

Asking for a friend… of a friend… who I used to know… from another school.

Yes!

Late reply, but I have the same on first gen air pods pro (now four years old). Left one sort of has an electronic ‘tick’ each time I take a step when walking. I think it was a known issue at the time and they did free replacements in warranty periods. You can buy individual replacement buds for £79 from Apple, but I figured I’d just put up with it and then get some v2s at some point.

I did take them to an iStore but they were like, ‘yeah, these are four years old now’ which didn’t seem unreasonable.

not sure that exists as a thing, since all abobe apps/programs are subscription based. If you don't have a subscription adobe doesn't work. Best bet is to piggyback off of someone who has a subscription already, as it can be accessed over two computers.
But you may need to double check this info.