I have an M1 MacBook Pro that I use both at home and when I am out on the go.
I want a computer at home that runs continuously to execute scheduled Claude tasks while I’m away. Donkey work…
I initially considered a Mac mini, but now I’m thinking: maybe it’s time to upgrade to an M4 MacBook Pro and leave my current M1 at home running Claude permanently.
What are your thoughts? I’d appreciate input to help me think through this decision.
Vectors:
I’d get a Mini if you can work with the base model. Mostly because a fancy MBP is going to be about 4x as expensive right now, and this stuff is only getting better. Every year you put off your laptop upgrade cycle is another year for the tech to improve. 
I decided on an iMac when the M1 came out. Really liked the screen size - 27” was bigger than I wanted. Had been using an older MBA for travel but wanted to move to Apple chips for upgrades. Picked up a M1 MBP on Craigslist for a great price and it has done well. The iMac stays on all the time and is connected to a UPS so it rarely shuts down.
Upgrade the laptop to M4 or M5. Sell the M1 and get a Neo instead (because it will last longer, be cheaper, and has a UPS built in). Put the Neo on a shelf doing your always on work. Hope that Apple doesn’t release a Mac mini Neo at WWDC 
To offer a counter perspective, I ended up somewhere completely different and it’s working for me.
First, to establish my credibility: I’ve got a Mac mini m1, a m2 MacBook Air, iPad, iPhone, etc. Buuuut I’ve also been running a low-power Home Theater PC/NAS for years that keeps all my movies, music, a PDF archive, Time Machine backups, photos, blah blah blah. It started as an experiment with Raspberry Pi’s and old hard drives, then graduated to some Intel NUCs I found, and for the last couple years a HP Mini Tower that sits next to my washer and dryer and is always on.
That machine is modest - not the fastest processor by any stretch, 16GB of ram. But it came with a 512 SSD and I put two 13TB drives in it - one backs up the other. It’s all run on Open Media Vault. Here’s the thing though, minus those two hard drives the whole thing cost $120.
And here’s where I get into the next level nerdiness – apologies in advance.
Most of the work in my workflows is done by Claude - not the local machines processor. As soon as I saw how useful this Robot Assistant thing was I, like you, wanted access and for it to be able to run any time. So I looked into NanoClaw and realized quickly: huh, this security stuff seems totally manageable. I took the leap and
Around security, there’s a few details about isolating things with a NanoClaw user and containers, but Claude Code helped me get through all that.
So far it’s been great. I get a morning, mid-day, and evening updates sent to me via WhatsApp. I can send a message from my phone and say things like “I have 20 minutes right now and I have my phone, what should I do” or “I’m near the post office and have 15 minutes” and it gives me a good answer. I can be in my car, think of something, say it to WhatsApp via CarPlay, and it gets handled.
I even had Claude Code improve the server itself. Turns out I had TBs worth of dupes I didn’t realize it caught, fixed, and cleaned up.
Someday, when I can run the whole LLM locally, I wouldn’t mind paying for a beefier machine. But for now, when the AI processing is happening elsewhere, and I’m mostly working with calendars, email, PDFs, markdown, and other things that aren’t macOS specific or churning through video rendering projects, I don’t see the need because this is awesome.
Not for everyone, but I think worth considering.
That’s a good route I believe. Thanks for your input.
There are still some used Mac minis for sale here in Sweden so I’ll try to get hold of one. M1 and M2 should work fine.
That sounds like a sweet setup.
I was also thinking about an iMac, but then I realized that I need a screen to hook up my computer from for work, so the Mac Mini may be the solution for me.
Soooo many options.
Your approach is attractive. I must say.
I’ll try to get my hands on a very cheap mini - but if that does not work out I might go for you solution.
Thanks for the input. Me like
Wow
What a setup.
Thanks for the perspective - it sure broadened my view of available options.
Looking forward to continued updates and discussions.