So I traded in my 2017 macbook pro for the bottom mac air m1. did I do the right thing?

What I gave up. Macbook Pro 2017 i7/2.9ghz 15" 16gb/512gb/radeon4gb with a fresh new logic board and battery.

What I got: Macbook Air M1 8gb/256gb

I never use more than 150gb on my harddrive so the hd space concerned me the least. It was almost even $$ swap.

I swore I was going to wait but I am so afraid of the keyboard dying on the 2017 and knowing that it has very little resale value in the future, I made the trade. Is there anything that I won’t be able to do on the air m1 that I can do on the macbook pro (other than bootcamp)?

Depends–what’s the most complicated/demanding app you use? What was your old monitor setup?

So far I’ve found the M1 Air to perform favorably compared to my 2017 i7.

No external monitor use, my main question is there anything I wont be able to do on the air m1 that I do on the pro?

You’ve got an amazing new machine. If there are things you can’t do, you’ll find a way around and you’re going to have a blast with it.
So don’t worry, I say. Enjoy :slight_smile:

Thanks. Buyer’s remorse was starting to creep in but I just found a video that came out yesterday. I feel better now.

I think you made a great choice. I am very, very tempted myself to trade my fully decked out 2016 MBP which is ridiculed by this new tiny machine. I keep telling myself I want 4 Thunderbolt ports and 4 Gb internal storage, but daaaaamn…

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I’m always loathe to tell other people what they should want in a computer but I think you should consider increasing that internal storage… 4GB just doesn’t go as far as it used to :wink:

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I would also suggest people read Jason Snell’s review and handy charts & graphs at:

This was the line that got me:

Basically, the $5000 iMac Pro I bought three years ago has been humbled by a $999 MacBook Air and a $699 Mac mini. This is real life. This is where we are now.

I only wish I could trade in two old (2011/2012) Mac minis towards a new m1 mini!

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Aahhh yes, but that will be AWESOME on my Mac LC. :laughing:

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I have a 2016 MBP that I’m considering trading in, but I’m concerned about compatibility with web development. That’s what I do generally in my day to day, and I need to be able to run server VMs and local instances of PHP, MySQL, etc… I’m still holding off for that reason, but it’s definitely hard as I see these reviews pour in. I am glad I didn’t splurge a month ago on a 2019 Intel MBP though.

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Actually had the exact same train of thoughts: I traded back in my MB Pro 2017 15’ i7 for a MacBook Air M1 with 16gb and 1Tb SSD.
Crazy how much of an improvement that feels like: this thing is fast, turn on instantly, last forever and all that for a third of the real estate of the previous one. Furthermore I am yet to find something it cannot do.
Let me know how you like yours but I am sold!

Did you do the right thing? The answer depends on whether the computer you bought does what you need it to do better than the computer that you traded in.

The current crop of ARM Macs have limitations that preclude them from being “the right thing” for a lot of users (most notably the small amount of max RAM, and more limited external display support (and Windows support, but that’s likely not going to be rectified)). If those things are not problems for you (and I suspect that for most of the people in this community, they’re not) and the new machine is performing well for the things that you need it to do, and it gives you joy to use it, then in my opinion you absolutely did the right thing :slight_smile:

You will have less coffee breaks. Deal with it. :grinning:

I decided to go the M1 route. For those tasks that are very RAM intensive, I already have a PC.

But I am really curious, how the M1 will deal with that stuff.

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Absolutely! I’d just have picked the 16gb version.
Everything else absolutely outperforms any current intel macbook

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