I haven't had an Apple product in a decade but the shear efficiency of their CPUs is pretty impressive. Been thinking about picking up a MacBook Pro or Air (which doesn't even have fans) for travel because I'm getting really tired of lugging around my relatively heavy and inefficient Windows laptop

As mundane and common as the information I’m about to share may be, it’s the reality of MacBook ownership for many - dare I say most?

I don’t buy new MacBooks. I get them refurbished from MicroCenter, Apple, or elsewhere.

In 2024, I picked up a 2021-released 14” M1 Max MacBook Pro w/ 2 TB and 64 GB for $1800 from Microcenter. Because Apple is so hostile to repairs, I have been paying for AppleCare+ and will continue for some time. But I don’t see myself truly needing to replace this machine for another 2-3 years. It’s my daily driver for BBedit, some IDEs, music apps, Firefox with dozens of tabs, Mail, Messages, iTerm2 with half a dozen tmux sessions.

True - my computing needs are not demanding. But for those of us who offload commuting to remote servers and mostly use thin clients, the computer is a joy to use.

I’ve been dabbling in Ableton Live Suite 12 Lite, which came with my Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88 MKII midi keyboard, and this machine never breaks a sweat.

The M-series are seriously as close to BIFL as a consumer laptop can be.

Meanwhile, my wife’s daily driver is a 2013 13” MacBook Air w/ 128 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM. And an Intel i7 from that era. I won’t defend this though. She’s insane, and I don’t know how she lives with herself. I purchased it used from a Craigslist seller to be my daily driver 14 years ago, and it lasted until I upgraded to a 2020 M1 MacBook Air base model, which I later donated to a friend in need.