Pisses me off that they charge 200 dollars for an extra 8gb of ram but I want a laptop with a good screen and processing power
The problem is not that they're not good, it's that they're insanely overpriced and basically disposable since you can almost never repair or upgrade them. If you're made of money and don't give a shit about e-waste then go for it.
What mine (m1 pro, 16gb ram, has fans) is good at:
- Very low power usage and exceptionally long battery life
- Screen is above and beyond what a laptop needs
- generally fast and can manage cpu-heavy games and video transcoding
What it’s bad at
- ever being able to upgrade
- some functionality requires third-party apps or terminal knowledge
- not all programs have an Apple silicon version and need the translation layer
- virtualization is inconsistent and unpredictable
They’re cool devices. I’ve been a longtime laptop hater but I’m happy with mine. Yes you do need the 16gb ram upgrade that they will rip you off for. Get a pro model if you think you’ll need active cooling, but my fans rarely turn on.
You sound like you'd rather do a bit than get advice about laptops
It depends on your use case. I got my mom the cheapest M1 Air and she loves it more than any other laptop she’s ever had. It’s good for browsing the web, watching videos, making documents, Zoom etc. And the battery life is incredible. 8GB ram is more than enough to do all this and more at the same time (at least on a MacBook).
The more expensive Air and Pro models with more powerful M chips will obviously be better at more demanding tasks - processing, editing, coding etc.
And none will be good for games, unless you shell out $4k to get 40 fps on medium settings.
