New computer days are momentous. It happens rarely and only after a thorough chunk of research. Are the advancements significant? What’s the trade-in value on the current rig? And most importantly, is it necessary?
My setup has been a Mac Studio (M1) — which has been solid, but I sure can make the rainbow wheel spin. I also have a low spec MacBook Air (M2) for travel that’s served me well and been quite impressive — in many ways it’s been snappier than the desktop.
In my new blended work approach, splitting time between these two machines has introduced oodles of font issues, file access conundrums (I use selective sync on Dropbox to mitigate drive sizes), and problems with third party tools (mostly in After Effects) that have inspired many stressful moments.
I’ve really appreciated having a desktop machine to ‘contain’ work, but this new paradigm warranted new approaches. It was time to consolidate.
So I pulled the trigger on a MacBook Pro with an M4 processor, trading in the Studio for a fair price.
Note: I worked with an Apple salesperson and spec’d things through the Apple Store in a desktop browser, but the Apple Store App on my phone (which knew my machine without entering specs) gave me a FAR BETTER trade-in value ($1270) than those other channels ($825). Curious.
The machine was due to arrive in a week but got a notification that it was ready to pick up today, right before another round of snow was due to descend upon Cincinnati.
I only got to the “hello” screen today as I’d work to do (and needed to research what was the best way to move forward — migrate from a previous rig or start from scratch?) I’d eventually choose the former route. The migration tools worked incredibly well.
More after I kick the tires.