The idea of trying to paint the full picture of my computing needs exhausts me for some unknown reason. Even this short post has been a chore. But I thought it important to get some of my thoughts down because it helps me to clarify my own thinking and will hopefully help me make some decisions. And I would love it if you commented via my website, on Mastodon or on Micro.blog or email or USPS.
The main issue is that it just so happens that I find myself at a time where I have a 5+ year old Intel-based MacBook Pro, an 8 year old iPad Pro, and a 4+ year old iPhone 12 Pro Max.
All of these devices are currently working fine, their software is up-to-date, and except for the MacBook Pro – their batteries are in very good shape. (The MacBook Pro has never had great battery life.)
One could say that I do not need to upgrade any of these devices just yet. I could likely hold out another year. But Apple has made it plain that the M-series chipset has their full attention. There are apps from the App Store that will not run on my Intel-based Mac (the iOS/iPad OS apps). The upcoming Apple Intelligence features will not be available for any of my current devices.
To add to the incentive, I’ve had a good year financially. I could use an expense or two to write-off before the end of the year. In fact, based on my math, I think I’ll want a fairly big expense if possible. (Try as I might, I’m having a hard time understanding exactly how much I should be trying to write-off.)
So, let’s just say that I’ve decided I should upgrade one or all of my computing devices before the end of the year. What should I buy?
I work at my desk about 98% of the time. In over 20-years of using a laptop as my primary computing device, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used it on my lap. I have had years of more mobile work – going into coworking spaces or working both at home and an office – and years where I’m only at home. Currently I work almost exclusively in my home office connected to a display.
My main computing tasks are programming, graphic, video, and photo editing, and most recently running local LLMs.
I’m wrestling with the following questions:
- Since I work from home, should I switch to a desktop computer?
- For the few times per year that I travel, should I keep my current MacBook Pro or should I trade up to an M-series laptop for compatibility reasons? This way I’d have both a desktop and laptop computer.
- For years I’ve not had enough internal storage to have my ever growing photo library (~1TB as of this writing) on-device, should I finally buy more enough to do so?
- Am I kidding myself that I feel like I need to max out whatever device I buy for what I do day-to-day? Perhaps I only need a relatively inexpensive laptop and I’d be fine?
My strategy when buying new work hardware is to buy as much computing power as I can reasonably afford and then don’t think about it for about 5 years. This strategy works and it helps me mentally when I consider the price tag.
For instance, if I price out a maxed out Mac Studio today (with an M3 chipset, not an M4 like I would likely wait for) it comes to around $8000+ USD. Which, likely seems like a lot of money to many but it really isn’t. I use my computer for 12-hours a day nearly every workday. Over a 5 year period it is only $1,600 a year. Or $6 per workday. Ask any business owner if $1,600 a year in expenses is a lot – I assure you that being a computer programmer is likely the least expensive profession known to humankind. For context my 16-inch Intel-based MacBook Pro was about $4200 USD.
But then $8000+ wouldn’t be my only expense. A new iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPad Pro would bump it up to well over $10000 USD. Still, in my opinion, not a lot over a 5 year time span.
Stay with me here.
But then I circle back to the last of my six questions above; do I really need this much compute? Or can I get away with far less? Should I just buy a used M3-based laptop and see if that would be plenty? Should I keep what I currently have until they don’t work at all? Should I go all-out?
I have no idea!
I’m leaving the comments open on this post because I genuinely wonder what all of you think I should do.
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