At the last Apple presentation, as soon as Tim Cook disappeared from the screen, my wife turned to me and asked, “M3, huh? Does that mean all our new Macs are now obsolete?” In fact, the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max processors had been announced, as well as a new MacBook Pro and a new iMac.
And for businesses, this kind of announcement can be quite distressing. Over the past two years, we’ve upgraded all of our company’s Macs (about a dozen) from Intel chips to the M1 and M2 architectures. My wife’s computers are now based on M2 processors, while I use a very well equipped Mac Studio M1 Max. I also have several Mac minis on M1 and a MacBook Air on M1.
Of course, we spent a lot of money on these machines. My wife’s primary machine is a maxed out MacBook Air M2, which was voted ZDNET’s 2022 Product of the Year. And let me tell you, optimizing a Mac’s storage and RAM isn’t cheap.
So concern about potential obsolescence might be justified. Fortunately, there is no need to worry. The latest MacBook Air M2 still delivers pro-level performance with a more impressive form factor and price. The M1 and M2 Macs remain great machines, still up to date, and working well. But let’s go a little further. For what would you do an upgrade to the M3?
Why upgrade to M3?
I regularly update my machines. For what ? Because I’m always looking to save time. If I thought these new devices with M3 chips would save me an hour or two a day, I’d jump at the chance. But I’m sticking to my M1s because I’m not feeling it.
My current devices don’t cause me any problems. And believe me, I have known misery. Before Apple’s 2018 wave of updates, the company let the Mac line languish for years.
My productivity at work suffered, and I even considered switching to a PC. But that would have been a significant effort because I use some special software, including Final Cut Pro and Keyboard Maestro, which run exclusively on Macs.
Finally, when Apple offered an update, first to a new Mac mini under Intel in 2018, then to the Apple chip, I was immediately excited. Because I needed this long-awaited performance.
Generally speaking, let’s look at the main reasons to upgrade a computer, whether it’s a Mac or a PC, and therefore for the latest Apple computers with the M3 processor.
Obviously, the performance is at the head of the pack.
If you experience a drop in performance on your computer
Final Cut renderings are taking longer and longer? Does it take forever to complete a task in Photoshop? Is your programming environment getting lazy? When you feel like your machine is holding you back, it’s time to change it.
If you need other configuration
Macs are equipped with a storage system and RAM soldered onto the motherboard. Although you can hook an external drive to the machine, it’s not as fast as internal storage.
We recently replaced my company’s Mac mini M1 with an M2. But we didn’t do it because of the M2. Its M1 was a base model, with just a little RAM and storage. When we bought the M1 it was all I needed. But over time, I had to do a lot more graphics, and I needed more RAM and storage. So the upgrade was justified.
If you need a new feature that your current machine is missing
One of the reasons I ditched my M1 MacBook Air as my primary machine in favor of the Mac Studio was multi-monitor support. I could only hook one monitor to my MacBook Air. I have three monitors connected to Mac Studio.
If you need a laptop with a larger screen, you can upgrade. Or if you need more ports or a variety of different ports. I wouldn’t necessarily buy a Mac Studio for over two grand just for the front SD card slot, but I find it incredibly useful. This is a feature of my upgraded computer that I use every day.
If performance has dropped
With mobile devices, battery life decreases over time. I switched laptops when the battery life was no longer sufficient to be useful. This situation is different from the performance bottleneck discussed previously. In this case, your performance demand has increased. Here, existing performance has deteriorated.
If your device is no longer compatible
This is the case when the applications or operating system are no longer supported by your machine. We still have an Intel Mac mini in use, and it works great. The latest version of MacOS, Sonoma, still works on it. But next year’s MacOS will probably no longer be compatible with this Intel-based Mac mini.
Besides, it’s not just the obvious things, like operating system changes, that can prompt an upgrade. I had a Mac mini that couldn’t support the latest operating system, and Gmail and Chrome refused to work. I would have been happy to use an older version of the operating system, but when the main tools I used all day stopped working, this machine had to be decommissioned and a new machine purchased to replace it.
M1 and M2 are far from obsolete
Unless you’re upgrading from a base M1 to an M3 Max, you’re unlikely to experience a significant performance gain when moving from one generation of Apple silicon to another. But if you’re using an Intel Mac, it’s a completely different matter. In this case, you will see a huge performance gain and you will see that everything works faster and smoother.
I recommend that those who own M1 and M2 machines not bother with the M3 unless one of the reasons discussed above applies to you. Personally, I don’t experience any slowdown on my M1 machines, especially on my well-configured Mac Studio. Until I start to feel some level of frustration with performance or capabilities, I stick with the hardware I have.
What about you? Are you planning to jump on the M3 bandwagon? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: “ZDNet.com”