I was wrong about my 2020 Macbook

I had my 2020 MacBook Pro for over a week before I started to notice some things that were annoying me.  In the ended I decided that despite it being a decent Laptop, it was not what I wanted to spend my money on.  In addition to the couple things that were not quite what I wanted, the Apple Event to announce their first Apple Silicon Macs was on the last day of the return period for the 2020 MacBook Pro.  I decided to send it back and have decided that I really am impressed by what Apple claims their new Apple Silicon systems are capable of even for entry level systems.  I have decided to get the Mac Mini M1 as that was the cheapest way to try the new platform and if it works out ok then I can keep that for a couple years until they have the mid tier MacBook Pro available on Apple Silicon and then take a look at that. 

Still Looking

I thought that I had found the Mac that I wanted to keep but changed my mind again.  I sent the Mac Mini back and am waiting to see what the ARM Macs are going to bring. 

Found My Mac

 After trying out various new MacBooks I came to the conclusion that although I really like having a new MacBook, I really don't like the prices of new MacBooks.  I don't travel with a computer nearly as much as I had in the past so it's hard to justify spending the kind of money that new MacBooks cost.  I decided that I wanted to get a new Mac but at a lower cost.  I ended up deciding to try a Mac Mini.  I used a tool called refurb tracker to watch for refurbished Mac Minis with the specs I was looking for.  The refurbished models were few and far between for a while but I finally saw one that I could live with.  It is a 3.2 Ghz I7 model.  It only has a 512Gb SSD drive but that should be plenty for my Boot drive.  I can keep things like photos and music on an external drive.  I got the model with only 8Gb of RAM since Apple is ridiculous with their RAM prices.  To upgrade to 32GB they wanted $600.   I was able to get 32Gb of Crucial RAM on Amazon for $140 and I installed it myself.  The install process is not as simple as it used to be but using a tool kind that I bought last year and the iFixit video/guide I was able to upgrade the RAM myself in about half an hour.  Now I have the Mac Mini driving all three of my older Dell monitors and have not had any performance issues so far.  I am pretty happy with the performance and price since I paid less than have of the cost of the 6 Core MacBook that I had tried recently.

Computer Change of Plans

I had decided to get rid of my 2015 Macbook Pro and get a 2018 Mac Mini instead.  My plans changed due to some issues with the Mac Mini.  The biggest issue I had was that I could not connect the new Mac Mini out of the box to my existing monitors.  Apple changed something in the boot process and the resolution that the adapter used during the boot process for the HDMI interface would not connect to my existing monitors.  I was able to get around that by connecting the Mini to a TV in my office but I really did not want to have to run a cable across the room every time I needed to reboot the Mac Mini.  What a pain.  I have now read about others with similar issues that have had some success using a USB-C to DVI Adapter and connecting there instead but I decided that I didn't want to deal with it and sent the Mac Mini back.  I am just going to upgrade the storage on my MacBook Pro and keep using it for a while.

Goodbye Macbook Pro

The last time I bought a new Mac it was a 2011 Macbook Pro.  I was quite satisfied with that Laptop for a number of years.  You could actually replace/repair RAM, Optical Drives, and Hard Drives in that model.  After some time I got rid of that Macbook when I started having issues with the dedicated GPU.  I moved up to a 2014 Macbook Pro that I bought used off eBay.  I kept that for about a year before selling that to get a used Mac Pro since I had always wanted a Mac Pro.  I liked the power that the Mac Pro had but didn't like the size and heat it generated and sold it to get a 2015 Macbook Pro again off of eBay.  I have been using that for a while now but have decided to part ways with it.  I looked back at my usage for the last year or two and there have been very few instances when I really needed to have a Laptop and used it away from my Desk.  I decided to sell my Macbook while the value was still decent and pick up a 2018 Mac Mini.  The Mac Mini gives me more power for the price and you can actually still upgrade the RAM on these.  It's not an easy process but there are plenty of videos on YouTube to lead.  Should have my Mac Mini next week and am anxious to see how well it performs.