So I recently purchased a 16-inch MacBook Pro as a “one laptop to rule them all” replacement for both my 2017-vintage iMac and 2019-vintage 15-inch MacBook Pro. Admittedly this is a bit of a frivolous expense because I could have simply sold the iMac and kept the still relatively new 15-inch laptop as the main workhorse. But, who doesn’t like the latest and greatest things, am I right? Buying the 16-inch MacBook Pro allowed me to do something I’ve wanted to do for the longest time: custom spec a laptop to what I need, rather than anchoring to a certain purchase price (read: being cheap). If this is indeed one laptop to rule them for a long time, then might as well go for it fully.
The primary extra cost is the two terabyte SSD upgrade over the paltry 512 gigabyte standard issue. I want to fit my extensive collection of music and the back-catalog of digital photos - some 800 gigabytes worth - right onto the same MacBook Pro, rather than storing them on an external drive like I have done since the Mac mini I bought back in 2014. With this new laptop I no longer have to plug in a drive anytime I want to listen to music or edit pictures, and I have to say it’s well worth the extra cost for this convenience. This 16-inch MacBook Pro now quite literally holds my entire digital life.
Don’t worry, it’s very well backed up.
Some of you may ask why would I buy current 16-inch MacBook Pro when the entire computing world knows Apple will soon be releasing laptops running their own silicon chips, rather than the current Intel products. There’s much expectation the future Macs with Apple silicon will run rings around the Intel chips both in terms of speed and efficiency, so why I didn’t I simply wait a bit? Why buy what is surely the last of a dying breed of laptops?
Because I am of the mindset that you should buy what you need right now, instead of constantly waiting for that’s next. You’ll never be disappointed if you get what you need right this moment, and use fully that particular thing’s potential. You wouldn’t have time to think about whether or not something new is on the immediate horizon, and that you’ll be missing out on something better, if only you had waited. One constant in the tech world is that improvement is always coming up next, so if the fear-of-missing-out emotion is strong in you, then you’ll never be satisfied no matter how long you wait.
I bought what I wanted right now and am enjoying the new machine immensely. For sure the Apple silicon Macs will be brilliant, but future potential is not something for the present me to fret over.
Got a custom keyboard layout as well.