Advice on New Laptop

[Mirai]

Hope this is the right place to post this as this involves Apple Macbooks.

You should get at least 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage. Apple devices since 2015 can't be upgraded and if you cheapen out now you will regret it later.

If you want a great portable and powerful Windows machine there is the LG Gram.

LG gram (2022) 14Z90Q​

On sale right now for $1,400. They ship to SA. 32GB RAM LPDDR5, 12 Gen i7, 1TB SSD (and you can add a second one), a P3 IPS screen and it's super lightweight made of Magnesium alloy. We have this model at home.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09XGGV8R3

 

[hardusb]

You should get at least 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage. Apple devices since 2015 can't be upgraded and if you cheapen out now you will regret it later.

Unfortunately I dont have a high enough budget for the full spec, I dont require such a large spec, been working on an old Dell i5 8GB ram and 256GB for a week now and its working fine, no performance issues.

I eventually got the M1 with 8GB ram and 256GB SSD, got myself an extra 256GB USB Type C flash from TAL @ R508 for if I need to offload some files on the go.

If you want a great portable and powerful Windows machine there is the LG Gram.

LG gram (2022) 14Z90Q​

On sale right now for $1,400. They ship to SA. 32GB RAM LPDDR5, 12 Gen i7, 1TB SSD (and you can add a second one), a P3 IPS screen and it's super lightweight made of Magnesium alloy. We have this model at home.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09XGGV8R3

Thanks, but I dont have time waiting for an overseas laptop to get here, if I run into issues with it I have to post it back overseas for the warranty. These days the price difference is not big enough to take that risk.

 

[FiestaST]

Unfortunately I dont have a high enough budget for the full spec, I dont require such a large spec, been working on an old Dell i5 8GB ram and 256GB for a week now and its working fine, no performance issues.

I eventually got the M1 with 8GB ram and 256GB SSD, got myself an extra 256GB USB Type C flash from TAL @ R508 for if I need to offload some files on the go.



Thanks, but I dont have time waiting for an overseas laptop to get here, if I run into issues with it I have to post it back overseas for the warranty. These days the price difference is not big enough to take that risk.

Where & how much did it settle on?

 

[hardusb]

Where & how much did it settle on?

I bought an Macbook Air M1 Base Model at Incredible for R18k with a 3 year Warranty.

 

[$m@Rt@$$]

You should get at least 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage. Apple devices since 2015 can't be upgraded and if you cheapen out now you will regret it later.

If you want a great portable and powerful Windows machine there is the LG Gram.

LG gram (2022) 14Z90Q​

On sale right now for $1,400. They ship to SA. 32GB RAM LPDDR5, 12 Gen i7, 1TB SSD (and you can add a second one), a P3 IPS screen and it's super lightweight made of Magnesium alloy. We have this model at home.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09XGGV8R3

That's a good price

 

[Mirai]

That's a good price

Yup, paid $1,799 -6% when it launched a few months back. Via Amazon. Took 3-4 days to get here.

 

[Bryn]

I bought an Macbook Air M1 Base Model at Incredible for R18k with a 3 year Warranty.

You won't have issues with that. I had the same M1 Air base model for around a year until I bought my M1 Pro 16" MacBook Pro with 1TB storage and 32GB memory this year.

The extra storage is great, and I like no longer having memory swap occur, but the only major reason I upgraded was for the larger display. For the software development I do, 13" was killing my eyes when I had to work in laptop mode.

Throughout my time with the Air, that thing was unstoppable. Incredible battery life, awesome quality display, more than fast enough for my needs, and no matter how many apps I ran it didn't skip a beat. 8GB memory with Apple Silicon is not the same as 8GB on your average Windows machine.

 

[$m@Rt@$$]

Yup, paid $1,799 -6% when it launched a few months back. Via Amazon. Took 3-4 days to get here.

Woah, definitely keep that in mind when I need a new Windows machine. What does the charger look like? I'm assuming at came with a US plug?

 

[Mirai]

Woah, definitely keep that in mind when I need a new Windows machine. What does the charger look like? I'm assuming at came with a US plug?

The charger is about the size of a pack of playing cards.

It has a figure 8 socket so you can add an SA or Euro plug:

 

[Mirai]

You won't have issues with that. I had the same M1 Air base model for around a year until I bought my M1 Pro 16" MacBook Pro with 1TB storage and 32GB memory this year.

The extra storage is great, and I like no longer having memory swap occur, but the only major reason I upgraded was for the larger display. For the software development I do, 13" was killing my eyes when I had to work in laptop mode.

Throughout my time with the Air, that thing was unstoppable. Incredible battery life, awesome quality display, more than fast enough for my needs, and no matter how many apps I ran it didn't skip a beat. 8GB memory with Apple Silicon is not the same as 8GB on your average Windows machine.

8GB is 8GB. Data doesn't get smaller because it's a Mac. While the machine may fly today, in a couple years time it will require replacing. I wish I could add more RAM to my MBPs, 8 and 16GB versions. Because they're 2012 and 2015 models at least I can add 2TB SSDs into each one.

I was tempted to go for the 1TB 32GB Max 16 inch on the 'special' on BF, but then next year we'll have an M2 Max or Pro launch and that will probably offer much better performance, maybe no notch, maybe OLED or micro LED screen and maybe more RAM/SSD space. Still despite how much I like Macs the fact that whole machine is on a countdown to die, given SSDs have a limited lifespan, I'm not too happy. I would also want at least same storage then what I currently have and that's 2TB at the moment.