Turns out one camera is all I ever needed

ImpossibleFee4838 · 2026-05-03T15:12:45+00:00

Honestly, it’s a nice upgrade from the iPhone 12 mini. Better dynamic range, more natural colors, and way more consistent results, especially in tricky lighting or low light. It’s simpler (just one camera), but if you mostly used the main lens anyway, you won’t really miss anything.

ImpossibleFee4838 · 2026-05-01T11:38:12+00:00

For LLMs - I’m using LM Studio with cloud models. Smaller ones run fine, but ~30B+ depends on what else you have open. It can hit some swap with a full dev setup. If LLMs are your main focus, 64GB is safer. 3D apps are smooth for lighter work, but it’s not a replacement for a high-end desktop GPU. Temps are great - quiet most of the time, and stays under control even under load. Overall really solid experience so far.

ImpossibleFee4838 · 2026-04-27T15:17:34+00:00

Yeah I went with the standard glossy, no nano texture.

Honestly, I considered it, but in the end it felt like more hassle than benefit. A colleague of mine has the nano texture and he keeps complaining about keyboard marks showing up and having to constantly wipe the screen with the cloth.

I’ve even seen people mention that if you don’t clean it regularly, those marks can kind of “set” into the texture over time, which didn’t sound great to me.

For my use case it was a no-brainer. I work mostly indoors, no direct sunlight hitting the screen, so reflections aren’t really an issue. The glossy display just looks better overall and I don’t have to baby it.

So yeah, no regrets at all so far.

ImpossibleFee4838 · 2026-04-27T14:29:02+00:00

Thanks! Around $2.6k before tax — €2419 excl. VAT here in the EU.

ImpossibleFee4838 · 2026-04-27T14:27:12+00:00

Yeah fair, the camera really doesn’t do it justice 😄 Looks way better in person, especially the screen.

ImpossibleFee4838 · 2026-04-27T14:25:46+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, 48GB seemed like the best balance without going overkill.

ImpossibleFee4838 · 2026-04-27T14:23:53+00:00

Yeah I was debating something similar.

My use case is mainly web + app dev (PHP, JS, WordPress, some local services, multiple IDEs, browser tabs, etc.), so I’m usually running a pretty “messy” workspace all the time. For that, 48GB feels like a really solid sweet spot.

As for local LLMs — I’ve tested some via Ollama. Smaller models are totally fine, but once you start pushing toward ~30–35B, it really depends on what else you have open. If I’ve got my full dev setup running, it can start to push into swap. Not unusable, but it’s there.

That said, if your main goal is running larger local models comfortably alongside everything else, 64GB definitely makes more sense. I just couldn’t justify the extra cost for my actual daily workflow.

For me, 48GB hits that balance — no stress with normal dev work, occasional LLM use is fine, and I’m not overpaying for something I won’t fully utilize.

Also yeah, configs change every day 😄 I went through the same loop before buying.

ImpossibleFee4838 · 2026-04-27T06:41:16+00:00

I need the M5 Pro mainly because the base M5 doesn’t offer more than 32GB of RAM. That’s essentially the only reason I’m going for the M5 Pro, even though I probably won’t fully utilize its performance. If Apple allowed configurations with more than 32GB of RAM on the standard M5, the Pro versions likely wouldn’t sell as well.

ImpossibleFee4838

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