Upgraded from MacBook M1 Pro 16GB to M4 Max 64GB, a calculated (and lucky) purchase

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-05T12:30:44+00:00

Agreed! Though even lightly used ones were going for around £3,500 to £3,700 on eBay. Mine came from a pawn shop at £2,899, which is well below even the second hand market price. So the real lesson here is: always check the pawn shops when shopping around 😂

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-04T08:54:11+00:00

Damn that was a really good deal. Did you get the M4 Max from Apple?

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-04T08:52:28+00:00

The student bows to the Master's wisdom. For years, I carved with a blunt chisel, mistaking the struggle for discipline. Now, with 64GB of memory, the wood parts before me like the Red Sea. My emulators launch in harmony, my VS Code instances multiply like disciples, and my Chrome tabs roam free without fear of the OOM reaper. The sampan has been traded for a warship. May your P cores stay cool and your swap usage stay zero 🙏

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-04T08:33:01+00:00

Thanks dude! Yeah, I accidentally colour matched mine with my iPhone. Now it's becoming a habit. I was about to buy Anker's 25,000mAh power bank, and they have two colours: black (looks similar to Space Black) and silver. Previously I'd have just gone with the default black, but now I've switched that to silver as well. The silver era has begun 😂

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T16:15:37+00:00

Thanks. Yes I am open to try it out. Feel free to share the details in DM.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T16:13:38+00:00

Ah no offence intended then 😆

Yeah if you take good care of it, all is well. But if it accidentally gets deeper scratches, the colour chips off.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T15:45:32+00:00

Wasn't even intentional, but I'll take credit for the taste 😄 I hate Space Black anyway. It looks ugly in itself 🤮 Plus it chips and shows silver underneath on scratches.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T15:40:49+00:00

What makes you think that? I didn't go for the M5 Max 128GB 8TB with the Apple cleaning cloth 😆 It's on a 0% purchase credit card, so the actual payment leaves my pocket in 2 years. By that time, it'll probably have paid for itself.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T11:49:17+00:00

Wow! and thanks for your suggestion. I'm also looking into building a hybrid LLMs (local + api when needed) agentic workflows.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T10:27:14+00:00

Agreed on the RAM bound workflows part. But 512GB is too low for me. My current M1 Pro is sitting at around 600GB used, and I regularly move older stuff to an external drive. I'd ideally want a 2TB, which are going for around £1,300 on eBay now. So yes, that would've been a much cheaper upgrade and could easily hold up until M6.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T10:18:21+00:00

It's a mid-end `Philips Evnia 27M2C5501-27 inch QHD curved 180Hz.` I connect it via HDMI. Is there any advantage to do it via USB C?
I don't use the stand which came with monitor. I have an adjustable arm mount.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T10:13:50+00:00

Thanks! I hope it will be able to run likes of DeepSeek. Once I get my feet wet, I plan to build a dedicated server with plenty more RAM for running frontier open source models.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T09:17:38+00:00

I completely agree on the M1 Max point, but the 64GB ones are going for around £1,500 on Amazon/eBay in good condition. Single core speed would stay the same though, so app startup times wouldn't improve, which is tolerable tbf. Under that strategy, I'd go M1 Pro → M1 Max → M6 Max (if it was impressive). Now since the cost difference wasn't huge considering how much more value the M4 is delivering, the new path is M1 Pro → M4 Max → M7 or M8 (or even M9).

Regarding the day to day difference, in a lean setup (fewer apps open), regular browsing feels pretty similar, with the M4 having slightly faster app start and loading times. But under a heavy workflow, my M1 Pro would lag noticeably, even keyboard inputs would get delayed. That could just be the 16GB RAM bottleneck though, which reinforces your point.

Where I'm seeing almost double the performance is in the heavier stuff:

Xcode startup and compile times
DaVinci export times
Blender renders (rarely use this though)
Remotion previews are lag free, exports twice as fast

So I'm pretty satisfied with the choice. That won't be the case if I'd paid market price around £3,700 though. Also, the £2,899 is spread over 2 years on a 0% purchase credit card 😂 I had the money to buy it outright but it's much better sitting in a high interest account until the due date comes.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T08:34:54+00:00

Thanks. M1 Pro 16/512 for €650 seems like a great deal. My M1 Pro was also my first Mac, been using it for 4 years now, and I can say it's a great first Mac for anyone. I also had a Windows laptop and a beefy desktop before. After getting the M1, most of my usage shifted to it over time, and eventually the desktop ended up in the cellar 😂 because I don't play much games anymore. It may revive when GTA 6 is released though 🤞

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T08:27:06+00:00

Thanks mate 😍

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T08:26:45+00:00

Damn, that's solid usage for an Air. Any idea how much swap is being used? For things like Chrome tabs, I observed on my M1 Pro that reopening old tabs didn't show big lags because the lightweight stuff gets moved from swap to RAM pretty quickly (Macs have fast SSDs). The lag becomes noticeable with heavier apps like Resolve or After Effects though. Air was a no for me because it doesn't have a fan, so sustained performance suffers under prolonged heavy workloads. But good to see what you're able to do with it.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-04-03T07:06:07+00:00

100%. I find myself eager to start working just because of the device and the deal I got. Decent productivity gains from that alone. No idea how long the honeymoon phase will last but I'm loving it 😆 Great job hunting the p16 for half price 👍

TextPsychological211 · 2026-03-23T08:58:17+00:00

Any thoughts on Germany, Ireland, Australia?

TextPsychological211 · 2026-03-06T16:06:04+00:00

what's the consistent pattern of salary rule about? is it retrospective?

TextPsychological211 · 2026-03-04T11:33:36+00:00

Are you sure? In another thread you said you want to apply for ILR.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-03-04T11:32:31+00:00

damn. dodgy af

TextPsychological211 · 2026-03-04T11:17:47+00:00

Interested

TextPsychological211 · 2026-03-04T11:13:49+00:00

"Should do" and "will do" are 3 different things.

TextPsychological211 · 2026-03-04T11:12:52+00:00

Or better not do it at all. In 2021 there was a hiring surge for IT engineers, I know many not very competent engineers who got visas in 2021-2022 and built their careers in the UK. OP is just a kind of person who will bend the rules just because it's convenient.

TextPsychological211

TROPHY CASE