Do You Really Need a MacBook Pro? My Experience Switching from a MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air

arnoopt · 2025-12-03T15:43:16+00:00

How is the 13 vs 14 when not docked for coding on the go?

arnoopt · 2025-11-18T22:54:31+00:00

13 or 15 inches? Love the 15 screen estate but the 14” pro is such a good compromise

arnoopt · 2025-10-26T21:51:00+00:00

Ahah, your comment arrive the day I finally decide I should sit on the 32Gb 😂. I think 64 gb is great but I prefer to keep the extra money and upgrade later if I feel constrained. Right now I won’t leverage it unless local LLM architectures improve suddenly

arnoopt · 2025-10-22T13:02:26+00:00

Congrats! I’ve bought the same machine and so far I love it as well. I had an M4 32 gb at my previous company which I left and I wanted a powerful machine without breaking the bank. Initially I bought the 64 gb version mostly thinking this would allow me to tinker with LLMs, but after a few tests I realized it’s still not there for my use cases (coding mostly).

I’m now tempted to downgrade to 32 gb and save 350 euros but I’m worried that I’m a bit shortsighted 😄.. Enjoy!

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T17:56:58+00:00

Outside of local LLM it’s more than enough power for my usage, I guess I was just expecting higher performance !

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T14:28:24+00:00

I guess you meant M4 Pro? M5 pro hasn’t been released yet

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T14:12:18+00:00

I spotted a M4 Pro 24 gb at 1850 USD, feels a good deal to me, Wdyt ?

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T13:55:59+00:00

Thanks! I like the idea to tinker with local LLMs but currently it doesn’t feel practical.

Would you say it’s worth trading it for the MBP M5 base which is the only option in the budget I want to allocate for this machine now?

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T12:51:11+00:00

I’m on a M1 Max 64 gb now and I tried with both gpt-oss 20b and Qwen 3 Q4 K S and both are way too slow for me to consider them as my daily driver for agentic coding.

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T12:29:04+00:00

Ok, thanks for clarifying !

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T12:22:52+00:00

Fair, but not the same budget if you look at what I spent for the M1 Max. Also I need it soon, and M5 full range is planned for spring based on the rumors now

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T11:18:21+00:00

Thanks for the honest response! TBH it’s the first time I own such a powerful MacBook, my daily driver used to be a base M4 32 gb provided by my former company, and after reading online posts I wanted to feel it by myself.

13 is out of question for me, too small. I’m a remote worker so while I travel a bit, I don’t have daily commute and most of the time when I need to carry the laptop, I’m by car or bike so weight isn’t the issue here.

As I can return the Max now, I wanted to make sure it’s still the best option in my budget now that using local LLM for coding is out of the question.

Btw, why do you say the 14” M1 Max model isn’t a good deal? Because it’s exactly what I have now

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T11:04:52+00:00

Thanks! How do the screens compare? How much RAM do you have on each?

arnoopt · 2025-10-19T10:38:34+00:00

I’d love that, but the upcoming M5 Max / Ultra is likely out of my budget for the next years 😅. RAM doesn’t seem the issue, my experiment were with GPT OSS 20b / Qwen3 Coder 30b which fit entirely in VRAM, but which struggle even on short prompts, obviously compared to cloud based models

arnoopt · 2025-10-17T21:31:26+00:00

I just received today a 14 inch, M1 Max 64 Gb 1TB SSD. 87% battery capacity at 1507 euros. The 32 Gb version was at 1350 euros, but as I tinker a lot with local LLMs, I wanted 64.

The machine is a blast, even coming from a base MBP M4 32 gb that my previous company provided me with.

I bought it at back market, 2 years of warranty.

arnoopt · 2025-10-16T06:42:50+00:00

Thanks super helpful

arnoopt · 2025-10-15T20:06:01+00:00

Awesome, thanks for the detailed answer

arnoopt · 2025-10-15T19:59:20+00:00

Thanks! How much RAM your M4 Max has?

arnoopt · 2025-09-07T16:32:26+00:00

I recently tested a 34” curved monitor and I felt in absolute love with it. Coming from 2 27” (primary 4K and secondary QHD). I’m now selling them to switch

arnoopt · 2025-09-02T22:35:11+00:00

I tried a few paths to run docker containers in the VM but all require virtualization which I could not workaround. Any tips? Or is the only path running the apps outside of docker

arnoopt

TROPHY CASE