Hi Simon, thanks for the interesting reply to my query. . . Since I only need a single external display, my system requirements are basic. I’m leaning toward a 14" M2Pro 16GB/512GB because I can get one as an Apple refurb for $1599. Over the years I’ve had really good experiences with various Apple refurbs. Being retired (photographer) my requirements are simple and speed isn’t important these days.
I’m assuming that your are referring to the CalDigit Element hub. It’s amazing that plugging one cable from a Mac into a TB4 hub can do so much. I’ve read that the Element can become very toasty; have you experienced that & does it require pushing the Mac/hub, something I will never do? (I’m also considering an OWC 11-port TB 4 hub).
My NEC display is limited to HDMI 1.x (I got it in 2012 for a song after it had been discontinued, so its tech is rather ancient). It’s a little hinky with my 2018 Intel Mini (Big Sur) but it seems to play nice using a Belkin HDMI to USB-C adapter with my wife’s M1 MBA (Monterey) so I hope that it will also work with Apple Silicon and a hub. The display is 1080p/sRGB and even after all these years it still has very good color accuracy and even backlighting (CCFL due to a bad experience with a first-gen MacBook Air and its LED display LOL).
Choosing a higher-end display certainly paid-off in the long run. When it comes time to replace it I’ll likely go with an Eizo since NEC has stopped producing such displays since its merger with Sharp.
My peripherals are pretty much old school but they work with the Mac Mini via USB-A and USB-C adapters. I’ll be adding external SSDs and the like as time moves on but the Samsung HDDs in old OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad enclosures (Firewire 800, eSATA & USB 3.0) just keep on spinning.
Well, that’s sort of what I am doing. So I still need to tell iCloud to keep full size images on the MBA. And then I backup the MBA to an external drive.
Pardon me if I’m misunderstanding. It sounds like your procedure is:
Tell iCloud to keep the full images locally
Clone the local storage to an external backup.
I’m thinking more along the lines of:
Download full-size images to a temporary location on your internal drive
Drag/drop the files to a folder on external storage
Delete the files from your internal drive (or if they’re on an iCloud drive, tell macOS to delete your local copy, leaving the file in iCloud).
So you’ll end up with files in iCloud and on external storage, but not on your internal storage.
Of course, if your images are in Photos and not individual files, then you’ll need to do something different. I think you can create a second Photos library on external storage, open it, and then import photos from your iCloud library.
I’ve started to see some interesting discounts on M2 and M1 machines since the M3 MBA announcement. For example, here in the USA, I just saw that BestBuy has the 2022 13" M2 MacBook Pro w/24GB RAM, a 1TB SSD, and 2 years of AppleCare+ for $1399 if you are a “MyBestBuy Total” member.
“Total” costs $179.99/year, so even if you need to buy a membership, that’s still more than $60 off the current BestBuy sale price with AppleCare. Amazon has similar deals on various Apple laptops.
It’s nice to see a reasonable price on an Apple system with more than entry-level RAM and storage.
It’s worth visiting a deal-tracking site before making a significant purchase. For example, if I were buying a new Mac laptop today, a 2022 M2 MBP with a Touch Bar normally would not be one of my candidates. However, having learned of the BestBuy sale price via the TechBargains.com daily newsletter, I probably would add it to my “worth considering” list, despite the limited ports and the despised Touch Bar.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with either BestBuy or TechBargains other than being a customer/reader.
In my experience refurbs have been just fine. If the config you want is available, I see no reason not to go for it refurb. OTOH if you have a certain config in mind, I’d be very cautious about compromising on that just to save 10%. Apple is great when it comes to refurbs. Hardware appears (and IME behaves) as if new, with only the brown box being the tell tale sign. There’s no shenanigans and you can return items just as if you had bought new should anything not be to your liking.
The CalDigit gets warm indeed, but nothing crazy. I’ve had TB hubs for every TB generation and unfortunately, they all got warm. The Elgato TB2 one I used to use was definitely worse. I don’t like it, mostly because it screams inefficiency (note none of them have internal power supplies so its not like the AC/DC power switching is the source of the heat), but it’s never been a real issue. I’ve never had any reliability issue that would make me skeptical of the heating. And it’s certainly never been to the point where it would have been too warm to touch so that I’d be concerned about safety.
IME the CalDigit has been absolutely great. The one cable to rule them all aspect is still a bit magical to me, aside from being tremendously practical. The CalDigit TB4 hub is compact, offers exactly what I need, and makes the whole MBP setup truly dockable, almost like my old PowerBook Duo with its Dock. Just a whole lot better.
Edit: just check out this massive progression we’ve come out of.
Perhaps ill-advisedly, I tried travelling with the Element Hub. It comes unstuck because of the shortness of the TB cable and the massiveness of the power brick, but that’s not the hub’s fault. Still, I live in hope that it will be possible to travel with a hub like that, some day.
I dunno how I feel about the Airs though. They’re lovely machines, but I’m now on my M3 Pro and loving it. More storage, more RAM, three ports. It’s clear that this is where I’m supposed to be, even though thin, light and plenty fast enough define the Airs to a tea. I guess if you know, you know, and if you don’t know, get an Air.
I appreciate the tips regarding Best Buy, Amazon and the TechBargains newsletter. I will take advantage of all three resources. Recently I’ve been using AppleInsider bargain tips (the link is for M3 14" MBPs). But there haven’t been any really good deals at the retailers it covers. I forget to check Best Buy/Amazon because I don’t associate them with BTO models so I will rectify that. I wish Costco would offer some non-stock models because I prefer to support a more employee-friendly company whenever possible.
In the past I would get AppleCare+ especially for portable Macs but I stopped doing it. Since 1995 I’ve only needed it once with a 2006 24" iMac and only because I waited until after the one-year warranty had expired. (For those who may be on the fence about AppleCare+, Apple replaced the LCD panel, a repair that would have cost $1100 at the time.) However, I’m reconsidering it now that a renewable annual plan is available.
I agree about compromising when it comes to one’s needs/wants and Apple refurbs. But in my experience if one is patient it is not unusual for BTO refurbs to become available. They can sell quickly if it is a popular model, so I often use Refurb-Tracker so I can snag a deal as soon as it appears online. Heck, with both email and text-alert options, you can be fast asleep and still have a really good chance at being first in line. In most cases I’ve gotten what I wanted within 7-10 days max.
FYI, as far as I can recall Apple refurbs generally start at a 15% discount. An M2 Pro 16gb/512gb is currently $1599 or just shy of 16% off. An M3 Pro 18GB/512gb is $1699 or a smidgen over 15% off.
Anyway, I’m not really compromising with a 16gb/512GB Mac. My current Mini is 8GB/512GB and after almost 3 years I still have 50% free space. The 8GB RAM was a downgrade from the 16GB I installed in my previous 2012 Mini. I wanted to see whether the minimum RAM would work for me at no real risk because the RAM can be upgraded. It turned out that 8GB is fine: I max-out at around 80% and writes-to-disk are reasonable. According to DriveDx the SSD currently has 98% of its useful lifetime remaining. Seeing as how I’m almost 70 years old, that SSD could outlive me.
I figure that 16GB/512GB will be fine but if I can find a deal with more RAM I will probably go for it. The storage is less critical but I wouldn’t say nyet if the price is right.
Regarding hubs, based on what I know fast TB hubs that are moving a lot of data can get very hot but I will never be doing that, so it isn’t a worrisome thing for me. One plus to the OWC 11-port is its 96w max charging for the host Mac. That puts it in the fast-charging range for an M2 MBP; the CalDigit tops-out at 60w which is doable for me & one can always plug-in the MagSafe port. So I’ll be counting ports, etc. as I try to make up my mind which one to buy. At current prices they are are within less than $50 of each other, so that isn’t a factor.
I’m thinking of getting a vertical stand for the MBP to help with cooling and to free-up space on my desk. Do you happen to have stand feedback (any orientation)?
Apple is once again using dual flash modules on all M3 MBA configs so even if you get a base 256 GB model, it will come with two 128 GB flash modules and hence returns to the good performance levels seen on the M1 model. Like seeing Apple responding properly to criticism!
Nice. I wondered about this, and I thought it was weird that nobody was reporting about it one way or the other after the story came out about the M2 after it was released.
It is hard to believe that the engineers didn’t think about that with the M2 - by using two chips they can double the throughput over using one, all other things being equal. It is a mystery and it is hard to believe that the cost of two chips, each with half the storage, is significantly greater than the cost of one.
According to the MacRumors video, a single 128G flash chip costs slightly more than a 256G chip these days, so including two 128G chips for the base configuration more than doubles the cost for the storage.
But not wanting to just take statements like this on blind trust, I’ve checked DigiKey (not usually the best prices, but reasonable for comparison.
A 1Tbit (that is, 128 Gbyte) NAND flash chip costs between about $25 and $100 (with one outlier costing about $135).
I don’t know specifically what type of chip they’re using, and Apple gets bulk purchases directly from the manufacturer, so we can assume they’re paying less than this, but it should be good enough for comparison with larger chips from the same store
A 2 Tbit chip (256 GB) costs between about $45 and $120 (with one outlier costing about $200)
So, at these retail prices, it would seem that MacRumors is incorrect - a 128G chip does not cost more than a 256G chip, although maybe they know more about the specific pricing for the chips Apple is actually using.
But there is definitely a saving to using just one chip. If we compare the two lowest-cost entries, that would be about $5 (2 x 25 = 50 vs. 45). If we compare the highest-cost entries it would be about $80 (2 x 100 = 200 vs, 120).
I assume Apple thought they could save a small amount with the M2 and people wouldn’t notice. But when they did notice (or the prices shifted so that the savings was no longer significant, since this is over a year later) they went back to using two chips for all configurations.
But now I’m curious about the similar economies at higher capacities. So, going back to DigiKey…
For 4 Tbit (that is, a 512 GB chip), I see prices between about $80 and $180 (with an outlier at $320).
So comparing (again, retail) costs between a computer with a single 512G chip vs two 256G chips, the saving (comparing the least-cost options) would be $10 (2 x 45 = 90 vs 80). And comparing the highest-cost options would be $60 (120 x 2 = 240 vs. 180)
And finally, for an 8 Tbit chip (that is 1TB), I see $150-230 (and not many choices - only 5 chips from two manufacturers).
So comparing one vs two chips for 1TB of storage we see (comparing least cost options) a saving of about $10 (2 x 80 = 160 vs 150), and comparing the highest-cost options a saving of $130 (2 x 180 = 360 vs 230).
In other words, depending on the specific chips and pricing agreements, there is a saving to go with one chip, but it’s probably not very much. Certainly nothing like what the MacRumors video said.
Unless Apple’s bulk-purchase contracts have terms that completely skew the math (e.g. buying the smaller chips based on an old contract whose price is higher than today’s market price because it was signed several years ago). Which is definitely possible, but we’ll never know because those supply-chain contracts are going to be closely-held corporate secrets.
2022 was during the COVID-19 supply chain problem period so it’s possible Apple just couldn’t reliably get enough 128 GB modules and decided instead to use a single 256.
I was going to add this though as well, which was a common guess back when it made the news. I also believe Apple has included med to high performing SSDs compared to stock on many computers, so that could have contributed to supply insecurity as well.
Thanks for how you use the macbook. I’m in the same situation as GV: I have a 2018 mini but would like to upgrade so that I can use it at work when needed. I’ll have to read up on clamshell mode. I tried to wake up my son’s MBP and just couldn’t do it. Ended up having to open it up a bit. I’ll also have to look at the CalDigit TB4 hub.
Clamshell mode works fine usually, but you need multiple conditions met for it to work. The Mac needs to be powered, it needs to be connected to an external display (that’s not junk), and it needs to be connected to some kind of input device (mouse or KB) through USB or Bluetooth.
Yeah, clamshell can be kind of flaky at times. I go through stretches where it works fine and then without changing things where it requires a click with the lid open to get it to recognize the world. No rhyme or reason as far as I can tell.
His had all those conditions. Yet it sure wouldn’t work for me. I asked him if it woke up and connected to the monitor consistently and he did say not always. Which makes me hesitate in getting a mac laptop. I need it to just work, not fiddle with it.
Clamshell mode has worked flawlessly for me from day 1 with my MBP M1 Pro. Just guessing, but is it possible it’s related to this setting (System Settings > Battery > Options…)?
