I got my first Mac a week ago, MacBook Pro with basic M3 chip with 8GB of RAM. I am a first-year student, studying computing for business. I do not run any serious pro apps and do not play games on it (maybe some small indie projects), and my budget was very strictly limited and I couldn’t spend more. I didn’t experience any issues with it and didn’t feel any lack of performance or anything. This is my first and only laptop so I couldn’t wait any more as I needed it for college. Asking because everyone says that 8GB is waste of money, but if I don’t really know why do I need a more powerful Mac, did I really made a mistake for buying basic M3 ? Should I have waited and bought on M3 Pro chip ?

  • always_a_tinker@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    If anything, I think you would have been better served with a M2/8GB/512GB MBA. Especially if you can find it lightly used.

    And by better served I mean keep more money in you pocket. When I was in college (cue breeze and flashback music) I had more time than money. So what if your project converges/completes in 45 minutes instead of 25? And you had to try it 6 times?

    But that student loan interest will follow you around for a long time. Or even worse, you take on a part time job and start trading away the most unique period of your life (maybe even GPA) at an abysmal rate. ($15/hr now versus $50/hr after a quality graduation).