I wanted to build a Linux PC but there is no way in hell that I’m going to pay 500$ for a RAM kit but my old M1 MacBook is showing its age due to it having 8GB RAM.
Macs are great and fluid to use and I’m used to MacOS anyways. Plus no AI bullshit like Windows 11.
The deal is also pretty good and you can get a really powerful computer for a reasonable price. Like an M4 Air with way better baseline specs is cheaper than when I bought my m1 MacBook.
So should I give up on my Linux dream and get another Mac or should I wait for OpenAI to collapse? I’m afraid that Macs will also get a price bump next year due to the RAM situation.
There is also the option to get a similarly powerful Mac Mini for even cheaper. That is actually one of the most powerful PCs for it’s price. But I prefer portability with my work rig.
Asahi exists but I don’t think it can match Apple’s ecosystem or Rosetta level performance.
fair enough. There’s lots of $200-300 mini PCs that are half decent if you wanted to go that route with linux.
Another option is looking into refurbished enterprise notebooks. There are usually some decently priced options for refurbished think pads. Although tbf I haven’t checked this in a few months so the prices may be stupid now.
edit: yeah prices are kinda dumb but it looks like refurbished pc sites are selling windows 10 pcs with no OS installed at a discount due to the end of win10.
2nd hand market is fucked in India. Sellers charge crazy amounts for old tech.
Is it not feasible to buy a postconsumer device online? I can’t imagine that the $150 secondhand laptops here would cost very much to ship.
Refurbished thinkpads are a classic
Apple is planning to heavily strip out rosetta 2 from MacOS soon as they’ve already deprecated all intel macs for MacOS 26. Rosetta is also afaik only for Intel Mac software and gets its performance from hard-coding intel mac binary translation.
Asahi, on the other hand, can run Windows x86 applications very well without having to shill out hundreds of dollars for software licenses or worrying whether or not the feature will be removed or not.
Linux’s suite of software support is far more vast than the built-in apps that come with MacOS.