Reply With QuoteNot sure if this helps with cost but John Lewis are doing 0% for 24 months on Apple products.
I have an Air with the M1 chip while the better half has a 1 year old MBP. The only big advantage I see with the M1 is the battery life, which is waaaaaay longer.
Edit - much better keyboard too
Last edited by Halitosis; 21st November 2021 at 14:39.
Not sure if this helps with cost but John Lewis are doing 0% for 24 months on Apple products.
Is that even possible?Originally Posted by learningtofly
Well, finally - more than one year after starting this thread - my new MBP arrives tomorrow. I went a bit all-in with it, and selected the following spec:
- M1 Max with 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
- 64GB unified memory
- 2TB SSD storage
I opted for the 14" which suits my needs, and I'm very, very excited. And poor.
You’ll love it, great choice, and it’ll last a good few years.
Have you been using the mid-2012 all this time?
I think I'd have gone for the 16" Tony, not a lot more cash in the scheme of things. I'm ordering a new iMac shortly as I need a larger screen. I'd like to wait for an uprated chip but that's at least a year away, there'll likely be a new 27" Mac Pro before then (well overdue) but that'll be well beyond what I want to spend. As it is a 24" Mac with the M1 chip, maxed up and with 1TB will be vastly superior to the 2011 model I bought from my son 6 years ago, albeit I fitted an SSD. There are some excellent new imaging programmes that I'm itching to try.
F.T.F.A.
Good choice. You only need the 16" if you are constantly on the move and don't have a monitor.
Ah, I see Tony. What's the lead time on your order BTW? It's 5 weeks for an iMac.
The only issue is the perpetuation of old, unneeded junk, a bit like a loft when you move.
If you don’t already have it, get Clean my mac and go through the whole thing on your old machine before you do anything else.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Ive had bad experience with migration assistance. Found my Mac was a little buggy hence always do a fresh install and manually copy things over.
Just did this again recently with my new Mac Studio
Gotta love TZ. Came into this thread for a bit chat, decision already made re new iMac. A short while later looking at going for a Mac Studio with an Apple 5k display! Hahaha!It makes sense actually, having applied Man Maths. Spend @ £500 less cash now (on the monitor) and get the Mac Studio on interest free over 24 months. Sorted.
I grabbed an unwanted Mac Studio for £1630 from fleabay - tempted to put the savings towards the display! I have a 34 curved Dell but the detail nowhere near as nice as the Apple displayGotta love TZ. Came into this thread for a bit chat, decision already made re new iMac. A short while later looking at going for a Mac Studio with an Apple 5k display! Hahaha!
Last edited by kultschar; 9th July 2022 at 10:30.
Yes I think from memory you do get a bit of choice what goes over.
Most my data on a NAS so installing apps was my main task but everything superfast nowadays downloading
Personally I wouldn't use migration assistant, not with such an old computer as the donor.
Put the old mac into target disk mode and take across what you need.
If you hold CMD or alt the first time opening iTunes and iPhoto you get to choose their directory before the OS builds one.
64gb/2tb is brutal overkill looking at what you've been using for the last 12 months. I would have gone 32gb/1tb as you'll never want everything local anyway. Spend the rest on a proper storage system for jobs.
having just gone from 15in MBP to mac studio i used migration assistant but only for user data and not applications, it’s less hassle to download and do a clean install of software especially if you are moving from an old intel OS to up to date Mac silicon.
so email accounts and settings, the desktop (with all those screenshots it want to keep)
if you are giving the old computer to somebody else or selling the don’t forget to de-authorise the relevent licences/subscriptions/I-cloud etc after you have set the new mac up.
In this case I would use Migration Assistant to transfer personal data then reinstall all the apps. It will be worth it to only install what you use and to make sure you have the Apple Silicon version of the app installed rather than the Intel one which will need updating again anyway.
Migration Assistant lets you select exactly what you do and do not want to transfer.
64GB is definitely overkill (I knew that) but 2TB isn't. My camera JPGs are 60MB, let alone the associated RAW files and any TIFFs I produce; I already have 750GB on my MBP and external drive combined, and would rather not have to rely on the latter for a variety of reasons.
Noted re target disc mode - I'll have a read-up, thanks.
That’s what I did when I went from a 2012 MacBook Pro to an M1 Air.
If you do go M1 chip - dual monitors can be a PITA if that's relevant.
Tony went Super Saiyan with the spec so can have dual monitors. My work laptop is the basic M1 chip so I've had to buy an ultrawide.
I have two monitors on my Mac Studio without issue. Neither are Apple monitors. One is an HP monitor connected via USB-C, the other a Dell connected via HDMI.
In relation to the OP, I set my Mac up as a new computer and only copied across what I was using as I needed it.
Yeah, it wouldn’t be a problem.
I was going to buy the LG 27” that was made in partnership with Apple, but nobody had any and I was told they were months away with no definite date. Then, by pure chance, I saw a mint and barely used Thunderbolt Display for sale, from almost the last year of manufacture; I bought it for £250, sold my old Cinema Display to Cash Converters for £150 and reckon it’s all I need. It even came with the requisite USB to USB-C adapter!
Yes it is, to a point. But it’s much better to spend the time on cleaning up your old one, saving on your NAS for example what you want to keep but would ask MA to leave out. Then, when your old Mac is like you would like the new one to be, you can use MA and relax without fear of losing important data.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Also before transferring make two backups of the old Mac first. One using a proper backup software like carbon copy cloner or super duper, and another using time machine.
Gotcha..
I already have backups on Time Machine (every hour) and in the cloud (instant/incremental). The data on the old Mac isn’t at risk, though.
When did you last do a test restore?
You’d be surprised by how many folk never do test restores until something goes wrong & they need to recover data, you’d likely be surprised how many of them find issues with their backups.
If it’s been a while since you did a test restore it might be worth selecting a couple of important folders and checking you can restore them without issue if only for peace of mind.
I test both backups periodically and all is fine. Anyway, I’m now on my third attempt with MA, which has frozen at various points each time to date. This time I’m doing it without apps included.
If this doesn’t work I’m inclined to just transfer my folders across and then set everything else up manually as I go. It’s taking my old computer out of action each time so I can’t keep on giving up hours of time without being able to get online.
One of the few Tony.
I'm guessing you did MA wirelessly Tony?
I’ve never got MA to work with a cable, always had to do it wirelessly.
Been a while since I used it but I'm sure I either did it with a thunderbolt cable or an ethernet cable with adapters.
Come to think of it I might have just tried a bunch of times and failed only to use target disk mode in the end. I wouldn't bother with MA again.
Wow it's all so complicated
Sent from my M2101K7BNY using Tapatalk
I used USB. The thing that seemed to make it work, though, was excluding apps.
It is when it doesn't work!
To be fair Tony you wouldn't want to move apps over anyway when it's Intel to M1. Maybe that's why it want working.
Yes, probably for the best. I've downloaded a couple of apps manually already, and all my settings are there. We're off out for a BBQ shortly, but this evening I'll have a go at MS Office and Citrix Desktop so I can start to work from the new machine (which I'm on as I type, in fact).
I have the new MacBook Air with M2 chip with delivery first week August. As regards backup restore I install apps fresh as needed and use iCloud backup for data restore photos and docs etc so share across MacBook / iMac / phone (files).
Also - I have a large collection of back photos on external HD (double backed up).
Good luck Tony with your new machine!
“ Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.” HHGTTG
Oh, nice one Martyn.
Mine is completely up and running now, with all the apps I need newly downloaded; a brand new Time Machine backup completed last night; and a full backup of all my data on the cloud too. Its like greased lightning, has allowed me to update to the latest version of Photoshop which I couldn't do on the old OS, and works properly using the work VM over Citrix Workspace (my old one video-lagged on calls due to a slow/failing GPU). The latter point is really important as it means I now never have to have two machines running simultaneously when I'm working from home.
It wasn't cheap and was probably a little over-specified. However, I'm delighted with it, and so happy that I took all the advice on here and went for the M1.
I’ve been reading this thread with interest. I’m still using a mid 2009 MPB albeit with maxed out memory and a SSD. It’s struggles with photo editing (but on wake and general use, is STILL faster than my 2021 work supplied Windows Lenovo…).
Would an Air be suitable for my needs? Mainly web browsing, photo editing with Lightroom and DAW usage. The only thing that concerns me is the lack of USB slots…
An M2 Air would definitely be up to that work load. Make sure you upgrade to 512GB at a minimum. The default 256GB SSD only has a single NAND chip which makes it up to 50% slower than the larger capacity SSDs which have 2 NAND chips. I've not had any issue with only 2 USB ports on my M1 Air. I have a hub when I need to connect external drives. The M2 Air effectively has an extra port with the addition of the MagSafe charging port.
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