A. Smith Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 I'm planning for a laptop replacement/upgrade. Because of my location, this will take some time to reach me (not to mention raise funds!), so I'm planning early. Also, my son needs a laptop and it makes sense to upgrade mine and pass my (still very useable) machine to him. I currently use a 2018 15" mbp (2.6 i7, 16gb ram, 512gb ssd). I'm a bit stuck between an m2 mba (16-24gb ram) and 14"mbp (16-32gb ram) with 1tb storage in either. Aside from typical work and personal apps (mail, safari, Microsoft office, etc) I basically live on Accordance, Logos, and Parallels running windows 10 (though 11 is probably going to be installed soon) and Paratext). Parallels is a bit of a hog. This is possibly a windows issue also; but combined they tend to crank the processor and fans up almost instantly. That's pushing me a bit toward the MBP. However, I don't know and maybe the M2 MBA can do this all day with no problems. The reviews and tests seem pretty spectacular. I live in rural Africa, travel very often on bush planes, etc. But the size/weight of my current hasn't been a problem and I don't foresee the 14" mbp being an issue either. However, for my configuration options/needs (already topping $2K) there is a $500+ difference between the two. My question is, is the mbp worth it? Do you think I need it for my use? I'll miss the screen size in any case. I've used a smaller laptop before (l began on a 12" powerbook G4!), so I'm not too worried about the size of either. I am concerned about heat in the MBA. But I also know that no fan means less dust, which is a VERY big deal here. I almost never use the built in speakers for anything other than notifications so quality there is not an issue. Camera resolution is not really an issue as our bandwidth is terrible enough here it's never a good resolution anyway. There are plenty of online reviews and comparisons on just this question. But I'm asking here because some of you will have experience with elements of my specific context. Thanks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 I'm a huge fan of the new Apple Silicon chips (they are blazingly fast and efficient) and have a Mac Studio and MBP 15" with M1 Ultra and Max chips respectively that are stunning — but if Parallels and running Windows apps is critical, this might be a problem. While Parallels on Apple Silicon does work, it only runs the ARM variant of Windows — and not all Windows apps run on the ARM variant. I would definitely do some research here to verify that what you need to run will work in that environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Gilbert Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 (edited) @A. Smith I had questions about Win 11 ARM on M1 and couldn’t find the answers. So I took a chance and bought the base M1 Mac mini with 8/256 GB. It’s been a few months now, and I am astounded, very pleased, and so thankful. Keep in mind that I don’t do any video editing. I’m currently copy editing 40+ papers for a November missions forum, in Word in Win 11 ARM in Parallels with 3 GB assigned to it. Even though Win 11 in M1 isn’t officially supported (and I can’t even activate it with one of my retail licenses), here is my experience: Word and Excel (Office 365 versions) work perfectly, with one exception: copying and pasting from Win to Ventura doesn’t always work with mouse and menus; I have to use keyboard shortcuts sometimes. My other programs work perfectly, including BibleWorks, Classical Text Editor, ABBYY FineReader 15, SKY Index 8, and EditPad Lite. Win 11 loads in about 10 seconds. It’s incredible. I use Logos on the Mac side. The M1 version of Logos 10 is lightning fast, as fast as Accordance in my experience. By the way, Accordance for Windows also works in Parallels, with the same bugs as a bare metal version plus one unique one. I pointed out in beta testing that Text Display was missing in the Preferences and it still is. I check memory pressure all the time. It mostly stays in the green. Right now it is green and I have the following programs open: In Win 11: Word. In Ventura: Word (it is very useful to have another version open), Scrivener, Logos, Accordance, Kindle, Firefox (1 tab), and Activity Monitor. I know that if I opened a few more tabs in Firefox, Memory Pressure will go swamp yellow, or whatever color that is. In my opinion, a MacBook Air with 16 GB RAM would do just fine in the dust. If a MBP can stand the dust, it would be even better. Grace and peace to you on the field. Michel Edited January 7 by Michel Gilbert typos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan Parker Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 Watching this thread myself. Leaning toward M2 MBA since I’ll have a more powerful desktop at home. Like you, the 12” PowerBook G4 was my first Mac. It still boots! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A. Smith Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 12 hours ago, Rich said: I'm a huge fan of the new Apple Silicon chips (they are blazingly fast and efficient) and have a Mac Studio and MBP 15" with M1 Ultra and Max chips respectively that are stunning — but if Parallels and running Windows apps is critical, this might be a problem. While Parallels on Apple Silicon does work, it only runs the ARM variant of Windows — and not all Windows apps run on the ARM variant. I would definitely do some research here to verify that what you need to run will work in that environment. I appreciate this. These things are not familiar to me. In fact, it’s part of why I use Mac. I don’t like to think about hardware and software integration. I just want it to work! But this Apple silicon/ARM thing is apparently quite a big deal. Good news is it seems parallels 18 with windows 11 emulates the proper architecture for paratext (and other SIL software). Again, I appreciate you pointing this out because I never would have even considered the possibility! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan Parker Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 It’s good info for sure! I’m at the point where my current workflow either runs natively on a Mac, or the handful of Windows-only apps can run in CrossOver well enough where I haven’t needed to re-subject myself to managing a Windows VM or dual boot. So far, it feels great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A. Smith Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 58 minutes ago, Nathan Parker said: It’s good info for sure! I’m at the point where my current workflow either runs natively on a Mac, or the handful of Windows-only apps can run in CrossOver well enough where I haven’t needed to re-subject myself to managing a Windows VM or dual boot. So far, it feels great! parallels is really pretty fantastic. Just runs windows like an app alongside everything else in the Mac. And continuity basically removes windows and lets your PC app look and act like any Mac app. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan Parker Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 I may need to try it again. Been years since I last used it. Tried Fusion a while back but wasn’t impressed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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