Why do I buy the 14’’ latest Mac Book Pro

Latest MBP is a state of arts

Binlong Li
Technology Hits
3 min readOct 29, 2021

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Photo by Mia Baker on Unsplash

I own one 2010 late 16-inch MBP. It is still functioning like a charm. The only issue is: Apple refuses to update the system. The majority of my applications could not work on that computer, such as OneDrive, Diarium, Ulysses, etc.

As a production tool, if the majority of my applications could not function properly. It leaves me with no choice but upgrades it.

Apple’s 2021 Oct Event

I heard lots of great reviews and forecasts for the new Mac CPU, and very looking forward to this Oct event. However, I have to admit. I am a bit frustrated. Not because the product is not good, nor they are not blowing my mind. But the price is bloody high. Well beyond my expectation.

I was switching between different options and considering the pros/cons for them. But at last, I decide to not pre-order. But rush into the AppStore today and get the basic 14" model.

Why 14 inch?

Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Unsplash

I have one 2019 16" MBP with Intel CPU. It cost about four grand when I bought it. But I feel it is a bit too expensive and I am always afraid I could lose it if I take it out. Meanwhile, it is a bit too big for me to do the work in the car when I wait for my kids’ swimming sessions.

So, I decided to go with flexibility over the power this time.

Why base model?

That depends on my desired workload.
My top usage for this computer is, as a platform, to allow me to read articles/books and write down my thoughts and ideas efficiently. To serve that purpose, the MacBook Air could do as well.

But the new MBP as another big benefits:

The keyboard

Photo by Aryan Dhiman on Unsplash

I was a Ph.D. student, then a software developer, now a part-time MBA student. I write lots of words during the day. Then I have high requirements for the keyboard. I’m not too fond of the original butterfly keyboard; even the MBP 13inch with the M1 chip does not satisfy me. But this new MBP keyboard is good. Even though I have had the computer for several hours, I start to enjoy typing on this machine.

The programming

As I mentioned, I am still a programmer. So I would still like to write programs on my computer. So I believe a 16G memory is the bottom line for my usage. However, I am not in the graphics domain at all, nor playing games. So I do not care for the GPU performance at all. Therefore, the primary eight-core CPU and fourteen-GPU are more than enough for me.

The data

I am in the big data and machine learning domain. I would need my computer for some prototype development. But nowadays, all the heavy lifting processing is in cloud computing. I do not think my local machine requires that much processing power for big data processing.

The content creation

I was trying to be a YouTuber or photographer. But up till now, I am not successful at that at all. So I believe the base model would be more than enough to satisfy my need on that road.

Summary

Suppose your situation is pretty much like mine. I would suggest you make a similar choice. Because I think the base model is the sweet price point. You could get all the advantages from the new platform and great displays. Meanwhile, control your cost to an acceptable boundary.

Enjoy the journey and have fun with the new machine.

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Binlong Li
Technology Hits

I’m a software engineer manager, and a MBA student in UIUC. Talk about business, management, career development and technology.