M2 vs M1 Pro

[Nathan1]

Hi everyone, so I've been trying to decide if I should spec out a new M2 air or buy an on sale M1 14 inch pro. I'm going to be a grad student and I will be working with large data sets mostly in R but sometimes python too. I don't think I need all the power of an M1 pro but with an apple student discount the M2 air would be roughly the same price. The only difference would be the ram for the M2. It would be 24 gbs vs the 16 on the M1 pro. I've seen the stuff with the slower SSDs but I would have that problem since I would choose the higher spec on the M2 air. Overall 1750 is a lot for a new computer so I want to make the best choice. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[jaslion]

You have verified that your course can be done one a modern arm macbook right?

[Nathan1]

I haven't how would I go about verifying that?

 

[Fasauceome]

5 minutes ago, Nathan1 said:

I haven't how would I go about verifying that?

 

Make sure to quote us so we can see your responses.

 

What software will you be using for your coursework? You could check the homepage or support site for the software, or ask your professor if there are known compatibility issues.

[Guest]

the lack of compatibility on mac is pretty bad. just get a windows laptop

[Nathan1]

7 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Make sure to quote us so we can see your responses.

 

What software will you be using for your coursework? You could check the homepage or support site for the software, or ask your professor if there are known compatibility issues.

I'll mostly be working in RStudio for a lot of my workload. Ill check apples page to see if they say anything 

[jaslion]

21 minutes ago, Nathan1 said:

I haven't how would I go about verifying that?

 

Check with your course on what they expect you to have for a device. No point getting a mac if you have to run windows stuff (which often happens).

[Obioban]

23 minutes ago, Nathan1 said:

I'll mostly be working in RStudio for a lot of my workload. Ill check apples page to see if they say anything 

I have no idea what RStudio is, but they do have a Mac version. 

 

To your original question, either will be more than fine. You really should just decide which you value more: the small size of the Air or the better screen/speakers of the Pro. 

[Imbadatnames]

3 hours ago, Obioban said:

I have no idea what RStudio is, but they do have a Mac version. 

 

To your original question, either will be more than fine. You really should just decide which you value more: the small size of the Air or the better screen/speakers of the Pro. 

And the power of the Pro. The air isn’t even that small now they’ve removed the taper

[Commodus]

8 hours ago, Nathan1 said:

Hi everyone, so I've been trying to decide if I should spec out a new M2 air or buy an on sale M1 14 inch pro. I'm going to be a grad student and I will be working with large data sets mostly in R but sometimes python too. I don't think I need all the power of an M1 pro but with an apple student discount the M2 air would be roughly the same price. The only difference would be the ram for the M2. It would be 24 gbs vs the 16 on the M1 pro. I've seen the stuff with the slower SSDs but I would have that problem since I would choose the higher spec on the M2 air. Overall 1750 is a lot for a new computer so I want to make the best choice. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

I’d go for the MacBook Pro. It’s not just that the M1 Pro is still a bit faster than the regular M2; you’ll also get a larger, faster screen and more ports. The extra RAM on an Air M2 won’t completely offset the MBP’s overall stronger performance.

 

And I understand RStudio is both Mac-native and optimized for M1/M2, so performance shouldn’t be an issue.

[Obioban]

On 7/22/2022 at 8:09 PM, Imbadatnames said:

And the power of the Pro. The air isn’t even that small now they’ve removed the taper

Yeah, it just doesn't sound like he's going to be doing something where the power difference matters (much like the vast majority of people). 

[Darkseth]

On 7/22/2022 at 10:39 PM, Nathan1 said:

I'll mostly be working in RStudio for a lot of my workload. Ill check apples page to see if they say anything 

I can confirm, R with R Studio works perfect. It already did, when the Application and Language ran only with Rosetta. I used this in early 2021. Not a single Bug.

Python is already ARM-Native, Visual studio Code or Pycharm also work perfectly fine.

 

 

But forget the m2. Especially with the completely nonsense 24gb ram. It's overpriced and bad.

 

Right now, you either save several hundreds of dollars and stick to the old m1 macbook Air with 16gb Ram and maybe 512 gb SSD, and be super happy that you saved Money. it's PLENTY fast, you will never notice the M2, and the M1 is even more efficient. I have the M1 inside a Macbook Pro 13", i have no idea how to max it out with anything Uni-related.

 

If you want to go above M1 Air, go right up to the 14,2" Macbook Pro. Much higher Performance than m2, much better Display, much better Speakers, bigger Screen, HDMI and the M1 Pro does support 2 additional external Screens.

 

 

For my Uni, i did need some windows applications for Business Intelligence (BI Modeller, SQL Server Management Studio, etc etc). I used WIN 11 ARM inside a Parallels VM, works absolutely Perfect. Every single x86 Application ran without issues, despite beeing emulated by a Guest-Windows from x86 (doesn't matter if 32 bit or 64 bit) into ARM, and then there's the virtualisation on top of that too.

Again: With the regular small m1 Chip. I never got this Chip to slow down.