Your old Macbook is perfect for you

Posted on: November 10, 2025

4 Years Later: Should I Replace My MacBook Pro M1?

It's been four years since Apple released the MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip.

Now that Apple has just launched the M5, it raises the question: is the M1 still any good? Should we upgrade? I'm going to give you my honest opinion on whether this bad boy is still worth it.

The Launch of the MacBook Pro M1

This is my third MacBook. I remember when I got out of university, finally had some money, and bought my first MacBook Pro. It was an awesome machine.

Five years later, I bought one of those MacBook Pros with the Touch Bar, which were absolute garbage. They overheated, the keyboard was a calamity... I could go on.

Apple was lost, stubborn and it took a long time for them to finally listen to public opinion.

So when they announced the new MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon, I bought one right away. An M1 Max with 64GB of RAM, so I would never struggle again as I did with the previous MacBook. And it wasn't just me; the whole world was impressed by how sleek and powerful it was.

It was miles ahead of the competition. Even today, I don't think there has been a real response to the M1. Qualcomm released their Snapdragon X Elite processor, but it was quite underwhelming and didn't live up to its promises.

With this laptop, I could run any server locally, compile anything really fast, and handle 4K video editing like it was nothing. The battery lasted forever. It really felt like laptops couldn't get any better than this for software development.

Is It Holding Up?

Let's be honest: Apple has no real competition in this space.

Everything that was great about this laptop in 2021 is still true today. I'm not going to run any benchmarks; instead, I'll just share my day-to-day experience with it.

The performance is still amazing. Programming, video editing in 4K, and general browsing all still work like a treat.

There are absolutely no limitations for me personally, unless you try to play games on it. It was certainly an improvement over Intel MacBooks, but these are definitely not gaming machines.

The battery life is still okay. It's sitting at 88% maximum capacity, so it's certainly not what it used to be, but it's still reliable.

The build quality is still top-notch. I've taken really good care of it, and it still feels like a premium device that was made to last.

Do I Really Have to Upgrade?

I think if you only have 8GB or 16GB of RAM and you work in software development or video editing, then yes, you should probably upgrade. I could never survive with only 16GB. However, I do think that the 64GB in my machine was overkill; 32GB would have been just fine for me.

"But what about gaming?" you might ask. "Gaming is so much better on the M5!" Let's be real: these aren't gaming machines. Just accept it.

This year, I built a beautiful desktop computer, the first one I've ever built myself. It's a mini-ITX build. My goal wasn't to build a beast of a machine, but a computer that is fast, quiet, and still fairly powerful. I didn't cheap out, and I spent around $2,500.

Now, let's see how much you would have to pay for a new MacBook Pro with an M4 Max chip: Around $3,500. And as much as the performance keeps improving, that price is still ridiculous when compared to a modest desktop like mine. I can get 120fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K Ultra settings (without ray tracing). Go look for M4 benchmarks, it's not even close.

Video rendering might be faster on the new chips, but does it actually make a difference to you if your video renders 10 minutes faster?

And finally, AI. Is it really worth investing so much money in this crazy, overpriced market for AI when you can use a cloud service like Gemini Pro?

As weird as it sounds, the Mac Studio is marketed as a great option for local AI, but a powerful configuration can easily cost you $6,000, and it will still be much slower than cloud-based solutions for heavy tasks. It's just not worth it for most people.

Conclusion

So, after four years, my M1 MacBook Pro is still an absolute workhorse.

It's not perfect, and newer chips certainly offer more raw power and features. But for the vast majority of people, you won't see any meaningful benefit from upgrading.

I know we see lots of people on the internet raving about the newer models, but that's just the media machine doing its thing. It has to keep rolling, and people will talk about whatever gets them views.

We just have to exercise some discipline and be happy with what we have. I love this machine, and I'm happy to keep using it until it dies on me.