It has somehow been five months since my last update. Time really does move fast. There are plenty of reasons I haven’t written anything, but laziness is definitely not one of them.
After returning to Yantai after the New Year, life became pretty monotonous. Every day has felt almost the same as the day before, repeating itself without any clear end point. I often call my parents and complain that I want to leave, but every discussion ends with the same answer: wait a little longer, at least until this year is over. I can understand it, I guess. Maybe they still think I’m too young and don’t feel comfortable with me going somewhere far away on my own.
Anyway, back to the main thing.
In my last post, I mentioned that because I tend to spend everything I earn each month, I had decided to put the idea of buying an Apple product on hold for a while. That “while” turned into five months.
In March, I sold the Lenovo Yoga 14s that had been with me for two years for 3,200 yuan, and started preparing to buy a MacBook. At the time, I hesitated for quite a while over which model to choose. I mainly compared the 2020 MacBook Air with M1 and the 2020 MacBook Pro with M1. These two machines are almost the same in many ways. The real differences are things like weight, whether there is a fan, charging power, and the Touch Bar.
One of the biggest reasons I liked the MacBook Pro was the Touch Bar. It felt like something other laptops didn’t have, almost like the soul of a Mac. But at the same time, the Pro was about 1,000 yuan more expensive than the Air.
So I started hesitating. I read a lot of articles and watched quite a few videos to figure out how useful the Touch Bar actually was. In the end, my conclusion was that it was a cool feature, but it seemed to heat up easily, and after the initial excitement wore off, it probably wouldn’t feel that special anymore. So I chose the MacBook Air with M1. Maybe the real reason was simply that I wanted to save money.
The MacBook Air has its own advantages too. It has no fan, and it is noticeably lighter than the MacBook Pro. I bought the gold version with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage on Pinduoduo for 5,200 yuan.
A lot of people reminded me that 8GB + 256GB might not be enough. I did worry about that for a bit, but after thinking about how I actually use a computer, I felt it should be fine. I don’t do development, and I don’t edit videos. Most of the time I just use QQ and WeChat, browse the web, watch videos, and listen to music. For that kind of use, 8GB + 256GB is enough.
I have been using this computer for four days now, and so far I don’t regret buying it. The battery life is really good, the UI feels very consistent, the built-in speakers sound great, and installing or updating apps feels almost like doing it on a phone. It is thin, light, and completely silent.
Of course, some of the design choices and logic are quite different from Windows, and a few things are honestly hard to understand at first. But after getting used to them, they are acceptable.
A lot of people say the Mac trackpad can replace a mouse. I have a slightly different view on that, maybe because I’ve only just started using a Mac. I still bought a wireless mouse. That said, during the days before the mouse arrived, I did feel that the Mac trackpad was much, much better than the trackpads on other Windows laptops I’ve used.
Once you buy your first Apple product, you start wanting a second one. So next month, during the 618 shopping festival, I’ll probably use the remaining 1,000 yuan to buy AirPods Pro.