I bought a high-end Mac Mini about 6 months ago that I intended to be "my last computer purchase". I wonder now how long -that- prediction will last...
I saw this looooong ago, Pentium days.
Computers are not like cars.
Most don’t need a zillion gigs of memory and 100 Terabyte hard drive, at 100 GHz speed to write posts on Fakebook, surf the Interwebz, or write a homework assignment.
Yet a ten year old Mac or PC is blazingly fast for these needs.................
My last mac lasted 9 years, handling every system update and running speedily.
Finally replaced it this year. I’d worn several letters off the keyboard.
Judging by the over 10 year old Macs I have still running every day then a long time. I sold my 2018 6 core i7 for a little over half what I paid for it, but that was enough to buy a new M1 Mac Mini with 512 SSD. I sold a 2012 Upgraded Mac Pro that brought a little over the price I paid for the Video card, oh well. Any computer just about will suffice for what I do. I keep some Minis because I am running a legacy software on them, they upgraded the software I am using but it is sort of like AppleWorks 6 that everyone called a downgrade, which it was.
I have the M1 Mini off line most of the time, only have it to keep up with new developments. I can tell when the 2012 Minis are running even at idle they put off significant heat, the M1, I have to actually check to see if it is running because it feels the same running or not. I also purchased three MacBook air models for Wife, Kid and Grand kid. Mostly by selling off some of my intel Macs at a painful discount price.