I’m just catching up on the Apple M3 news from last night. Overall, things are faster and you can get more RAM in some models. I see nothing here that makes me want to upgrade from my main machine, a 12th Intel i5 Framework laptop. I see nothing here that makes me feel like I need to upgrade my backup machine, an M1 Max Mac Studio.

But of course I went over to the Apple store and priced out some stuff just to see. The biggest shock is always their upgrades. I can go from a 1TB SSD to a 2TB SSD for a $500 upgrade (Canadian). That’s insane, a 2TB Samsung 970 EvoPlus is $199 Canadian. With the Apple upgrade, I’m only asking for an extra 1TB so I should only be paying the difference in price between 1TB -> 2TB. $500 seems like far more than the difference between those two storage tiers.

Yes I bet the Apple SSD is a bit faster, but almost no one needs the speed increase that the Apple device has over the Samsung. Like 0.1% of people need those extra few mb/s of hard drive speed.

I used to wait for an Apple release, but now I look at their machines, then back down at my Framework and realise my machine is far more sustainable, and it’s up-gradable by me in the future. I can repair it, and I really own it. With the not so great story of Apple’s repair programs, I feel more and more like you rent your machine from Apple and they get to say how you use it in the future.