With all of the discussions about air vs pro, varying RAM/storage, and upgrading chips I'm wondering what factors can be used to argue for an upgrade. Most discussions and videos I see talk about two main use cases: programming and "creative work".
In the next week or so I'll be buying a MacBook to replace my Dell Inspiron 17-3000 series and I feel like a "base" user surrounded with suggestions to upgrade if you're going to use more than 3 tabs and messenger.
I'm a grad student studying physical therapy and my laptop will largely be for school purposes: up to a dozen tabs, my note taking app (notion or I might try obsidian), where I'm taking notes from (a web lecture and PowerPoint imported to onenote), and a couple productivity/messenger style apps. Occasionally I use a 3d anatomy app but generally not for longer than half an hour at time.
Are there metrics outside of coding, Photoshop, and video editing to help me figure out where I fall along the upgrade spectrum? I would like this to last me a couple years into professional work while minimizing cost but man is it hard to figure out what I'll actually need.
Tldr: there should be a sliding scale of a handful of functional activities to help us less computer-literate differentiate between upgrade factors within MacBooks.
There's no such thing as Future-Proofing. Apple can come out with a new product that has a specific feature that works only on M3/M3 Pro/M3 Max. That leaves M1/M2 users in the cold. Pumping up specs such as more memory or a bigger SSD does nothing to "future proof" a machine.
But let's say there is such a thing as future-proofing, 16GB ain't gonna do it. LOL.
A computer with 16GB of memory is going to remain useful longer than one with 8GB memory. That was pretty obviously my point. Please spare me your misguided pedantism.