Macbook advice for a new macOS user

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lowigz

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#323875 29-Jan-2026 00:04

Kia ora all,

I’m looking at buying a MacBook and I’m new to macOS, so I’d really appreciate some advice.

I’m shopping around for either new or pre-owned (PB Tech vs Trade Me, or anywhere else you’d recommend). I’ll be using it for uni and software development, including iOS and Android, so I’m trying to get the best performance and longevity for the money.

My budget is around $1,500. What models/specs should I be aiming for, and what should I avoid?

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#3456858 29-Jan-2026 00:52

Avoid the intel macs - limited support life remaining.

Decide if you value lightweight - you want MacBook Air. If you seriously intend to have it on you 24/7 it makes a big difference. MacBook Pro are a little more rugged and less elegant.

Either way your budget should get you into a refurb M series M1 or M2, or could get a lot more than that if you're lucky secondhand.

Edit: I should mention apple official support life for updates is 7 years from date of manufacture. Apple have extended this in some cases when architecture is similar. M1 and M2 are coming to the end of that 'official' period so going that low is a bit of a gamble.

yann

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#3456859 29-Jan-2026 00:53

I use a PC at work, though I use a Mac at home, be it Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, or Mac Mini over the years. Personally, I gravitate to buying new and would be a little hesitant about second-hand on places like Trademe unless I'm really confident about the condition (battery etc), and history of the machine. That and sometimes I wouldn't be too sure how people treat their devices, or whether they've been using it on battery for encoding/rendering or high demand applications which may present extra wear and tear. That is just my view, but I'm sure it'd be fine and you just have to do your homework.

But I think you might need to think about what kind of applications you are going to use, whether it they need a lot of memory, or a lot of space. In most cases you are kind of locked into the memory and hard drive (SSD) space, unless you pay for extra via Apple or via a third party (which can void any Apple warranty). Apple now have a minimum 16Gb for memory, though also tend to have a relatively low 256Gb for hard drive space. Though some people don't bother to upgrade, and instead use external SSDs or hard drives via USB-C or Thunderbolt.

New, you're nearly at a Macbook Air M4 13" with 16Gb/256Gb which are at places like JB Hifi for $1638 at the moment. You can also check Apple as well as do have an Education store and usually have a slightly discounted price for devices are currently offering incentives during new semester start times, offering things like AirPods and such. You could also look to sell any incentive items yourself and discount your Macbook if you went that route.

But you probably need to think about what you are using it for and how much processing power, memory and space you might need. I'm sure the folk here can help advise as well. But if you are going Macbook Pro, you might be looking at second hand or refurb, and probably earlier Apple Silicon generations. Macbook Airs are a bit cheaper, and as mentioned, can be had new for just over $1600 (starting from), but current M4 Silicon. But also keep in mind, longevity wise, Apple will make devices vintage or obsolete after 5-7 years I think? And may then stop supporting MacOS updates to it, similar to what they do with iPhones with iOS updates.

I currently mainly use a M4 MBA with 16Gb/512Gb, and find that fine for my use case. I did have an Intel MBP and didn't feel the need to get a Apple Silicon MBP, so opted for a MBA which has been great. But everyone's use case will be different as some people will find the MBA underpowered and need the extra cores and processing that comes with the Pro. Given Apple Silicon is a number of generations in, I would be looking for at least a M series Macbook, and wouldn't be looking at anything Intel based, given the age, as well as Apple Silicon being a lot more optimised and efficient. I'll let others weigh in though. Good luck with your purchase and your studies!

Yann 😅

Goosey

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#3456864 29-Jan-2026 07:09

Have you checked out the Apple education deals on their website?

jonherries

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#3456866 29-Jan-2026 07:18

Apple also has their refurb page, but beware, they discount off the original RRP - so old machines can be more than new ones, and sometimes new is cheaper than refurb at JB it was at christmas.

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TwoSeven

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#3456871 29-Jan-2026 08:02

As a developer I use a Windows PC for development. I have an old Mac mini connected to it so I can build and test Mac and iPad/iphone apps. Android and Linux dev is done on the pc.

i need to upgrade my Mac mini and will probably just get a new one (M4). I did like the MacBook Air and that would be my alternative, but I use an iPad with keyboard, mouse etc for mobility and don’t really have a need for a laptop

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lowigz

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#3456973 29-Jan-2026 12:58

TwoSeven:

As a developer I use a Windows PC for development. I have an old Mac mini connected to it so I can build and test Mac and iPad/iphone apps. Android and Linux dev is done on the pc.

i need to upgrade my Mac mini and will probably just get a new one (M4). I did like the MacBook Air and that would be my alternative, but I use an iPad with keyboard, mouse etc for mobility and don’t really have a need for a laptop

I use linux normally and for my development, but I'm wanting to target ios devices for the apps I'm making. I figured get a mac and do it on there, the macs where I'm studying are always busy.

Macbook air looks good, but I'm aiming for something with grunt but longevity for me too..

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TwoSeven

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#3456982 29-Jan-2026 13:27

Visual Studio running on Windows will target most platforms (I typically use WSL and native windows) the requirement for macOS is that it needs the platform to run Xcode (it will connect to the Mac on the same network segment remotely with the pair to Mac feature). One can run the emulators (devices) locally on windows.

one can use blazor, Maui, React, Android or whatever including native device apps. VS Code can also be useful for lightweight file editing but I would not use it beyond that. Windows terminal is another good tool - not sure what the Mac equivalent is.

The other way to look at it is to use the MacBook Air, this will help one to do everything but windows (I guess a win vm will work for that). It would be a good mobile option and probably wouldn’t need a software kvm as one does with multiple workstations.

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gzt

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#3457014 29-Jan-2026 15:20

Android Studio runs on macos, linux, windows, ChromeOS

https://developer.android.com/studio

lowigz

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#3457035 29-Jan-2026 19:04

yann:

I use a PC at work, though I use a Mac at home, be it Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, or Mac Mini over the years. Personally, I gravitate to buying new and would be a little hesitant about second-hand on places like Trademe unless I'm really confident about the condition (battery etc), and history of the machine. That and sometimes I wouldn't be too sure how people treat their devices, or whether they've been using it on battery for encoding/rendering or high demand applications which may present extra wear and tear. That is just my view, but I'm sure it'd be fine and you just have to do your homework.

But I think you might need to think about what kind of applications you are going to use, whether it they need a lot of memory, or a lot of space. In most cases you are kind of locked into the memory and hard drive (SSD) space, unless you pay for extra via Apple or via a third party (which can void any Apple warranty). Apple now have a minimum 16Gb for memory, though also tend to have a relatively low 256Gb for hard drive space. Though some people don't bother to upgrade, and instead use external SSDs or hard drives via USB-C or Thunderbolt.

New, you're nearly at a Macbook Air M4 13" with 16Gb/256Gb which are at places like JB Hifi for $1638 at the moment. You can also check Apple as well as do have an Education store and usually have a slightly discounted price for devices are currently offering incentives during new semester start times, offering things like AirPods and such. You could also look to sell any incentive items yourself and discount your Macbook if you went that route.

But you probably need to think about what you are using it for and how much processing power, memory and space you might need. I'm sure the folk here can help advise as well. But if you are going Macbook Pro, you might be looking at second hand or refurb, and probably earlier Apple Silicon generations. Macbook Airs are a bit cheaper, and as mentioned, can be had new for just over $1600 (starting from), but current M4 Silicon. But also keep in mind, longevity wise, Apple will make devices vintage or obsolete after 5-7 years I think? And may then stop supporting MacOS updates to it, similar to what they do with iPhones with iOS updates.

I currently mainly use a M4 MBA with 16Gb/512Gb, and find that fine for my use case. I did have an Intel MBP and didn't feel the need to get a Apple Silicon MBP, so opted for a MBA which has been great. But everyone's use case will be different as some people will find the MBA underpowered and need the extra cores and processing that comes with the Pro. Given Apple Silicon is a number of generations in, I would be looking for at least a M series Macbook, and wouldn't be looking at anything Intel based, given the age, as well as Apple Silicon being a lot more optimised and efficient. I'll let others weigh in though. Good luck with your purchase and your studies!

Yann 😅

Yeah I looked at their education store, cheaper for me to go to pbtech.

I'm new to coding on mac, I've been a linux user for years but started some new projects wanting port to ios. So if I got a 2022/23 I should get 4 or 5 years out it before the os is old? what's the requirement for apps from the store for ios dev os or pc age wise?

Aucklandjafa

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#3457036 29-Jan-2026 19:13

+1 buying from the Apple refurb site. Wouldn’t buy a secondhand machine from TM.

jonherries

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#3457041 29-Jan-2026 19:51

Mainly the delay in iOS dev is compile grunt in Xcode - you can use Xcode cloud to deploy.

You need to be able to run latest version of Xcode on the Mac to keep up with iOS platforms. I am running N-1 on MacOS but latest Xcode.

I think the latest version of MacOS runs on all Apple M chip versions and some of the Intel - but I wouldnt do intel as the compiler will be running through an interpreter (Rosetta - that name might have been intel transition?)

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lxsw20

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#3457055 29-Jan-2026 21:15

In your situation i'd probably buy a new MacBook 13" base. $1799 with Edu discount, sell the free Airpods on promo at the moment and you're around the $1500ish mark at a guess.

nova

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#3457074 29-Jan-2026 23:02

If you want to go mac, your best bet really is to get a macbook air. The base macbook pro is only marginally better, you have to go up quite a bit in price to get a substantial upgrade. My work computer is a 48GB M4 Pro, which cost over $5K, and I don't notice that much difference day to day from the 16GB M2 Air that I'm currently typing on. Well, I guess the pro is substantially heavier! You either buy new, and aim to sell it for half what you paid for it in 2-3 years time, or you buy secondhand for about half the price, with the caveat that a lot of secondhand models will only be 8GB. I would definitely get a 16GB model. You could wait for the M5 air to come out in a few months, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bit of a price jump when that comes out (high RAM prices, weak NZD)

lowigz

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#3457107 30-Jan-2026 08:00

nova:

If you want to go mac, your best bet really is to get a macbook air. The base macbook pro is only marginally better, you have to go up quite a bit in price to get a substantial upgrade. My work computer is a 48GB M4 Pro, which cost over $5K, and I don't notice that much difference day to day from the 16GB M2 Air that I'm currently typing on. Well, I guess the pro is substantially heavier! You either buy new, and aim to sell it for half what you paid for it in 2-3 years time, or you buy secondhand for about half the price, with the caveat that a lot of secondhand models will only be 8GB. I would definitely get a 16GB model. You could wait for the M5 air to come out in a few months, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bit of a price jump when that comes out (high RAM prices, weak NZD)

Something like this? https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/computers/laptops/laptops/apple/listing/5746578054

it's 2023 and only has 8gb but can I buy memory and install it myself?

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#3457109 30-Jan-2026 08:08

lowigz:

nova:

If you want to go mac, your best bet really is to get a macbook air. The base macbook pro is only marginally better, you have to go up quite a bit in price to get a substantial upgrade. My work computer is a 48GB M4 Pro, which cost over $5K, and I don't notice that much difference day to day from the 16GB M2 Air that I'm currently typing on. Well, I guess the pro is substantially heavier! You either buy new, and aim to sell it for half what you paid for it in 2-3 years time, or you buy secondhand for about half the price, with the caveat that a lot of secondhand models will only be 8GB. I would definitely get a 16GB model. You could wait for the M5 air to come out in a few months, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bit of a price jump when that comes out (high RAM prices, weak NZD)

Something like this? https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/computers/laptops/laptops/apple/listing/5746578054

it's 2023 and only has 8gb but can I buy memory and install it myself?

Can't self update RAM on a macbook.

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