Depends on what you need to develop. The M1 is great if you do web development with NodeJS style tools or Apple App Store development but don't need to run an x86 Windows VM to see exactly how Windows browsers render your site: Windows browsers which run on 90%+ of this planet's desktops, important corporate customer desktops in particular.

The M1 is not so great if:

- You want to develop real-time raytracing. The M1 using the Metal API does 3.6 FPS (20.1 million rays per second) while the RTX 2070 does 135.5 FPS (757 megarays/sec) on one benchmark: https://www.willusher.io/graphics/2020/12/20/rt-dive-m1

- You need reliable ECC memory and/or a corruption resistant filesystem like ZFS/BTRFS/ReFS. (You can get ECC on serious Thinkpads (X1/P15/P17), Dells, and HPs designed for science and engineering, and also RTX graphics, Cuda machine learning, etc., and run both Windows and Linux.)

- You need hi-performance x86 Linux VMs to compile and test your production back-end code locally on your device.

- You need a multidisk RAID drive configuration (available in laptops above mentioned) which allows you to keep working if one disk fails.

- You need to be able to quickly and inexpensively field-service/replace a failed disk drive, bad memory stick, broken screen, or damaged keyboard.

- You need to be able to quickly swap an old battery for a fresh one. (I replaced the battery in my MacBook Pro when it swelled up and almost cracked the trackpad glass; I had to use acetone nail polish remover to release the adhesive Apple uses to glue the battery into the case. Apple uses glue for everything these days and opposes right-to-repair legislation.)

- You need to be able to use portable graphics APIs such as Vulkan.

- You need to run industry standard CAD/CAM applications performantly and cost effectively.

- You want to develop VR applications.

- You want to run an 8K display. If you see a 280dpi Dell 8K next to a ~220dpi Apple 5K/6K you see there is no comparison. The Apple "retina" renders font edges softer than print.

- You need a device your device vendor allows you to configure to not phone home to said device vendor's servers. If you buy Windows Enterprise or Red Hat Enterprise or Ubuntu this level of privacy is officially supported. Apple aggressively markets itself as pro-privacy but does not offer this: your M1 will be sending quite a few packets to Apple-owned IP ranges.

- You need a device you can constructively criticize on internet forums when it doesn't work well for doing anything other than desktop-and-mobile Webkit webdev and Apple App Store development. If you ever need to share your frustration with your M1 on Reddit or HN you risk instant downvoting.

user:	ovhfy7364
created:	January 16, 2021
karma:	5