Is it worth upgrading my 13" 2018 Macbook Pro to a M1 Macbook Air

Chase1313 Said:

"I have the 2018 Macbook Pro Touchbar 13" with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD and the i5 Quad Core, is it worth doing the upgrade to a M1 Macbook Air? I hear the M1 Chips are way better than intel but I am not sure if it compares or not to the Macbook Pro, could someone give me some more insight."

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Upgrading from 2018-M1 MAcL

Well, I have the same two computers, with more RAM and SSD, tough :P. I will keep my 2018 Mac for quite some time. It is in pristine condition. Being that it is Intel-based, I cannot run the same applications on my M1 Mac (which is Silicon-based). Note that Apple provides updates for 7 years, and then stope providing support for the operating system. So, I'd stick with both.

{in my opinion} The question to ask is, "in what ways is your current computer falling short of your expectations?"

Make sure that the proposed new system appears to be able meet your expectations before spending a lot of money.

what work do you do on your Mac, and what issues are you encountering?

I think it is worth upgrading if there is a reason for you to upgrade I upgraded my mid-2012 MBP in 2021 to M1 Mini. I wanted a central storage device that had more horsepower than the Intel chips were offering. So I was able to take advantage of the new M1 architecture for increased storage management. In 2022 I added an M2 MBP for my wife to use since I can still use the Mini for my purposes. I think it depends upon your needs. You are welcome to request advice but in the end, it is your decision. My daughter is still using her 2015 I think it is. Just depends on what you are doing. If it is trying to impress friends then that would be another story!

To me the only deficit in your current computer is the 256GB SSD. That's a bit small for some users.

Are you having storage issues? Things like, "Not enough space..."when you try to install updates.

If you have no storage issues, I second Grant's excellent suggestions.

if you are putting all the editing files on your boot drive, then it is likely getting quite full, and slowing down a LOT.

If you can instead put most of those files on different drives, your current system has enough compute power and graphics power to do that job.

The M1 MacBook Air (with enough RAM and disk space) has plenty of compute power and graphics horsepower as well, except it is limited ONE fully-hardware-accelerated external display maximum.