I bought an 8gb M1 Air in 2020 (for what now feels like an absurdly small sum of money) as an experiment in how-cheap-is-too-cheap / chuckable travel laptop. I ended up using it as my main laptop for 2 years without regret, then handed it to my son for school.

It remains in perfect condition and as delightful to use as the day I bought it (Apple software snafus notwithstanding). I fully expect to get at least 10 years use out of it. Honestly, I feel like it could probably carry him all the way through school - but I’d be embarrassed to say that out loud since that’s another 9 years.

I've been on my M1 Air, 16GB, since a few weeks after launch, more than six years now. I still use it daily with lots of Docker containers, VS Code, tons of Electron apps, a small macOS arm VM, and lots of browser tabs simultaneously. Recently, Claude's VM environment is getting exercised simultaneously. Usually the memory pressure is into yellow, but responsiveness is still far higher than any Mac from the Intel days, and far more usable than any Windows laptop that I have the misfortune to experience when borrowing somebody else's computer. And despite all that memory pressure, my SSD isn't getting worn out by swapping, I'm at only "3%" of SSD wear, if those stats on the CLI are to be trusted.

I'm not sure I'll need another computer anytime soon. Even though the kids jumped on it once when I left it on the couch for a few minutes, bending the case on one side of the keyboard. It bent back mostly flat. Gives it a bit of personality.

Never before has $1099 (or whatever) of hardware gone so far for me.

I had an M1 pro with the touchbar thing that I bought used for <$1000 after I had to give my work one back when I changed jobs. It was the best upgrade I ever made. I cracked the screen and bought a M4 air on black friday for $750 or something which I'm using now.

I bumped up to 16gb ram and more storage... it's still running great for when I use it, which is not much tbf... I mostly use my desktop because my vision has gotten exceedingly bad the past few years and my 45" desktop displays are significantly easier for me to read and use... I can kind of manage with the M1 display set to max size/scale... but many apps and sites are problematic.

I have a 2017 MacBook Air that's still going strong and will certainly hit 10 years. It definitely won't hit another 9 years after that, though... The keyboard doesn't have that much life left in it, and I won't be repairing it.