Hello, I am thinking of buying a new Macbook, however I am bit tight on my budget. I have 3 options on my mind
What would be a better choice for App Development?
Please share what do you think about those 3, or should I wait for some more time.
Sorry if this is not the right place to talk about this, and thanks in advance.
Hello,
I think that the MacBook mini is not good at App Development
so you should choose between MacBook m1 and m2 …
. .
I have MacBook Air M1 with(16 Gb RAM, 256 Gb SSD)
so this device is very good in display and process
.
but
.
the storage and size of the screen (13.3-inch) “I think it is small”
The Mac Mini M1 is absolutely fine for iOS development. The only issue is that you need an external display, keyboard and mouse though third party options in that regard are fairly plentiful and reasonably priced. It’s not portable like a MacBook Air but it’s a far cheaper option if your budget is limited.
The base model has 512Gb of storage but it would be easy to buy an inexpensive external SSD to give you more storage.
I honestly think that having a device that is portable is really good. I had the M1 mac mini, but ended up returning it, because I wasn’t able to take it around with me. The M2 MacBook air, base model has only 8 gigs of RAM, which in my opinion isn’t enough for app development professionally. If you use it for like college and stuff, and doing app development as a side project then I would think that its fine. The M1, if you are going to upgrade the RAM, then maybe go for this, but I think that the 2 USB-C ports aren’t going to be enough, and you might benefit from having the extra one with the M2 Macbook Air.
Thank you everyone for your opinions!
Option 1 now sounds great, will have to compromise with screen and storage!
Thanks again 
Just a small doubt, I have heard people saying since Air does not has fans, the performance is not as good as the base MBP (13 inch, M2). Is that the case?
There would be surely some difference, but would that be noticeable in day to day tasks?
Correct, the Air does not have fans, but that does not impact the performance (generally depending on what you mean)
The M1 Air won’t perform as well as the M2 Air, because the M2 is a newer chip that is better.
It won’t be noticeable in day to day tasks.
You can use any computer, the better the specs, the better the performance, but the higher it’ll cost
I started my iOS dev journey with a 2016 MacBook Pro, i5, and 8GB of RAM, and 256GB storage
This lasted me for 5 years and using it daily and for freelance work.
If that’s all you can afford that’s fine
Whatever you can afford is fine. I never had an issue with 8GB of RAM, yes it’s slower, but that’s all I could afford at the time.
2 USB-C weren’t an issue at all, I used a dongle for an HDMI port, no worries.
Yup that’s true, but as you were saying, having a MacBook is something that you would want long term, so if the option is there, then maybe get the extra port. If you are on a tight budget then the M1 is the best option for you
Yup! More is always nice
Thank you so much everyone!