Grad gift (recommendation?)

I own a 13-inch MacBook M1 Max (10C, 32C GPU) 32 GB RAM, and 1 TB SSD. I never use it. I bought it in late 2021 and the AppleCare "expires" at the end of 2024 (I'd like to continue paying monthly if this is feasable?).

My question here is I could trade this in and fund buying my oldest who just graduated high school a 13-inch MacBook Air. It doesn't cover the cost but would be a hundred or two difference... OR I got to thinking why don't I wipe this MBP and gift it to them. They'd have a kick ass laptop (I'm not sure how the M3 in the Air compares to the M1 Max?), but I don't see much demand outside of Office apps and YouTube ;)

Bad idea? Funding isn't the concern. I don't want to trade in a bad ass laptop only to get something newer, but isn't "as good".

The laptop has never left the house - I bought it when I thought I'd be doing all my work remote, instead work supplied me an Apple Studio (desktop)!
 

wrylachlan

Ars Legatus Legionis
12,769
Subscriptor
Why not let them decide? Wipe the computer, give it to them and tell them that if they prefer a newer, thinner, and lighter MBA that you’d be happy to trade it in for them and add a few dollars to get that. Everyone cares about different things. The screen in the MBP would make me choose the old laptop. But my wife couldn’t care less and would 100% choose the thinner and lighter MBA. Ask them.
 

Honeybog

Ars Scholae Palatinae
2,075
Everything else aside, I’d think that the most important thing for a college student is battery life. I’m not sure how the M1 Mac Pro stacks up against the M3 Air in that regard, but after 4 years of underuse/plugged in use, I’d imagine that the battery health is in the 80s.

So, if you give them the existing one, I’d consider doing a battery replacement as well.

Don’t let your kid be the “I forgot my charger”/“does anyone have a charger? No, it’s a Mac. No, not that MagSafe” kid.
 

mklein

Ars Tribunus Militum
1,896
M3 has better battery life. Except for 4k video editing the RAM swap is mostly invisible, so 8GB is fine for most people.

-- For college a large iPad Pro with Pencil is ideal. They can take notes, and the handwriting is actually searchable. The lecture is recorded and connected to the writing, so you can click on a sentence and hear the audio. This works well for STEM where there are equations and formulae to write down. It's a killer approach to college.
 
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Honeybog

Ars Scholae Palatinae
2,075
M3 has better battery life. Except for 4k video editing the RAM swap is mostly invisible, so 8GB is fine for most people.

-- For college a large iPad Pro with Pencil is ideal. They can take notes, and the handwriting is actually searchable. The lecture is recorded and connected to the writing, so you can click on a sentence and hear the audio. This works well for STEM where there are equations and formulae to write down. It's a killer approach to college.

A bonus to this approach: we’re well past the point of it being reasonable to expect students to take notes on paper, but the students who are definitely taking notes and not idly browsing/texting will still stand out.