it's frankly astounding

Earlier this year I completely overhauled my computer system, replacing my lovely iMac with a Mac Mini and my 16" MacBook Pro with a smaller 14" model.

"Are you nuts?" I hear you cry!

Absolutely not is my riposte.

These new machines are simply astonishing in their performance.  I expected it of my new laptop.  It has a very powerful "M1 Pro" chip in it and things like photo or video editing are done in a fraction of the time and without my computer turning itself into a radiator capable of heating a small home and with fans ramping up to such a speed that you'd think the thing was about to take off!

The really surprising package though is the Mini.  It has Apple's base model M1 chip and only 8GB of RAM, but even this is sufficient to leave my well specced iMac for dust.  Its primary use is as a server, and I've connected a number of solid state and hard drives to it and set it up so that any computer in the house can access them.

But it's a more than capable workhorse and I can edit photos or videos on it with no issues at all.  OK, it's not as fast as the MacBook but performance is not that far off.

When I was deciding what to get, I was considering a MacBook and desktop with Apple's M1 Max chips in them.  That would have been complete overkill (as well as really expensive) and my new machines are really more than capable of anything I throw at them now and in the future.

We're now in the days of a basic computer being much, much more than 99% of any computer users actually need.  Tasks that ten years ago would have required a multi-thousand pound / euro / dollar machine can now be comfortably performed on an entry-level computer.

Don't waste your money on performance you don't need folks!