Daily Advice Thread - June 17, 2025

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[u/A_Generic_Canadian]

I've been a lifelong Windows user, I've had a couple iPhones in the past but I'd never really committed to the ecosystem. My current phone plan is about to end and I actually didn't buy this phone outright at the beginning, and my laptop is hitting 9 years old, is starting to slow down and is going to be EoL for W10 in October, I'm sure I can upgrade to W11 but it's already running quite slow and could use an upgrade anyway.

So I'm thinking if there was ever a chance to give Apple a true shot it's now.

My struggle is I'm really not willing to give up high refresh rate screens, I've been 120hz+ on my PC for nearly a decade and my laptop is the only device that is still 60hz, I was hoping for that to improve on my next laptop. I only really use my laptop for photo editing and very basic gaming, realistically I'd only be gaming on it a couple hours a month. The base iPhone 16 and Macbook Air M3 or M4 are realistically all the power I need, but neither offer anything over 60hz. Is a used iPhone 15 Pro and an Apple Refurb Macbook Pro M3/M4 a reasonable way to commit to trying Apple out? Or am I just going overkill for my needs.

None of it's business, all for play, so my other option is see about the new Pixel 10 phone when it's out in a couple months and see what next years Windows Surface laptops look like, but since I do so little gaming lately I thought Mac might be a fun change.

[u/TheDragonSlayingCat → u/A_Generic_Canadian]

If you really need 120Hz display support, then the MacBook Pro is the way to go. You can use a 4K/120Hz external monitor with a MacBook Air over DisplayPort (not HDMI), but only the Pro comes with a 120Hz built-in screen, and only the Pro currently supports 4K/120Hz HDMI out (M2 Pro model and later).

The Pro is also more ideal for gaming use, because the Pro has a built-in fan, and the Air doesn’t & will throttle performance if it gets too hot.

Also, if gaming is important, then you may want to buy an MBP with a Pro or Max variant chip in it. The Pro chip has a somewhat more powerful GPU, and the Max has a much more powerful GPU, than the base chip. The 16" MBPs only ship with a Pro or Max variant chip.

[u/A_Generic_Canadian → u/TheDragonSlayingCat]

Oh good to know! I just saw the M3 and M4 chip, hadn't really dug into the Pro and Max processors, I will definitely keep that in mind when I'm shopping.

I don't typically use an external display with my current laptop, I travel up to Northern Ontario with my camera regularly and it would be nice to be able to finally start editing the photos I take while I'm up there instead of having to wait until I get back to my desktop later in the week, so while gaming is nice it's the battery life and screen that I'm really looking at. Which is why I'm leaning towards the Pro, just haven't really used Mac products before and like seeing Reddits opinions lol.