Okay, so new MacBook Air.
Let's get this bad boy out of the box.
And I wonder how long I can make this thing last.
All these kids are using their new M34 laptops,
but I've still got my M1 and it still works!
Okay, so hopefully you guys enjoyed that skit at the start.
Now I definitely encourage you to watch this video
in its entirety if you've just bought a new Mac,
or even if you already have a Mac
and you want to maximize its lifespan.
And this is especially important if your budget
is on the lower end or if you're a student and you
want these things to last five to 10 years at least
before having to go out and upgrade again.
Just quickly, a big shout out
to Skillshare for sponsoring this video.
I've used Skillshare a lot recently to improve
the quality of my content, but more on that later.
Okay, so the first step in maximizing your lifespan
of this machine, or a Mac Mini or an iMac, it doesn't
really matter which one it is, is maximizing
your budget before you even purchase the machine.
So what do I mean by this?
Well it's pretty standard practice when you're
upgrading to a new machine or just buy a new machine
for the first place to try and spend as much
as you can to future proof said machine
while still staying within your budget.
The rule of thumb is the more powerful
a machine is when you purchase it,
the less its performance will drop over time.
So what does this mean for you guys
at the pre-purchase stage before you even purchase a Mac?
Well it means spending money on upgrades
that you know are going to come in handy.
So for example choosing a more powerful CPU,
or a more powerful GPU, or even upgrading the RAM
from eight to 16 gigabytes are some common ones.
And if you're wanting to keep your MacBook
for a really long time, and if you've got a Mac
that has a soldered on SSD, that is you cannot
remove it, consider also bumping up your storage
from the minimum to say 512 gigabytes.
But more on that a little bit later on.
Also, bear in mind that most Macs these days
cannot be upgraded in the future due
to Apple's practice of soldering components,
or in layman's terms gluing components into the Mac.
So if you think you're going to need 16 gigabytes of RAM
in the future for example, you need to get it now.
Also, if you're still on the fence about whether
to get an Apple Silicon MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro,
I'll touch on that in a future section.
Now all of this being said about upgrades and choosing
a really powerful Mac is true on one hand,
but on the other hand, especially with the new
Apple Silicon Macs, the performance of these things
are really good to begin with so don't feel bad
if you can only afford a base model because
for most people a base model is all you need.
And it's going to last you for a surprisingly
long amount of time in my opinion.
So once you've purchased your Mac, whether it's
a base model or an upgraded version, the next
most common thing that's going to decrease the lifespan
of these machines is obviously physical damage,
mainly drop or fall damage, and also water damage.
So drop and fall damage is relatively
easy to prevent against.
Just make sure you don't put your laptop in any
precarious positions such as the edge of a couch or a bed.
Also consider investing in some kind
of protective case such as this one from Thule.
I've been using this one for about six
or seven years, ever since I was at university.
You can see it's pretty beat up as well
and it definitely works well.
You can see it's got a ridged design,
the edges are quite thick, and it's actually
semi-waterproof 'cause it's rubber on the outside.
This isn't sponsored by Thule, by the way.
This is just a really great case.
So I'll try and find it on Amazon
and link it to you guys down below.
Something like this is going to cost you about 30, 40 bucks.
And if you actually drop your laptop
inside this it's probably going to survive
unlike those really crappy, thin,
cheap neoprene sleeves you can get from Amazon.
Stay away from those.
Get something like this, especially if you're
going to and from work or university or school
and you're going to be having your laptop in a bag.
So moving on to liquid damage, again guys
pretty easy to prevent against.
My rule of thumb is to not have any
open liquids within about two feet
or 45 centimeters of my machine at all times.
That includes glass of water, alcohol,
juice, all that kind of stuff.
Now, the exception to this is obviously
if you have a bottle and you can actually
close the top that's totally fine,
but any kind of open liquids like
a glass of water, keep it well away
or at least a foot or two away from your device.
Now if you're wondering about scratches
on the exterior I honestly wouldn't be too worried.
These tend to hold up pretty well.
There's no paint or anything like that
on the chassis, it's just solid aluminum
or alu-mini-um for my Australians out there.
So don't be too worried.
You will see some scratches on the bottom
over time, but they're very minimal.
If you are worried you can get a skin from dbrand
for example and slap it on the top or on the bottom.
But to me that's unnecessary and that money
is much better spent on something like a case for example.
Now moving on to the next factor in terms
of your Mac's longevity and that is heat.
So if you guys aren't already familiar,
heat is one of the biggest factors
in decreasing the lifespan of electronics.
Now if you do have an Apple Silicon Mac these things
are actually super super heat-efficient,
Much more so than the previous generation Intel ones.
But you can also aid the heat dissipation
of your MacBook or Mac Mini or whatever
by using a stand or simply keeping it off a bed
or a couch for example if doing intensive tasks.
Also consider the ambient temperature.
So if your room or outside temperature
is super super hot, maybe try not to do
any hardcore gaming or rendering
on the machine in that hot environment
and instead move to a cooler environment
or just wait until later in the day for example
when the ambient temperature is a little bit less.
Now this next tip is specific to Apple Silicon Macs.
Mainly for people on the fence
about choosing between an Air and a Pro.
So the Air is obviously passively cooled,
that is it does not have a fan,
whereas the MacBook Pro does have a fan.
So why this is important is if you're doing
a lot of gaming, rendering, or editing for example
and the CPU or the GPU is going to
be regularly getting quite toasty,
having the fan on the Pro is going to keep
the internal temperature lower than the Air
and that might actually help to increase the lifespan
of the Pro instead of if you're just doing
everything on an Air which is passively cooled.
But again, this is mainly for people who do
a lot of activities where your machine
is going to be getting quite hot.
If you're just doing basic tasks
or maybe even just a bit of editing
or gaming every now and then, doesn't really
matter which one you go for in my opinion.
Now just before we go into the next section,
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Now moving on to the battery which is
a question I get asked almost every day.
Guys, I won't go into this too much in detail.
I have a super super in depth video on this already,
so I'll link it up in the top right hand corner.
Definitely do go and check that out after this video.
But the short version of that video
is try to keep the battery as cool as possible.
Charge it in bursts to keep the overall
charge between about 20% and 80%.
Ideally you want to keep your charge around 50%.
And also keep your MacBook plugged in if you're going to
be sitting at a desk for hours and hour using it.
There's no need to actually keep unplugging it,
charging it, plugging it back in
if you're just sitting at a desk.
But again, watch that video.
It's going to explain everything.
Now at the end of the day if there are
any issues with your battery, or for example
you've had this thing for five years
and the battery isn't holding a charge
as well as it used to, it's not really a big deal,
you can actually get the battery replaced.
Depends on which country you're in
or which model of MacBook you have,
but it's relatively inexpensive.
And most batteries are actually going to last about
five years before you actually do need to replace them.
So don't stress about the battery that much.
Now moving on to cleaning, I'm sure
you guys have seen the videos out there
of absolutely filthy MacBooks getting cleaned
and your MacBook is no exception.
Try to keep it as clean as you can.
So starting with the screen, what you want to do
is you want to get a special microfiber cloth
and you want to get a special screen cleaning solution.
I'll link these products down below
in the description as well.
And if you buy a proper screen cleaning
fluid or liquid, it's not going to damage the screen
and it's going to be a lot safer than water.
All you have to do is spray a tiny bit
of the solution on a microfiber cloth.
Gently rub the screen until it's clean
while using your hand to support the back.
Now if you have a MacBook Pro with a fan,
consider opening up the back chassis
every 12 to 18 months to clean out
all the dust and debris that sometimes
accumulates inside these machines.
Especially if you live in a dusty environment
or you have a pet for example.
You will probably find quite a bit
of stuff clogging up the fan, so it is
a good idea to clean it every now and then.
I do have a vide on this on my channel,
so feel free to check that out.
Now the reason this is important is that
a buildup of dust and debris in the fan
will decrease the cooling capacity of your laptop
leading to decreased performance and increased heat.
The fan will probably be a lot louder as well
because it needs to work harder
to keep the internal components cool.
Now moving on to the next section that affects
the longevity of your machine and that is performance.
Now guys, a really really common misconception
I hear is that computer hardware slows down over time.
That is not true at all.
Let me explain it to you guys real quick.
There are two main things that constitute this rumor.
Number one is obviously as time goes on
the technology and components within
your computer, they do become outdated.
Whereas software and apps becomes more advanced.
It's like trying to run a modern
computer game from a laptop from 2010.
You're just not going to have a good time.
Now secondly, over time the operating system,
which in this case is macOS, can become
slower and cause performance issues
or the dreaded spinning beach ball.
Now the reason for this could be
a number of different issues.
It could be programs not installed correctly,
some corrupted files on the operating system,
or just a load of unnecessary junk
or files just clogging it up.
Now there are a couple ways you can actually
go into the operating system yourself
and clean it up, make it a little bit faster.
You don't need any kind of special program as well.
You can just do it yourself.
Tell me if you want a video on that and I'd
be more than happy to make it for you guys.
Now another thing is I like to reset my Mac
every one to two years, and by reset
I mean back everything up on an external hard drive
and then go into the recovery partition
on this machine and actually format
the hard drive so that it deletes everything.
And then I reinstall the operating system
which is macOS, bring all of my files
and programs back on, and it's basically
like getting a brand new computer.
Everything's going to be super smooth, super fast,
and it's just a really good thing to do
every couple of years to give your Mac
a little speed, performance, and usability boost.
Now moving on to probably the most controversial section
of this video and that is the internal SSD.
So if you guys didn't already know,
I did touch on it briefly at the start of this video,
but Apple is more and more moving towards
a world where everything on these devices
are glued together or soldered on and you
cannot remove them or cannot replace them.
Now for me personally I don't agree with this practice.
I really do not like it at all.
If you're lucky enough to have an older MacBook
you can actually take off the back cover
of the chassis, pull out the old hard drive
or solid state drive, and replace a new one
and that's great, especially if your SSD or hard drive
fails because they are consumable devices,
so they only have a finite lifespan.
So that begs the question, how long
will the internal SSD on your Mac last?
So let's talk about TBW or "total bytes written".
It's a metric that describes how much data
can be written to a drive before the memory cells
within it begin to degrade and the possibility
of data loss and entire drive failure increases.
Now for a base model Mac with a 256 gigabyte SSD
the TBW rating is anywhere from 150 to 300 terabytes.
No one really knows because that information
isn't exactly made public by Apple.
Now this TBW rating means you can
comfortably write hundreds of terabytes
before potentially seeing issues.
I say potentially because there have been
numerous tests done where SSDs have completely
blown past their TBW rating and have been able
to write petabytes of data before failing.
I'm pretty confident in saying that even
these entry level SSDs will probably last
at least eight to 10 years with normal use
before you start to see issues and before
they potentially start to fail.
That being said, if you do decide to upgrade
the storage on your Mac from for example
a base model 256 gigabyte version
to a 512 gigabyte SSD version,
the TBW rating will scale accordingly.
So using that same example of 256 to 512
that is double the capacity which means the TBW
has doubled as well which means you can write
double the amount of data to the internal SSD
when compared with a small capacity SSD
before potentially seeing issues.
So although you might not be able to get these
Apple Silicon Macs with the SSD soldered on
to last forever, it has the potential
to last a very long time as long
as the internal SSD holds up.
Now speaking of the SSD failing
and not being able to be replaced by Apple,
there may actually be an option for you
and that is the right to repair.
Now I'm not going to go too much into detail
on right to repair in this video.
I definitely do recommend going onto
Louis Rossmann's channel, he's also on YouTube.
Have a watch of some of his videos.
Also do some googling to bring yourself up to speed.
But right to repair in a nutshell simply
just gives you the right to choose who, what,
and where your Mac is repaired or replaced by.
Apple is trying to monopolize this so that
you can only take this to Apple themselves
and they can force you to pay or upgrade
if you have an issue with this machine.
And right to repair is super important
because it gives you the choice as a consumer.
So why is right to repair so important in terms of the SSD?
Well even thought Apple says that it cannot
be repaired or replaced, there might be
other people out there such as Louis Rossmann
that may be able to repair or replace it for you.
And it's just important for us as consumers
and owners of this product to have that choice
if we wanted to and not just rely on Apple.
Anyway guys, hopefully you enjoyed this particular video
and I touched on a few useful tips and tricks for you.
If you have any comments, as always leave them down before.
Apart from that, I will catch you in the next one.