I bought an M2 iMac for my parents. It’ll last at least five years for them - likely closer to 10. At that point, I’m happy to recycle or donate it and get them a new iMac - likely with some major updates (form factor? Display? Etc?) that wouldn’t get with a RAM / CPU upgrade.
Spending ~$150-$300/year for them to have an easy to use & fast computer feels very worth it for me.
All that said - I would love for the machine to be upgradeable as well! Just explaining why it’s not a dealbreaker.
Same, I had to panic buy a 13" m1, i was remote working extra remotely and my laptop got destroyed. The 13" m1 was not an ideal machine, it had limited usb ports, limited ram.. but it was pretty quick and I wasn't going to buy intel.
A few years later the m2pro/max's came out (i think technically in 14"). I picked one up and just handed my m1 down to family. Huge upgrade over their old intel air that had already lasted them like 10 years.
My main bitch is the soldered in storage. It's a shitty optimization that has to punish apple as much as it punishes users. To have a machine that I can't just go buy a harddrive and slot in when i want more storage or when the drive fails is a total fucking nightmare.
Spending ~$150-$300/year for them to have an easy to use & fast computer feels very worth it for me.
All that said - I would love for the machine to be upgradeable as well! Just explaining why it’s not a dealbreaker.