HBD New News!

Every year, I’ve written an article celebrating the founding of this newspaper, starting with something like ‘X years ago today, on April 5th, 2020, I started writing this newspaper’, and recapping what I had written in that past year, my thoughts, etc. However, I decided that this year’s article was going to be different. Because today, I’m going to share an experience I went through recently – one that you’ll probably face someday as well: the thought process behind choosing a new laptop.

My Old Setup

Six years ago, I got my first laptop, a 2020 Intel Core i5 13-inch MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Funnily enough, this was the last MacBook Air to feature an Intel processor before Apple transitioned to its own Apple Silicon architecture later that year.

Yes, the shift to Apple Silicon brought major improvements in performance, battery life, and efficiency, along with a fan-less design and Unified Memory (which allowed the CPU and GPU to share the same memory pool, resulting in faster performance across tasks).

However, despite this, I was actually completely fine using my laptop for many years. In fact, the two tasks I did the most on my Mac were related to writing this newspaper: researching in Google Chrome and writing in WPS Office. This article you’re reading right now was actually written on the Intel MacBook Air!

Roughly three to four years into owning the laptop, I started learning some basic video editing using CapCut Pro. Although it was more demanding than anything I had done before, and it did make the laptop uncomfortably hot at times, the problem vanished immediately after I had finished editing and closed the app.

The Bottleneck

In April of 2025, I went to an in-person event that would mark the turning point of how I used my laptop – a hackathon. It was a high-intensity event where we worked in teams to build a software product. Before this, the only experience I had with coding and software development was watching a ten-hour course on Python.

After the hackathon, I developed a newfound interest in everything IT, especially coding and programming. I started delving into technology and spent most of my free time learning how to code websites, applications, and complex systems. I also experimented with virtual machines (VMs), which are essentially computers inside computers, allowing me to run Windows 10 and various Linux distributions inside MacOS itself. In fact, I returned to the same event this year and led my team to get 2nd place out of 72 fellow competitors.

Eventually, I started creating my own software ‘projects’. My latest project is a website I’ve been coding and working on by myself for the past few months, which aims to help students develop critical thinking skills and improve linguistic fluency through debate.

But the problem with these increasingly demanding tasks and power-hungry applications like multiple Integrated Development Environments, local Ollama AI models powering Claude Code, and dozens of browser tabs in the background was that my MacBook Air was struggling to stay functional. The fans were so loud it was effectively drowning out my own thoughts. Sometimes, the laptop would even go on strike by force restarting itself.

I knew then that my transition from casual writer to hobbyist developer was more than just a change in mindset – it called for a change in hardware.

Choosing A New Laptop

The experiences I mentioned above are definitely not unique to me; as your old laptop gets older and perhaps you pick up new hobbies or tasks to do, you’ll probably find yourself researching what laptop would serve as a great replacement. So what criteria did I consider when choosing my own laptop?

Question 1: Do I need a laptop?

Although I had never built a PC or bought a desktop before, I knew that desktop computers were generally more powerful because there was more space to pack in more components like extra fans, cooling, etc. However, because I travel relatively often, a portable setup was much more important to me than the perks of a desktop computer.

Question 2: Windows Laptop or Mac?

Many people prefer Windows computers, especially gaming laptops, over Macs, because of the vastly wider gaming library on Windows. Personally, I prefer Macs, because of an important advantage over competing Windows computers: superior battery life.

Although high-end Windows laptops, especially those built for gaming, have better graphics performance thanks to their dedicated GPUs, the generally have inferior battery life when compared to MacBooks. Since I need that battery life when I’m on the go, and don’t want to be tethered to a wall outlet all day, I chose to get a Mac instead.

Question 3: MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro

Since I was choosing to get a Mac, there were two choices from the MacBook lineup: the Air or the Pro. As the name probably suggests, the MacBook Air features a more lightweight and portable design, while the MacBook Pro offers much better performance overall, while sacrificing some portability with its larger screen and heavier chassis.

In March, the M5 MacBook Air, M5 Pro, and M5 Max MacBook Pros were announced. If you’re someone who does some video editing, content creation, or even some programming, the MacBook Air could handle the work just fine. However, because MacBook Airs don’t have fans, they will definitely throttle when subjected to sustained usage, meaning performance decreases over time. In comparison, MacBook Pros have fans inside their chassis, allowing for much better sustained usage for long coding sessions or any form of demanding task. Furthermore, the Pros also quality-of-life improvements, such as a bigger and better display, as well as more ports.

If you’re someone who needs that sustained performance and support for a larger workload, go with the Pro, which is what I eventually chose. If you want to save some money and don’t need that much power anyway, even the base configuration of the M5 MacBook Air is great.

Question 4: M5 vs M5 Pro vs M5 Max. Which chip to choose?

The MacBook Pro offers three chips: the base M5 chip, the upgraded M5 Pro, and the fastest laptop chip Apple has ever made, the M5 Max.

I eventually chose the M5 Pro chip, primarily because the base M5 MacBook Pro can only be configured with up to 32GB of Unified Memory, and I wanted the extra headroom of 48GB as well as the two fans that come equipped with the M5 Pro chip for better thermal performance. As for the M5 Max chip, it’s definitely much better than the rest in almost every way, but to be honest, I can’t think of anyone who would actually need it as their day-to-day workstation. If you really need all that performance, then getting a desktop computer would be a better choice, because laptops will always be less thermally efficient than a dedicated desktop cooling system.

The maximum configurable on-device storage of the M5 Pro MacBook Pro is 4TB. However, I ended up going with 1TB. Even if I chose the 4TB option, I wouldn’t rely on storing everything locally. I could always use an external SSD if needed.

Question 5: What screen size to get?

This was honestly the easiest choice when choosing my new laptop. Since I had already prioritized portability, the 14-inch screen size was my go-to choice. If I ever needed more screen real estate, I could just get an external monitor. However, I did choose to upgrade the screen to the nano-texture display option, a special screen designed to reduce glare when viewing, because I like studying in bright environments, use desk lamps, and learn outdoors.

Conclusion

Six years ago, this newspaper started as a simple hobby – just writing and sharing thoughts. Back then, the laptop I chose was more than enough for what I needed. Today, I’m choosing a machine not just for writing, but for building websites and ideas that didn’t even exist in my mind back then. At some point, my setup couldn’t keep up anymore. But maybe that’s not a limitation – it’s a milestone. In the end, choosing a laptop isn’t just about specs; it’s about what you want to do next. If you’re interested in the website I’m building, I’ll be sharing updates on my WeChat Official Account.

And finally, thank you for being a part of New News and supporting my newspaper. If you’ve enjoyed these articles, please wish New News a happy birthday with a like, share, or follow.

Happy birthday, New News.