If not, you’re looking at replacing the entire system sooner rather than later. When buying one of these M1 systems you have to buy the model that will serve your future needs today.
In addition, we opted for the largest available SSD at the time, specifically the 512GB model. There were absolutely no 16GB M1 MacBooks available at the time of purchase, so we had no choice but to buy the 8GB model.
In contrast, the M1 system-on-a-chip offers no way to upgrade RAM. It also has two NVME slots and a 2.5” SATA drive bay. The Windows laptop has user upgradable RAM, supporting as much as 32GB. The biggest thing we had to give up by switching to the M1 was any hope of upgradability. It would (in theory) provide similar performance to the Windows machine we were using, but with the improved stability of macOS. With the M1 MacBook Pro posting benchmark scores in the same ballpark as the Intel 16” model at a fraction of the price, we saw this as an opportunity to make the switch. We knew a macOS device would be more stable, but a MacBook Pro 16 was out of the question in terms of budget and the Intel MacBook Pro 13 simply did not have enough power to be practical.
