Istat Menus M1



Looking at replacing my wife's ancient Late 2013 MacBook Pro with a new M1 Air. I have concerns about the USB ports and dongles though. At the moment her old laptop only has 2 USB A ports so the actual port count isn't too much of an issue. We'll get a USB C Display Adapter so we can use an external monitor and also get a USB A port and power pass-thru.
My question is, is there anything to be worried about as far as hanging a USB 2.0 hub off of a dongle with the M1? She doesn't need USB 3 speeds, this is just printing to a thermal printer and reading/writing small files to USB sticks. I've already got a good USB 2.0 hub, I just wasn't sure if there was any issue with hanging it off of the display adapter mentioned above.
Also, the laptop she is currently using is from 2013. LOL. The M1 Air will be so much faster I'm not even sure how to describe it. That said it feels wrong to get a laptop in 2021 with 8 GB of RAM. That's the same amount in the ancient laptop we are replacing. I know that I'm comparing apples to oranges given the architecture changes in the M1 and the unified memory. I could use some advice though, obviously the 8 GB on the intel laptop is 'ok' but obviously far from ideal. Thoughts?
Her old laptop is at 256 GB and almost out of space. Some of that is photos that are set to keep originals on the Mac, that isn't a requirement but is nice just so they are able to get backed up to back blaze . So between 8 GB and 512 GB of storage or 16 GB and 256 GB of storage, I'm leaning towards the lesser amount of RAM and more storage.

Istat

Not optimized for your device. The page you are trying to access is best viewed on a desktop or laptop computer. The latest version of iStat Menus does work with M1 Macs, it's just a bit awkward in this current version. I am hoping that Bjango simplifies the 'Sensor' temperature views with the option to show an average of the temps in the SoC proximity, versus a never ending list of cryptic sensors/temps.

Deezer wallpaper

Istat Menus M1 Garand

  • IStat Menus can notify you of an incredibly wide range of events, based on CPU, GPU, memory, disks, network, sensors, battery, power and more. This lets you be notified when your public IP has changed, if your internet connection is down, if CPU usage is above 60% for more than 10 seconds, or a near-infinite range of other options.
  • IStat Menus can notify you of an incredibly wide range of events, based on CPU, GPU, memory, disks, network, sensors, battery, power and weather. This lets you be notified when your public IP has changed, if your internet connection is down, if CPU usage is above 60% for more than 10 seconds, or a near-infinite range of other options.
  • Jan 19, 2021 iStat Menus tells me I have comfortably 50% RAM or more in reserve on a daily basis, and that’s while running pretty much every app I use, from Final Cut Pro to Photoshop, Word, Slack, Teams.