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Apple would have made it so much easier on me if they would have released a new Mini. Now I'm trying to figure out which one of the new laptops that I want. I kind of think the 16 inch is too big and I'm not sure if I really need 1TB of storage... Right now I'm leaning towards the $2500 14 inch configuration over the base model.
I was set on the 16" until I saw the increase in dimensions and, more importantly, weight. I've got a 2018 MBP 15" and adding 0.7lbs (IIRC) was just not going to happen. Went for the 14" with 10 cores and 32GB instead :) Take my money!!!
 
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I saw these new machines at the Apple store and they were a huge disappointment. Apple is screaming how its new CPUs are so much better at dissipating heat and generating less of it than Intel and then they go and make new machines nearly twice as thick as the old ones totally contradicting themselves. These things are very bulky and the 16in reminds me of the old 17in in both size and weight. A total regression. Might have to pick up one of those obsolete 16in Intel machines instead so I don't have to carry a ton of extra fat around.
 
I saw these new machines at the Apple store and they were a huge disappointment. Apple is screaming how its new CPUs are so much better at dissipating heat and generating less of it than Intel and then they go and make new machines nearly twice as thick as the old ones totally contradicting themselves. These things are very bulky and the 16in reminds me of the old 17in in both size and weight. A total regression. Might have to pick up one of those obsolete 16in Intel machines instead so I don't have to carry a ton of extra fat around.
I'm kind of amazed this is the reaction from some people? I mean, the new designs are so much better at heat dissipation largely BECAUSE Apple made the laptop thicker again. When you go really thin on a portable, you just can't get rid of the heat without a lot more ventilation and noisy high RPM fans blowing constantly (and wasting more battery power in the process). (Thinner cases mean any cooling fans used have to be "low profile" types with small blades, which in tun, means they can move less air. So they have to spin faster to compensate.)

I used to have the old 17" MBP and at that time, it was considered one of the least bulky 17" notebooks available. It only seems "really thick" now because people got used to these new machines valuing how thin they were over how capable they were.
 
macOS will use as much memory as it can as it's always more efficient to keep stuff in memory in case it's needed again before clearing it out for new data so the amount of memory used isn't a good indicator of how much is needed. Instead, I would monitor the memory pressure graph in Activity Monitor under all your workflows with your current machine and see if it ever hits yellow or red.
Hey, I know old thread but I wanted to get your opinion to see if the attached memory pressure on the M1 16in indicates I should go for 32gb RAM for the long term or just stick with the 16gb RAM. I don't do any video editing. No worries if you don't know, was just curious for my personal "stress" test. Thanks.
 

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Hey, I know old thread but I wanted to get your opinion to see if the attached memory pressure on the M1 16in indicates I should go for 32gb RAM for the long term or just stick with the 16gb RAM. I don't do any video editing. No worries if you don't know, was just curious for my personal "stress" test. Thanks.

While I can't say for sure what you need, if I was consistently seeing that I would probably opt for 32 GB myself, provided I could afford it of course. Have you been noticing any performance issues though? Given the M1 Pro's memory bandwidth and SSD speeds, my bet is it'll continue to perform just fine. Were you purposefully stressing your machine or is this your normal workflow? If you were stressing it then I'd say you're fine as you still have more room to spare during peak workflows.

Another thing to keep in mind are all the reports of memory leaks in macOS 12. It's possible this memory pressure is the result of that and once Apple patches it, your memory pressure could improve on its own. Are there any obvious memory hogs that seem abnormal?
 

While I can't say for sure what you need, if I was consistently seeing that I would probably opt for 32 GB myself, provided I could afford it of course. Have you been noticing any performance issues though? Given the M1 Pro's memory bandwidth and SSD speeds, my bet is it'll continue to perform just fine. Were you purposefully stressing your machine or is this your normal workflow? If you were stressing it then I'd say you're fine as you still have more room to spare during peak workflows.

Another thing to keep in mind are all the reports of memory leaks in macOS 12. It's possible this memory pressure is the result of that and once Apple patches it, your memory pressure could improve on its own. Are there any obvious memory hogs that seem abnormal?

I haven't noticed any performance issues, and yeah I was purposefully stressing my machine. The attached memory stats screenshot in this reply is my normal usage (Excel, Word, Teams [Edge Based], Outlook, Mail, Calendar, WhatsApp, Messages).

When I was "stressing" my machine I had Parallels (M1 version) VM open with Windows 11 ARM and 8GB RAM assigned but it wasn't actually using more than 4GB RAM via Windows Task Manager.

I do see Control Center taking up more RAM than any of my apps currently open (also attached that), but I haven't really paid attention to memory leak bug because I wasn't experiencing any drops in performance at all.

Edit:
Interesting video between 16GB vs 32GB RAM on the new M1 Pro. Seems like I can bet the 16GB for the long run if I believe the SSD swap speeds won't degrade anytime this decade.

 

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I haven't noticed any performance issues, and yeah I was purposefully stressing my machine. The attached memory stats screenshot in this reply is my normal usage (Excel, Word, Teams [Edge Based], Outlook, Mail, Calendar, WhatsApp, Messages).

When I was "stressing" my machine I had Parallels (M1 version) VM open with Windows 11 ARM and 8GB RAM assigned but it wasn't actually using more than 4GB RAM via Windows Task Manager.

I do see Control Center taking up more RAM than any of my apps currently open (also attached that), but I haven't really paid attention to memory leak bug because I wasn't experiencing any drops in performance at all.

Edit:
Interesting video between 16GB vs 32GB RAM on the new M1 Pro. Seems like I can bet the 16GB for the long run if I believe the SSD swap speeds won't degrade anytime this decade.

Yep I think you'll be totally fine with 16GB of RAM if your stress test wasn't even getting into red memory pressure. And yeah hopefully these memory leak issues get resolved soon...
 
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I saw these new machines at the Apple store and they were a huge disappointment. Apple is screaming how its new CPUs are so much better at dissipating heat and generating less of it than Intel and then they go and make new machines nearly twice as thick as the old ones totally contradicting themselves. These things are very bulky and the 16in reminds me of the old 17in in both size and weight. A total regression. Might have to pick up one of those obsolete 16in Intel machines instead so I don't have to carry a ton of extra fat around.
Bang. You nailed it.
 
I'm kind of amazed this is the reaction from some people? I mean, the new designs are so much better at heat dissipation largely BECAUSE Apple made the laptop thicker again. When you go really thin on a portable, you just can't get rid of the heat without a lot more ventilation and noisy high RPM fans blowing constantly (and wasting more battery power in the process). (Thinner cases mean any cooling fans used have to be "low profile" types with small blades, which in tun, means they can move less air. So they have to spin faster to compensate.)

I used to have the old 17" MBP and at that time, it was considered one of the least bulky 17" notebooks available. It only seems "really thick" now because people got used to these new machines valuing how thin they were over how capable they were.
Apple's marketing: the Apple silicon is supposed to be so amazing... so efficient, especially compared to Intel. Therefore, the increase in thickness and weight doesn't completely make sense. But it does, because Apple is a marketing company. In reality, the chips aren't as efficient as Apple claims and they need to make heavy and thick computers to outcompete the competition. In other words, it's not just the silicon... if you threw an Intel chip in these new machines they would also be faster because you can throttle them higher in the new envelope... more powerful. Sure, they may not be as efficient, but I can't say I'm getting much more battery life out of my new 16" MacBook Pro M1 Pro vs. my previous 2019 16" Intel MacBook Pro. And overall it doesn't really seem faster other than some timed processes where there are a few gains.

There's Apple, and then there's reality. I'm living in reality...
 
The base 14" is what my group bought - usually would have picked a 16" version - mainly because we used to have to get those to get a good spec for a graphic designer. Now, a BASE 14" completely knocks the socks off even an upgraded 16" from just a couple years ago.

With each $1999 base, we got $500 benq 4K 27" monitors to more than compensate for the lesser screen size.

And note that the 14" is still a very solid, heavy machine. I think the constant travel that remote workers have now, the extra bulk and weight of the 16" would soon become a bit inconvenient.
 
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The base 14" is what my group bought - usually would have picked a 16" version - mainly because we used to have to get those to get a good spec for a graphic designer. Now, a BASE 14" completely knocks the socks off even an upgraded 16" from just a couple years ago.

With each $1999 base, we got $500 benq 4K 27" monitors to more than compensate for the lesser screen size.

And note that the 14" is still a very solid, heavy machine. I think the constant travel that remote workers have now, the extra bulk and weight of the 16" would soon become a bit inconvenient.
What a garbage display that Benq is. Why would you buy that and not an LG Ultrafine or Apple Pro Display.
 
What a garbage display that Benq is. Why would you buy that and not an LG Ultrafine or Apple Pro Display.

I don't really care, but I have to disagree, and I'll answer your question.

We have about 28 of them, so far, and we have had opportunity to compare with both LG ultrafine (till they break, maybe just had bad luck with the models with usb-3 only), and apple branded displays that were used prior. The Benq are as good, or darn close, and cost almost half.

Some staff (graphic designers, photographers, videographers) buy the brand with their own money for home after using them at work. I'm talking about the version w/ 100% Rec.709 and sRGB color spaces - don't have an experience with their lower level hardware.
 
I don't really care, but I have to disagree, and I'll answer your question.

We have about 28 of them, so far, and we have had opportunity to compare with both LG ultrafine (till they break, maybe just had bad luck with the models with usb-3 only), and apple branded displays that were used prior. The Benq are as good, or darn close, and cost almost half.

Some staff (graphic designers, photographers, videographers) buy the brand with their own money for home after using them at work. I'm talking about the version w/ 100% Rec.709 and sRGB color spaces - don't have an experience with their lower level hardware.
Those Benq displays are not near as good as the LG Ultrafine or Apple Pro display. It’s a simple matter of the specs.
 
I'm happy, you're happy. what's the problem?
I’m glad you’re happy. I’m just saying those monitors are not fit for professional work use. You can get by with them but any serious kind of creative work they won’t cut it. For starters, the colour accuracy is very sub-standard. The Benq only shows ~16 million colours. The LG Ultrafine displays 1 billion: not even in the same universe.
 
I’m glad you’re happy. I’m just saying those monitors are not fit for professional work use. You can get by with them but any serious kind of creative work they won’t cut it. For starters, the colour accuracy is very sub-standard. The Benq only shows ~16 million colours. The LG Ultrafine displays 1 billion: not even in the same universe.
1.07 billion colors - pd2700u
 
I was so close to getting a 14" MBP, but at the end, I picked up a 16" MBP. As a coder, a larger display makes it actually a stand alone laptop for coding, as opposed to having to rely on an external monitor. I already have a mac mini if I need a larger display. I'm going to use the mac mini for music production, and the MBP for coding.
 
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How are u dealing with your regret? Fine ? Happy ? Or returned it in exchange for the 16? I'm in the same situation
Ended up with 16 inch instead of 14. Not as portable but it sits at desk for the most part. But I love it, would have regretted the 14, always asking what if I got the 16?. Now it's no worries.
 
Helpful would be to point out that if you configure a 14" the same as a base 16" (M1-Pro, 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU), the price difference is only $200 ($2,299 vs $2,499) for the larger chassis.
Ummm... they did point it out. Twice.
 
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