2017 12" Macbook with Big Sur - First Impressions

[bizthewiz]

I have a 2017 12" Macbook (1.3ghz) 512gb, and have just installed Big Sur. I was looking for posts regarding Big Sur on the 12" Macbook before installing and couldn't find any..hopefully this will help out those who are looking to upgrade

Appearance & Sound:

• Boot Chime! You now hear the old school Apple boot chime when the Macbook powers on. I really love this but can be disabled in settings if you want.
• The lockscreen has now a more rounded appearance, and feels more in-line with like iphone/ipad (this is a recurring theme)
• The desktop has all new icons and dock. I know lots of people hate them, but personally I absolutely love them. Gives it a retro yet modern feel.
• All new sounds, from drag & drop to others
• New notification centre with widgets

Performance:

• I noticed that the boot-up from cold is ever so slightly quicker.
• Drag & Drop feels snappier
• Switching desktops is quicker
• Safari now supports 4K Youtube Playback! (Amen!)
• No difference in battery life
• No difference in memory usage
• My airpods automatically switch between my iPhone and Macbook now (Love this!)
• Generally the whole laptop just feels smoother.

Bugs:

• Safari: When you have a tab pinned, e.g. youtube.com/videoblabla , and then you create a new regular tab and type in youtube.com..instead of loading up the site it just switches you back to your pinned tab..even though it's not the exact same URL
• Nothing else that I've noticed. Will update if I find anything new

Overall, this little laptop is performing very well on the latest OS from Apple. If you're looking to upgrade, or even looking to purchase a used 12" Macbook, it performs great on Big Sur!

- edit -
Mixed reports for 2015 Macbook users for performance.
No issues with my 2017 model

 

[Prorege1]

MacBook 2015 is performing better here plus faster internet download (+20-30 Mbps when wired)

 

[bizthewiz]

MacBook 2015 is performing better here plus faster internet download (+20-30 Mbps when wired)

View attachment 1667566

Damn dude, almost 1Gb/s Download speed? I need to move to Denmark ?
I thought my 150Mb/s was fast

 

[Prorege1]

Denmark is too cold for you, so leave us alone with our black bread, pickled heerings, old smelly cheese and beautiful blondes

 

[happy orchard]

I have a 2017 12" Macbook (1.3ghz) 512gb, and have just installed Big Sur. I was looking for posts regarding Big Sur on the 12" Macbook before installing and couldn't find any..hopefully this will help out those who are looking to upgrade

Appearance & Sound:

• Boot Chime! You now hear the old school Apple boot chime when the Macbook powers on. I really love this but can be disabled in settings if you want.
• The lockscreen has now a more rounded appearance, and feels more in-line with like iphone/ipad (this is a recurring theme)
• The desktop has all new icons and dock. I know lots of people hate them, but personally I absolutely love them. Gives it a retro yet modern feel.
• All new sounds, from drag & drop to others
• New notification centre with widgets

Performance:

• I noticed that the boot-up from cold is every so slightly quicker.
• Drag & Drop feels snappier
• Switching desktops is quicker
• Safari now supports 4K Youtube Playback! (Amen!)
• No difference in battery life
• No difference in memory usage
• My airpods automatically switch between my iPhone and Macbook now (Love this!)
• Generally the whole laptop just feels smoother.

Bugs:

• Safari: When you have a tab pinned, e.g. youtube.com/videoblabla , and then you create a new regular tab and type in youtube.com..instead of loading up the site it just switches you back to your pinned tab..even though it's not the exact same URL
• Nothing else that I've noticed

Overall, this little laptop is performing very well on the latest OS from Apple. If you're looking to upgrade, or even looking to purchase a used 12" Macbook, it performs great on Big Sur!

- edit -
Mixed reports for 2015 Macbook users for performance.
No issues with my 2017 model

Thank you for this! I have this MB with these specs, and I might just update sooner now from all your happy experiences—including the chime! I thought that was just with the new machines, what a lovely surprise.

 

[bizthewiz]

Thank you for this! I have this MB with these specs, and I might just update sooner now from all your happy experiences—including the chime! I thought that was just with the new machines, what a lovely surprise.

You're welcome The chime really was a nice surprise. Caught me off guard when the laptop restarted after the update! Let us know if you decide to update

 

[MacRalf]

I have a 2017 12" Macbook (1.3ghz) 512gb, and have just installed Big Sur. I was looking for posts regarding Big Sur on the 12" Macbook before installing and couldn't find any..hopefully this will help out those who are looking to upgrade

Appearance & Sound:

• Boot Chime! You now hear the old school Apple boot chime when the Macbook powers on. I really love this but can be disabled in settings if you want.
• The lockscreen has now a more rounded appearance, and feels more in-line with like iphone/ipad (this is a recurring theme)
• The desktop has all new icons and dock. I know lots of people hate them, but personally I absolutely love them. Gives it a retro yet modern feel.
• All new sounds, from drag & drop to others
• New notification centre with widgets

Performance:

• I noticed that the boot-up from cold is ever so slightly quicker.
• Drag & Drop feels snappier
• Switching desktops is quicker
• Safari now supports 4K Youtube Playback! (Amen!)
• No difference in battery life
• No difference in memory usage
• My airpods automatically switch between my iPhone and Macbook now (Love this!)
• Generally the whole laptop just feels smoother.

Bugs:

• Safari: When you have a tab pinned, e.g. youtube.com/videoblabla , and then you create a new regular tab and type in youtube.com..instead of loading up the site it just switches you back to your pinned tab..even though it's not the exact same URL
• Nothing else that I've noticed. Will update if I find anything new

Overall, this little laptop is performing very well on the latest OS from Apple. If you're looking to upgrade, or even looking to purchase a used 12" Macbook, it performs great on Big Sur!

- edit -
Mixed reports for 2015 Macbook users for performance.
No issues with my 2017 model

Thanks a lot for your report. I've got almost the same model, I only have the 256 GB SSD.
It's great to read performance is still fine with the new OS. I wait for the 11.0.2 or 11.0.3 release before upgrading my MacBook.
Did you perform an upgrade through the system preferences app or did you do a clean install? Mine came with Mojave and I did the update to Catalina last August through the system preferences app (from 10.14.6 to 10.15.6). That went very smooth.

 

[bizthewiz]

Thanks a lot for your report. I've got almost the same model, I only have the 256 GB SSD.
It's great to read performance is still fine with the new OS. I wait for the 11.0.2 or 11.0.3 release before upgrading my MacBook.
Did you perform an upgrade through the system preferences app or did you do a clean install? Mine came with Mojave and I did the update to Catalina last August through the system preferences app (from 10.14.6 to 10.15.6). That went very smooth.

I did an upgrade from the latest version of Catalina, straight to Big Sur 11.0.1. All very smooth
I guess it doesn't hurt to wait till 10.0.2 or later

 

[EugW]

I don't like the sound of the new chime. Seems muddy. But I like the fact that there is a chime.

Anyhow, performance is fine on my 2017 m3 16 GB. It's not blistering fast, but it never was. It's more than sufficient, esp. for the stuff I do. However, overall, the new face to the OS makes the machine feel almost like a whole new machine. Not a faster machine, but new nonetheless. Plus my VPN software to both my workplaces works perfectly. Often in previous years, a new OS update would break my VPN connection making me have to hold off updating for several months. This year it worked fine on day 1 (and even before).

I was still getting 1080p in 4K Costa Rica though for some reason, but during the betas it was hit and miss for people, so maybe I'm just one of the misses for the time being.

Mixed reports for 2015 Macbook users for performance.
No issues with my 2017 model

Well, I thought the 2015 MacBook felt slightly sluggish at times even in 2015. To put it another way, my 2017 MacBook in 2020 feels better than the 2015 MacBook did in 2015.

I do have 16 GB, but I don't think that has anything to do with it, since I'm not anywhere near maxing out the memory at the moment.

Plus, the 2015 doesn't do hardware HEVC decode, so that's a big minus.

 

[MiamiBeach]

I finally got around to updating my base 2015 MacBook to Big Sur yesterday. It is working smoothly so far except for me having to re-accept cookies from every website I visit after a reboot.

My only issue is trying to figure out what 10.5GB of other is on my drive. System shows as 14.9 GB used space. I wonder if the OS now divides up its space used as system and other, just like the iPhones do.

 

[Chundles]

My late 2013 13” MacBook feels like it’s had a new lease on life with Big Sur. Catalina just felt heavy and slow, everything was just a beat or two after interacting with it. Now, it wakes up and unlocks with Apple Watch almost immediately. Power Nap stuff actually happens while it’s asleep rather than loading in after waking. It feels really good to use all day.

 

[canuckRus]

iCloud email section disappeared after Big Sur download. iCloud emails now lumped in All Inboxes with provider account emails.

 

[jsamuelson]

My late 2013 13” MacBook feels like it’s had a new lease on life with Big Sur. Catalina just felt heavy and slow, everything was just a beat or two after interacting with it. Now, it wakes up and unlocks with Apple Watch almost immediately. Power Nap stuff actually happens while it’s asleep rather than loading in after waking. It feels really good to use all day.

Same here with my little 12in 2015 MacBook. It's my main machine right now, and Big Sur, even the beta, gave it a new lease of life. I'm really impressed with it but looking forward to picking up an M1 Pro soon.

 

[harleymhs]

Same here... Updated my 12" Macbook, No issues ! I even installed the Beta Big Sur last week before the launch. Seems to stable and fixed a Sleep Battery issue I had in Mojave! Just ordered a M1 MBP ... Loving this little travel 12" now again!

 

[SO8]

Big Sur totally fine on my little 2017 Macbook 1.2 M3 8GB Ram ... Geekbench 5 shows it a bit quicker than it was at a single core score of 789 and multi core 1576.

 

[runnersmike]

Hi all,

I have a five year old Macbook 12 2015, m5, 8 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD. My experience is that it has been much smoother after upgrade to Big Sur.

I try to keep the Macbook clean, run mostly Apples on apps. Although I have Avira a-virus installed due to sharing files with Windows users.

After a week my Macbook has started to reboot randomly by itself. I got panic cpu and apps does not start until I force a reboot of the Macbook...

I will try to uninstall the few third party apps I have.

Anyone else out there with similar problems with Macbook 12?

I have ordered the new Macbook Air with M1 cpu and will keep the Macbook 12 as a backup laptop.

All the best,

//Mike

 

[Dhonk]

I wasn’t able to install Big Sur. There was an issue with the install process

 

[Mr.PT]

Denmark is too cold for you, so leave us alone with our black bread, pickled heerings, old smelly cheese and beautiful blondes

You can keep the herrings, but don’t be greedy and please share all the rest, and don’t forget to add design products specially furniture love DK

 

[FilmIndustryGuy]

Just sold my 2017 and got an M1 Air but can say that I’ll miss it when it comes back to traveling. I don’t mind the hookups didn’t like that the WiFi signal was dead while the M1 was getting 45 mbs

 

[Prorege1]

You can keep the herrings, but don’t be greedy and please share all the rest, and don’t forget to add design products specially furniture love DK

That reminded me to restock today, a rather tasty three year old Danish cheese & some marinated heerings.
The cheese will definitely warm you up on a cold winter night ??

 

[Mr.PT]

That reminded me to restock today, a rather tasty three year old Danish cheese & some marinated heerings.
The cheese will definitely warm you up on a cold winter night ??

View attachment 1685066 View attachment 1685071

?...so I see you will have no use for a damn hot throttling 2018 MPB running whatever macOS...

 

[Prorege1]

?...so I see you will have no use for a damn hot throttling 2018 MPB running whatever macOS...

Yes, but I fortunately also managed to hide one of these beauties in our fridge ❤️

Potkäse ("pot-cheese") is an old regional dish from Southern Denmark. It is prepared in the following manner:

• Take about 200 grams (7 ounces) of cheese. The exact type doesn't matter, but it should be as ancient as physically possible.
• Cut/grate the cheese in small pieces (if necessary/possible) and put in a medium-sized pot.
• Add whiskey, akvavit and/or other spirits according to taste and preference.
• Leave pot in refrigerator for about two weeks, stirring briefly once a day, until the potkäse has a smooth texture.
• Consume on dark bread.
• Will keep for at least six months (some sources say indefinitely).

Legal considerations​

Husbands! You may find your significant other taking irrational exception to the presence of potkäse in your house. Should this happen, you may need to know that in its regions of origin, interference with a potkäse (such as hiding it in a nearby forest or, failing that, the garden) is customarily considered valid grounds for divorce. Be aware, however, that some wives have been known to make surprising decisions when faced with a choice between keeping their husbands and getting rid of the potkäse. Proceed with caution.

 

[oneMadRssn]

So nearly a year later, how do people feel about Big Sur on the 12" Macbook?

Mine has been lagging a lot lately, and I am really not sure what is causing it. The lag is especially bad in Safari. It feels slower than it's ever felt.

Both my 2017 i7/16GB and my wife's 2017 m3/8GB are equally slow and laggy lately. It's been frustrating.

 

[happy orchard]

Mine is slower, too. Noticing it. Starting to reconsider getting a new laptop again because that beach ball spins much more than it used to do.

 

[MikeDr206]

I’m feeling it slower, too. I’m wondering if it’s some extra heft that a Big Sur update did for security reasons.