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Base M2 air or M1 16gb for FCP

S

sinar

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 11, 2007
122
9
I’ve searched YouTube for comparisons between M2 8GB and M1 16gb and can’t find any direct comparisons (maybe I’m not looking hard enough)

I’d love to hear opinions on which would be best for editing in FCP, I don’t really care about render times, I’m more interested in the editing experience.

Thanks for reading
 
Thanks for the replies, looks like 16gb is the way to go.
 
whats your budget and where you located. my vote would be the m1 16gb, m2 isn't the performance jump m1 had from intel. a fair comparison would be going from iphone 13 pro to 14 pro.
 
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ilikewhey said:
whats your budget and where you located. my vote would be the m1 16gb, m2 isn't the performance jump m1 had from intel. a fair comparison would be going from iphone 13 pro to 14 pro.
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I live in England, I’m looking at around £1200 (which is about $1200 these days), I do like the screen and MagSafe of the M2 but performance is my main criteria, I will probably wait for Black Friday to see if there are any deals, and I’m keeping an eye on the Apple refurb store, as well as local second hand selling groups.

I don’t think I want to pay for a 16gb/512gb M2 as then I’m pushing into 14” pro territory, which seems superior in most ways, if I found a very good black Friday deal on a 14” pro I might be able to up my budget.
 
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sinar said:
I live in England, I’m looking at around £1200 (which is about $1200 these days), I do like the screen and MagSafe of the M2 but performance is my main criteria, I will probably wait for Black Friday to see if there are any deals, and I’m keeping an eye on the Apple refurb store, as well as local second hand selling groups.

I don’t think I want to pay for a 16gb/512gb M2 as then I’m pushing into 14” pro territory, which seems superior in most ways, if I found a very good black Friday deal on a 14” pro I might be able to up my budget.
Click to expand...
good lad, trust me the screen on the m2 isn't really that much different, sure its a bit brighter and tad taller than the m1 but besides that, still massive light bleed compare to the pros, thats not the m2 fault, its a inherent issue with traditional ips display for the longest time.

as for magsafe, i haven't even open the cables from the box, its mainly being charged through my dock station in clamshell mode.

you are aboslutely right, no point speccing out the m2 mba to that degree since the 14inch is only a tad more, your bang for the buck is absolutely m1 16gb 512gb combo. here state side we are seeing massive discounts for the 14 base, 1599 which is actually cheaper than same spec m2 but offer so much more. if you can get a 14 base at a discount i highly recommend you to do so.
 
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ilikewhey said:
good lad, trust me the screen on the m2 isn't really that much different, sure its a bit brighter and tad taller than the m1 but besides that, still massive light bleed compare to the pros, thats not the m2 fault, its a inherent issue with traditional ips display for the longest time.

as for magsafe, i haven't even open the cables from the box, its mainly being charged through my dock station in clamshell mode.

you are aboslutely right, no point speccing out the m2 mba to that degree since the 14inch is only a tad more, your bang for the buck is absolutely m1 16gb 512gb combo. here state side we are seeing massive discounts for the 14 base, 1599 which is actually cheaper than same spec m2 but offer so much more. if you can get a 14 base at a discount i highly recommend you to do so.
Click to expand...
Thats good to know about the screen, i used to have MagSafe on an ancient white plastic MacBook, I thought it was pretty neat, but the main reason I think it would be handy on the M2 air is that there would still be access to 2 TB/USB4 ports while charging, probably not a big deal though.

If Apple releases new M2 14” MBP I’m hoping the M1s might get cheaper, but the M2s might just get more expensive.
 
Wise Birds chirping that M1 16Gb is a choice.

But you can wait for a decisive moment when M2 sales won't be good as expected so the price will/ drop down (es. on sales)

But nobody knows when this moment will start
 
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sinar said:
Thats good to know about the screen, i used to have MagSafe on an ancient white plastic MacBook, I thought it was pretty neat, but the main reason I think it would be handy on the M2 air is that there would still be access to 2 TB/USB4 ports while charging, probably not a big deal though.

If Apple releases new M2 14” MBP I’m hoping the M1s might get cheaper, but the M2s might just get more expensive.
Click to expand...
the lack of port isn't a big deal for the most part, having ports on both side is a major plus depending on your environment though. the arrangement i have on my desk both at work and at home, having a tb3 port on the left side is much more convenient.

i'm sure the current 14 and 16 will drop price somewhat when the m2 pro comes out. also, there is a small majority on here that will go hell bend to say the 14inch is bulky and heavy, ignore them, i used both on occasions and the .8lb heavier in weight is not even that tangible, in fact the slight bulk of the 14 pro gives me a better grip when walking through the office.
 
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ilikewhey said:
the lack of port isn't a big deal for the most part, having ports on both side is a major plus depending on your environment though. the arrangement i have on my desk both at work and at home, having a tb3 port on the left side is much more convenient.

i'm sure the current 14 and 16 will drop price somewhat when the m2 pro comes out. also, there is a small majority on here that will go hell bend to say the 14inch is bulky and heavy, ignore them, i used both on occasions and the .8lb heavier in weight is not even that tangible, in fact the slight bulk of the 14 pro gives me a better grip when walking through the office.
Click to expand...
It will be mostly used at home so I’m not too concerned about portability anyway.
 
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sinar said:
It will be mostly used at home so I’m not too concerned about portability anyway.
Click to expand...
If mobility is not an issue then wait for the M1 MBP sales. The M2 MBP should possibly be announced soon and then discounts might drop even further on the current M1 14/16" MBP. Considering your use case and video editing then you should be much happier with a base model 14" M1 MBP then an air.
 
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sinar said:
It will be mostly used at home so I’m not too concerned about portability anyway.
Click to expand...
then by all means see if you can land yourself a 14inch, its a much better unit than m2 mba, screen is better, speakers are much better, much faster storage, and you barely sacrifice much portability. and to top it off, if you're doing FCP, the fans on the 14inch will help massively, my colleagues m2 mba gets thermal throttled when we handle marketing to the point that he moved it to cloud service.
 
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ilikewhey said:
good lad, trust me the screen on the m2 isn't really that much different, sure its a bit brighter and tad taller than the m1 but besides that, still massive light bleed compare to the pros, thats not the m2 fault, its a inherent issue with traditional ips display for the longest time.

as for magsafe, i haven't even open the cables from the box, its mainly being charged through my dock station in clamshell mode.

you are aboslutely right, no point speccing out the m2 mba to that degree since the 14inch is only a tad more, your bang for the buck is absolutely m1 16gb 512gb combo. here state side we are seeing massive discounts for the 14 base, 1599 which is actually cheaper than same spec m2 but offer so much more. if you can get a 14 base at a discount i highly recommend you to do so.
Click to expand...
Cheapest you can get a base M1 14 Pro in the UK is £1700 at the moment, sadly.
 
Thanks for all the advice, just an update, I bought an apple refurbished M1 16GB Air yesterday, I'm really happy with it, for my modest editing needs it performs really well.
 
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sinar said:
Thanks for all the advice, just an update, I bought an apple refurbished M1 16GB Air yesterday, I'm really happy with it, for my modest editing needs it performs really well.
Click to expand...
Great machine - Congrats, enjoy 😊
 
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