Everything is good except the charger, white charger with black cable, it's ugly and so un-Apple. Wonder why Apple doesn't make it all black.
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Got my 14 inch m3 pro today
- Thread starter Glorious Partridge
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Yeah, I agree the charger being white is dumb.
I got my Space Black 14" M3 Pro a couple of days ago. I upgraded from a Silver M1 Pro 14". My general impressions:
-I really like the Space Black but not for the reasons I thought I would. I like the blacked out color around the screen/keyboard vs the silver because it makes the display pop more. With the lid closed I sort of like the silver a little better.
-The display is noticeably brighter.
-The speakers don't sound as good as the M1 Pro. I've read they are physically the same in the M3 and M1 so Apple must have tuned them differently on the M3. It's not super noticeable but there is a tiny difference.
-The extra 2GB is nice. I routinely have multple browsers/tabs, Apple Music, email, iMessage, OneNote, Citrix running and the swap file is 0Bytes. I think the SSD is faster than my M1 Pro also.
-The battery life is MUCH better than the already great M1 Pro battery life.
-It does seem snappier than the M1 Pro overall.
I would have been fine with the M1 Pro for a few more years but I wanted to trade it in on something new while it was still worth a decent amount and I wanted better battery life. I picked up the M3 Pro with 0% APR on the Apple Card and traded in my M1 Pro so the payments are a manageable amount per month for a year.
I was not a power user on the M1 Pro I had. The most intensive thing I did with it is play BG3 and a couple of other games. I never really had any problems with it and it has been my favorite laptop I ever had. The M3 Pro is pretty much the same, just improvements over the M1 Pro. I almost think the M3 Pro is the real upgrade from the M1 Pro. I think the M2 Pro was just a souped up version of the M1 Pro but didn't really add anything new.
I have read several reviews about the M3 Pro performance not being that much different than the M2 Pro but for me upgrading from the M1 Pro, it's definitely an upgrade-faster SSD, more RAM, better battery, 30%-40% faster performance, new color, brighter display. Even with the small performance gains over the M2 Pro, the battery life is probably going to be better with the more efficient M3 Pro.
Given my workflows, I don't really need the Max and it is a considerable amount of money to upgrade from an M3 Pro to the M3 Max. I think a lot of people ordering the Max chip don't really need it.
Enjoy your laptop!
I got my Space Black 14" M3 Pro a couple of days ago. I upgraded from a Silver M1 Pro 14". My general impressions:
-I really like the Space Black but not for the reasons I thought I would. I like the blacked out color around the screen/keyboard vs the silver because it makes the display pop more. With the lid closed I sort of like the silver a little better.
-The display is noticeably brighter.
-The speakers don't sound as good as the M1 Pro. I've read they are physically the same in the M3 and M1 so Apple must have tuned them differently on the M3. It's not super noticeable but there is a tiny difference.
-The extra 2GB is nice. I routinely have multple browsers/tabs, Apple Music, email, iMessage, OneNote, Citrix running and the swap file is 0Bytes. I think the SSD is faster than my M1 Pro also.
-The battery life is MUCH better than the already great M1 Pro battery life.
-It does seem snappier than the M1 Pro overall.
I would have been fine with the M1 Pro for a few more years but I wanted to trade it in on something new while it was still worth a decent amount and I wanted better battery life. I picked up the M3 Pro with 0% APR on the Apple Card and traded in my M1 Pro so the payments are a manageable amount per month for a year.
I was not a power user on the M1 Pro I had. The most intensive thing I did with it is play BG3 and a couple of other games. I never really had any problems with it and it has been my favorite laptop I ever had. The M3 Pro is pretty much the same, just improvements over the M1 Pro. I almost think the M3 Pro is the real upgrade from the M1 Pro. I think the M2 Pro was just a souped up version of the M1 Pro but didn't really add anything new.
I have read several reviews about the M3 Pro performance not being that much different than the M2 Pro but for me upgrading from the M1 Pro, it's definitely an upgrade-faster SSD, more RAM, better battery, 30%-40% faster performance, new color, brighter display. Even with the small performance gains over the M2 Pro, the battery life is probably going to be better with the more efficient M3 Pro.
Given my workflows, I don't really need the Max and it is a considerable amount of money to upgrade from an M3 Pro to the M3 Max. I think a lot of people ordering the Max chip don't really need it.
Enjoy your laptop!
Yes I agree the charger is super ugly! I remember looking last night before bed thinking "what a damn ugly charger" lol.. enjoying the increased brightness, still torn on black vs. silver overall. I feel with fingerprints on the keyboard which are plenty it shows more on the black..
Thanks for the mini review, that was helpful
Similar story here except opted for the Space Grey Max, I do think the M3 Pro will be a battery life monster, perfect if that's what you want most!
I would highly reconsider that M3 Pro, benchmark after benchmark show its slower than the M2 Pro due to having less Performance cores and 1 less GPU Core. It’s significantly worse than the M3 Max.
haha - yes much better for my OCD, well, I have never owed silver, I like that it almost looks white it's so light.
It's slower in the GPU right? So unless you are gaming/using high intesive graphical editing it's still an upgrade. I thought the only "benchmark" it fell short of was GPU one?
Also if you are purchasing from NOTHING or an intel - I wouldn't "reconsider".
White charger and black MagSafe cable won't bother me when it arrives - my charger is down on the floor behind the desk - I'll never see it!
It's OK for me since I upgraded from a 16inch m1 pro. Not doing any pro work on it I just enjoy the smaller size. It would be best for me if it was a new Air.
One of the first things I thought while unboxing. Of course, after staring at that Space Black 🤩 Would it have killed them to color up the charger?
I'm in the same boat as you. I have an M2 16" and I find it a bit too heavy, and I'm not a power/pro user at all - so the Pro horsepower in the machine is a waste for me. However the 16" is a good size for overall use and screen real estate (especially when using apps side by side). Trouble is I bought this only 4 months ago and am going to take quite a loss on it if I sell it. Do you find a significant different in weight with the 14"? Any regrets with sizing down? I do like the Space Black colour (my 16" is silver)
I “downgraded” from an 14” M2 Max to a 16” M3 Pro. The difference in weight is noticeable but not earth shattering. I personally loved the size of the 14”, but it only ever sat at my desk in my home office so for me the increased portability didn’t really benefit me. I do find the increased screen real estate on the 16” to be awesome.
I’d say it depends on your use case. If you’re taking your laptop with you out and about then a 14” makes sense. If not, the 16” is great.
I really wish the Air had the XDR / ProMotion display, that’d make the 15” Air perfect IMO. Like you, I have no need for the power of the pro chips but I want the ProMotion display so I feel compelled to roll with the pro laptops.
Sorry for the late reply. I suggest that you keep the M2 max. My m1pro has 16gb of ram, and my m3 pro has 18gb of ram, however, I do feel the m3pro is slow and some applications even lag and memory pressure in activity monitor is often yellow.
Maybe wait a little longer for more tests/benchmarking coming out before purchasing.
