I got the new 16" MacBook with M1 Max in to test for last week. I really liked the new 16" real estate, but the extra heft and bulk really gave me pause. Yes, I know the 16" isn't really that much heavier or bigger than my old 15" 2015 MacBook. But... the fact is: it's still heavier and bulkier than a past MacBook from 5 years ago. So I exchanged the 16" for one of the new 14" with M1 Pro last Friday and got the weekend to play with it.
It's Monday now and I can finally say... I think I am ready to move on from the 13" Pro M1. Please allow me to explain.
Here are the things the 13" Pro M1 does better in a nutshell:
1. Battery life
2. It's still the sleeker, thinner and lighter device
3. It's still fairly fast for most casual use
And personally, here are the things I have gained going to the 14" device:
1. It's much faster for my "professional" tasks. 3D modeling with AutoCAD Fusion 360 is much smoother, photo editing/exporting is twice as fast, and compiling large coding projects is anywhere between 50% to 100% faster.
2. That screen. Even at the same 500 nits brightness, it's more color-accurate, with faster (seemingly?) response and the contrast ratio is just amazing. Also HDR is amazing!
3. Speakers!
4. Headphone port is far more powerful now so I no longer need to lug along a portable audio player or a DAC/amp. The MacBook can handle all of my headphones by itself, including my Sennheiser HD800!
5. No Touch Bar and massive Esc + Touch ID keys!
6. More screen real estate and text sharpness overall, even at the same zoom level as the 13" (13" @ 1280x800 vs 14" @ 1352x878). The 14" really does split the difference and feels closer to the old 15" than it is to the 13".
7. Fast charge! 13" couldn't fast charge and I had to wait while the battery slowly charged up to... whatever amount. 14" can fast charge to 50% within 30 minutes with a 100W charger.
8. Better webcam
Do I strictly "need" the 14"? Nope. But then the same thing could be said for the 13": I didn't need it. I could have kept using the 2015 15" just fine. These are more like... luxury devices that I can afford.
The thing is, all of the things I get with the 14" are things that actually help me work better at all of my usual computing tasks, and then it's just a more enjoyable device overall. I'm getting basically 1.5 - 2x better performance, but at about maybe like a 20% loss in battery life. That is a good trade in my opinions. Performance/watt is much higher with the M1 Pro vs M1 to me.
The 14" in general is still a cool-running M1 device to me. Fan almost never turns on, and even when it does, I can barely hear it, pretty much just like the 13" Pro that it's replacing.
The 16" with M1 Max was nice as well, but the fan came on a bit more than what I was used to (probably due to the extra demand from Fusion 360 and Capture One Pro?). Plus I honestly could not forgive the added bulk/weight even over my old 2015 15". Again, it honestly... wasn't that much, but it just felt very... beastly. It was as if I was holding an old MacBook from before 2011. Some may be okay with that, but... I wasn't.
The 14" to me doesn't seem like it's losing out on CPU performance, but it's also much more portable. It's also not much of a loss to battery life since I'm still easily getting over 10 hours on a single charge, and in fact, I think I'm getting slightly more battery life than the 16" with M1 Max with my workflow, even!
Also I have to mention the 14" can be fast charged with any of its USB-C ports, on both sides. I have a very compact Aukey Omnia 100W USB-C charger brick that works perfectly fine with the 14" and it makes my bag that much... happier compared to if I was lugging the 16" around with the massive 140W brick.
14" is also the superior docking setup for me because my monitor, the LG 34WK95U, can only deliver 85W through the single Thunderbolt 3 cable. It couldn't get the 16" to charge at all! Or if it did, it was very slowly. I had to plug an extra cable (either MagSafe 3 or a 100W USB-C charger) to the 16" to get it to play nice with the monitor. With the 14", I only needed the one cable, and done. Both the 14" and 16" also natively support higher retina scaled resolutions with the monitor, whereas the 13" M1 seems to need 3rd-party solution to support those higher resolutions. And also, I could tell the 13" M1 was struggling with Fusion 360 at 5K-ish resolution.
So yeah, no comparison. 14" all the way for me. It ticks all of the right boxes for most everything. I can complain about the notch but I think everyone has said all they needed to say. I use TopNotch to make it stand out less, and the rest has been history.
It's Monday now and I can finally say... I think I am ready to move on from the 13" Pro M1. Please allow me to explain.
Here are the things the 13" Pro M1 does better in a nutshell:
1. Battery life
2. It's still the sleeker, thinner and lighter device
3. It's still fairly fast for most casual use
And personally, here are the things I have gained going to the 14" device:
1. It's much faster for my "professional" tasks. 3D modeling with AutoCAD Fusion 360 is much smoother, photo editing/exporting is twice as fast, and compiling large coding projects is anywhere between 50% to 100% faster.
2. That screen. Even at the same 500 nits brightness, it's more color-accurate, with faster (seemingly?) response and the contrast ratio is just amazing. Also HDR is amazing!
3. Speakers!
4. Headphone port is far more powerful now so I no longer need to lug along a portable audio player or a DAC/amp. The MacBook can handle all of my headphones by itself, including my Sennheiser HD800!
5. No Touch Bar and massive Esc + Touch ID keys!
6. More screen real estate and text sharpness overall, even at the same zoom level as the 13" (13" @ 1280x800 vs 14" @ 1352x878). The 14" really does split the difference and feels closer to the old 15" than it is to the 13".
7. Fast charge! 13" couldn't fast charge and I had to wait while the battery slowly charged up to... whatever amount. 14" can fast charge to 50% within 30 minutes with a 100W charger.
8. Better webcam
Do I strictly "need" the 14"? Nope. But then the same thing could be said for the 13": I didn't need it. I could have kept using the 2015 15" just fine. These are more like... luxury devices that I can afford.
The thing is, all of the things I get with the 14" are things that actually help me work better at all of my usual computing tasks, and then it's just a more enjoyable device overall. I'm getting basically 1.5 - 2x better performance, but at about maybe like a 20% loss in battery life. That is a good trade in my opinions. Performance/watt is much higher with the M1 Pro vs M1 to me.
The 14" in general is still a cool-running M1 device to me. Fan almost never turns on, and even when it does, I can barely hear it, pretty much just like the 13" Pro that it's replacing.
The 16" with M1 Max was nice as well, but the fan came on a bit more than what I was used to (probably due to the extra demand from Fusion 360 and Capture One Pro?). Plus I honestly could not forgive the added bulk/weight even over my old 2015 15". Again, it honestly... wasn't that much, but it just felt very... beastly. It was as if I was holding an old MacBook from before 2011. Some may be okay with that, but... I wasn't.
The 14" to me doesn't seem like it's losing out on CPU performance, but it's also much more portable. It's also not much of a loss to battery life since I'm still easily getting over 10 hours on a single charge, and in fact, I think I'm getting slightly more battery life than the 16" with M1 Max with my workflow, even!
Also I have to mention the 14" can be fast charged with any of its USB-C ports, on both sides. I have a very compact Aukey Omnia 100W USB-C charger brick that works perfectly fine with the 14" and it makes my bag that much... happier compared to if I was lugging the 16" around with the massive 140W brick.
14" is also the superior docking setup for me because my monitor, the LG 34WK95U, can only deliver 85W through the single Thunderbolt 3 cable. It couldn't get the 16" to charge at all! Or if it did, it was very slowly. I had to plug an extra cable (either MagSafe 3 or a 100W USB-C charger) to the 16" to get it to play nice with the monitor. With the 14", I only needed the one cable, and done. Both the 14" and 16" also natively support higher retina scaled resolutions with the monitor, whereas the 13" M1 seems to need 3rd-party solution to support those higher resolutions. And also, I could tell the 13" M1 was struggling with Fusion 360 at 5K-ish resolution.
So yeah, no comparison. 14" all the way for me. It ticks all of the right boxes for most everything. I can complain about the notch but I think everyone has said all they needed to say. I use TopNotch to make it stand out less, and the rest has been history.
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