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MacBook Pro 14" vs 16"?
- Thread starter therealMasa
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What are your uses for a larger screen? What is your workload requiring you to have?
It's really a personal choice based on needs and desires. I have and would only have the 16 regardless of how much I travel with it. Others may feel the opposite, and want the 14 even if they don't travel.
Perhaps there is an Apple store nearby you so you can get a feel for both, if you haven't already done so.
Perhaps there is an Apple store nearby you so you can get a feel for both, if you haven't already done so.
It’s personal choice and 500 dollar difference. If you can get enough use of the screen size then yes do it.
Picking up both models with two hands I don’t find the difference in weight really noticeable. Using one hand, the 16” feels heavier, but that’s really due to the larger footprint. Other than that, the battery life on the 16” is better and the cooling system is better too. While both are quiet performing every day tasks, the fans on the 14” kick in sooner and when putting CPU and GPU under sustained heavy load, the fans on the 14” run about twice as fast and are significantly louder. The 16” has the larger screen and trackpad of course.
Commuting or traveling isn’t really a problem with either, but due to the larger footprint of the 16” I’d recommend a good backpack, ideally one with a sternum strap. A good backpack can make all the difference when carrying it all day long.
Other than that, it’s a personal choice. Difference in price can be as low as $200 depending on configuration.
Commuting or traveling isn’t really a problem with either, but due to the larger footprint of the 16” I’d recommend a good backpack, ideally one with a sternum strap. A good backpack can make all the difference when carrying it all day long.
Other than that, it’s a personal choice. Difference in price can be as low as $200 depending on configuration.
I’m curious about your comment on the fans on the 14” coming on sooner and being louder… I’ve edited both photos and video on my 14” that not only brought the fans, but the spinning ball of boredom on my i9 with 32 gigs of ram on my 15” on the same 32” 4k monitor for both machines; and have never heard the fans or slowed down the M1 Pro, while having multiple apps open including Safari with multiple windows with multiple tabs in each window… Granted YMMV, and the 14” v 16” is a very personal choice based on many considerations… but I’m reading your post as the 14” is significantly inferior to the 16”, technically…
Am I reading you right?
coachingguy
The 14" and 16" offer the exact same configurations, so one is not technically inferior than the other. Both can run under sustained load without thermal throttling (out of the box, who knows what's going to happen when there's dust inside after a few years).
However, the 14" is smaller and has a smaller cooling system (heat pipes and fans) than the 16". If you don't have the option to open up both yourself, Anthony from LTT did it in a YouTube video, you can see the difference there. When running the 14" Pro with 3800RPM it's around 30dB(A) noise. If you really stress it, the fans will go up to between 5000 and 6000RPM (actually the left fan can only go up to 5779 and the right to 6.241). At that point the noise will go up to 43.1-49.5 dB(A).
If you look at the same M1 Pro in the 16", even under sustained max load, the fan's are around 3000RPM, so about half of the fan speed of the 14". Noise level is about 37dB(A) then. So approx. 12dB(A) less than the 14".
There are a couple of YouTube videos out there doing detailed measurements of both, but I'd have to dig them up.
One more thing to say, you need to stress the CPU and GPU for a while for the fans to really kick in and reach the RPM and noise level. Very shortly after the load is taken off CPU/GPU, the fans will go down again.
The 14" has a 69.6Wh battery vs the 16"'s 99.6Wh. So given the same load, the 16" will have a longer battery life.
That is all I'm saying.
The rest is subjective, does it bother me in daily usage? No, it doesn't. However, when doing long jobs under load (exporting/converting videos, long compile jobs for larger software projects, etc.) I'll take the fan noise of the 16", especially if it's the Max version. I used to do such things on desktop systems (better cooling systems) in the past, however, the M1 Pro/Max in a MBP is a great desktop replacement now. Both the 14" and 16" are significantly more quiet than the Intel predecessors.
I've heard it said you should never buy the base model regardless.
Would you agree with that statement?
Purchasing a BTO versus a base model comes down to needs and budget. What do you need and what can you afford.
No, it depends on what you need. I personally find 16GB memory and 512GB SSD is not enough, but it might be enough for your workflow. Really depends on what you do with it.