Ordered a 14" MBP and now have reservations. Input appreciated.

[watchmainspring]

Curious if I should cancel my 14" m1max order, keep it, or replace it with the 16" MacBook pro M1max?

Requirements: 20+ tabs, 10+ PDFs at any moment, video streaming, video playback, 20+ office documents open at any moment, battery life critical.

Current setup:
- Alienware X17 3080 used for gaming and occasionally work but icloud is hit or miss on PC so not often.
- M1 air 16gb 2TB. Battery life and speed is the best part of this. I often work around the house, on couch, in yard. Travels well. I do wish the screen was brighter. The screen is manageable but it's really not that bright.
- 16" MacBook pro i9, 32gb, 2tb. Used as a desktop for work with its native panel and occasionally as a laptop if the air's battery life dies. My issues with this one is it gets terrible battery under load. It also can get noticeably sluggish under load compared to the m1 air. The panel is decent but I would appreciate brighter.

I could sell either one of my current macs. Or is that just overkill and waste for my needs?

 

[TopToffee]

Curious if I should cancel my 14" m1max order, keep it, or replace it with the 16" MacBook pro M1max?

Requirements: 20+ tabs, 10+ PDFs at any moment, video streaming, video playback, 20+ office documents open at any moment, battery life critical.

Current setup:
- Alienware X17 3080 used for gaming and occasionally work but icloud is hit or miss on PC so not often.
- M1 air 16gb 2TB. Battery life and speed is the best part of this. I often work around the house, on couch, in yard. Travels well. I do wish the screen was brighter. The screen is manageable but it's really not that bright.
- 16" MacBook pro i9, 32gb, 2tb. Used as a desktop for work with its native panel and occasionally as a laptop if the air's battery life dies. My issues with this one is it gets terrible battery under load. It also can get noticeably sluggish under load compared to the m1 air. The panel is decent but I would appreciate brighter.

I could sell either one of my current macs. Or is that just overkill and waste for my needs?

Honest answer… From what you’ve said of your use case, your MBA is MORE than enough power, especially with the 16GB

You have absolutely no need of the M1Pro, let alone the M1Max

I’d cancel your order, invest some of the money in a decent external monitor to connect your Air to (plus external keyboard and mouse/trackpad) and sell your 16”.

 

[Beau10]

You certainly don't need a max for what is pretty much de facto light usage.

I think the main thing is whether or not you could get by with a 14" screen for watching videos.

The battery life will be dramatically better than your 16" i9 no matter which way you go.

 

[virulent]

Honest answer… From what you’ve said of your use case, your MBA is MORE than enough power, especially with the 16GB

You have absolutely no need of the M1Pro, let alone the M1Max

I’d cancel your order, invest some of the money in a decent external monitor to connect your Air to (plus external keyboard and mouse/trackpad) and sell your 16”.

This, OP have you tried using the Air for everything?

Even if you're dead set on upgrading, a mildly "upgraded" 14" (32GB RAM if you do in fact need it) would mean you could easily sell both the Air and i9 MBP.

It sounds like the majority of your use is 'idle' (things open in the background, not a ton of multi-core compute) where single core compute is most important - this benchmark is identical on M1 Air, M1 Pro, M1 Max... RAM might come into play if you end up getting into bad memory pressure on the 16G Air.

 

[baummer]

Curious if I should cancel my 14" m1max order, keep it, or replace it with the 16" MacBook pro M1max?

Requirements: 20+ tabs, 10+ PDFs at any moment, video streaming, video playback, 20+ office documents open at any moment, battery life critical.

Current setup:
- Alienware X17 3080 used for gaming and occasionally work but icloud is hit or miss on PC so not often.
- M1 air 16gb 2TB. Battery life and speed is the best part of this. I often work around the house, on couch, in yard. Travels well. I do wish the screen was brighter. The screen is manageable but it's really not that bright.
- 16" MacBook pro i9, 32gb, 2tb. Used as a desktop for work with its native panel and occasionally as a laptop if the air's battery life dies. My issues with this one is it gets terrible battery under load. It also can get noticeably sluggish under load compared to the m1 air. The panel is decent but I would appreciate brighter.

I could sell either one of my current macs. Or is that just overkill and waste for my needs?

Your use case would be considered "light" usage by these new MBP standards. Is your current M1 not fulfilling those needs?

 

[TopToffee]

Curious if I should cancel my 14" m1max order, keep it, or replace it with the 16" MacBook pro M1max?

Requirements: 20+ tabs, 10+ PDFs at any moment, video streaming, video playback, 20+ office documents open at any moment, battery life critical.

Current setup:
- Alienware X17 3080 used for gaming and occasionally work but icloud is hit or miss on PC so not often.
- M1 air 16gb 2TB. Battery life and speed is the best part of this. I often work around the house, on couch, in yard. Travels well. I do wish the screen was brighter. The screen is manageable but it's really not that bright.
- 16" MacBook pro i9, 32gb, 2tb. Used as a desktop for work with its native panel and occasionally as a laptop if the air's battery life dies. My issues with this one is it gets terrible battery under load. It also can get noticeably sluggish under load compared to the m1 air. The panel is decent but I would appreciate brighter.

I could sell either one of my current macs. Or is that just overkill and waste for my needs?

This, OP have you tried using the Air for everything?

Even if you're dead set on upgrading, a mildly "upgraded" 14" (32GB RAM if you do in fact need it) would mean you could easily sell both the Air and i9 MBP.

It sounds like the majority of your use is 'idle' (things open in the background, not a ton of multi-core compute) where single core compute is most important - this metric is identical for M1 Air, M1 Pro, M1 Max... RAM might come into play if you end up getting into bad memory pressure on the 16G Air.

Just read out the OP to my wife and her reply was “that’s pretty much identical to what I do every day”.

She uses an 8GB M1 Air.

 

[pmiles]

Ask yourself why you made the purchase in the first place... because there is an itch there and that may not go away if you basically keep things status quo.

It was a pricey purchase for most... and you took the plunge anyways. What really prompted the purchase?

 

[wilberforce]

You will likely discover that the 14" MBP is functionally no better than your M1 Air, and the battery life will be worse. Per Apple:
M1 Air: 15 hrs wireless web
14" MBP: 11 hrs wireless web
16" MBP: 14 hrs wireless web

Don't be misled by the advertised max screen brightness. This is for HDR movies, the max static brightness is only 500 nits (compared to 400 nits for the Air)

New MacBook Pro Tidbits: SD Card Speeds, Peak Brightness for SDR Content, eGPUs Still Not Supported, and More

Apple unveiled new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models earlier this week, and we've since confirmed some additional details about the...

www.macrumors.com

Of course, you can just order it because you simply want it. Let the order go through, try it out for 14 days before returning.

I do think that getting the Max version for your use is simply making an extra cash donation to Apple. The 10-core max and the 10-core pro have the same CPU (and same CPU benchmark performance), and you have no need for the extra GPUs and encoders in the Max - they will be permanently idle

 

[watchmainspring]

Your use case would be considered "light" usage by these new MBP standards. Is your current M1 not fulfilling those needs?

yeah it's getting the job done. I do like bright screens. A lot.

Ask yourself why you made the purchase in the first place... because there is an itch there and that may not go away if you basically keep things status quo.

It was a pricey purchase for most... and you took the plunge anyways. What really prompted the purchase?

I first did not think it was worth it. But the monitor and webcam made me pull the trigger.

You will likely discover that the 14" MBP is functionally no better than your M1 Air, and the battery life will be worse. Per Apple:
M1 Air: 15 hrs wireless web
14" MBP: 11 hrs wireless web
16" MBP: 14 hrs wireless web

Don't be misled by the advertised max screen brightness. This is for HDR movies, the max static brightness is only 500 nits (compared to 400 nits for the Air)

New MacBook Pro Tidbits: SD Card Speeds, Peak Brightness for SDR Content, eGPUs Still Not Supported, and More

Apple unveiled new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models earlier this week, and we've since confirmed some additional details about the...

www.macrumors.com

Of course, you can just order it because you simply want it. Let the order go through, try it out for 14 days before returning.

I do think that getting the Max version for your use is simply making an extra cash donation to Apple. The 10-core max and the 10-core pro have the same CPU (and same CPU benchmark performance), and you have no need for the extra GPUs and encoders in the Max - they will be permanently idle

Wow thanks. Yeah the battery life on the 14" will not be appreciated compared to the air. So now I need to decide if I want to sell my old 16" for the new one...to get a panel that is essentially just as bright except when watching movies. (but also better battery and performance).

 

[EnderTW]

You will likely discover that the 14" MBP is functionally no better than your M1 Air, and the battery life will be worse. Per Apple:
M1 Air: 15 hrs wireless web
14" MBP: 11 hrs wireless web
16" MBP: 14 hrs wireless web

Don't be misled by the advertised max screen brightness. This is for HDR movies, the max static brightness is only 500 nits (compared to 400 nits for the Air)

New MacBook Pro Tidbits: SD Card Speeds, Peak Brightness for SDR Content, eGPUs Still Not Supported, and More

Apple unveiled new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models earlier this week, and we've since confirmed some additional details about the...

www.macrumors.com

Of course, you can just order it because you simply want it. Let the order go through, try it out for 14 days before returning.

I do think that getting the Max version for your use is simply making an extra cash donation to Apple. The 10-core max and the 10-core pro have the same CPU (and same CPU benchmark performance), and you have no need for the extra GPUs and encoders in the Max - they will be permanently idle

MBA is not mini led and does not have 120hz. Display is far worse on the mba than mbp.

Op is really up to you if you want a significantly better display or not at the trade off of slightly worse battery life.

 

[SoN1NjA]

Somehow I see a Mac mini fitting into this setup somewhere

 

[watchmainspring]

MBA is not mini led and does not have 120hz. Display is far worse on the mba than mbp.

Op is really up to you if you want a significantly better display or not at the trade off of slightly worse battery life.

yeah pricy. will consider it.

Somehow I see a Mac mini fitting into this setup somewhere

I've had two of them, possibly 3. They're great systems but I am completely done with desktop-only computers. Too mobile.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I'm in a similar boat. My usage is fairly light. I have the M1 MBA, and I love the all-day battery life, thin and light form factor, and snappiness. I've never felt that it was underpowered for my workflow.

However, a few things have bugged me about it:

• A display that is far worse than my iPad Pro
• Terrible speakers. We don't have a TV, and we mostly stream TV/movies on my M1 MBA. Even at full volume, it's barely loud enough for this, and it's not a good experience.
• Dongle-mania. With only two Thunderbolt ports, no SD slot, etc., I have so many dongles I need to travel with. I do a lot of photography as a hobby, so the SD port on the new MBPs is very attractive.
• Pretty crappy webcam. Sadly, I'm in video meetings about 2-3 hours a day, if not more, on most days. It would be nice to have a better camera.

The new 14" MBP addresses all of these issues, so I ordered it. I went with the Max, which was probably a mistake as its power is unlikely to ever be used (relative to the Pro). I think I will use it alongside of my M1 MBA for 7-10 days to get a sense of the trade-offs... better display, webcam, audio, and ports vs. better battery life and lighter/smaller size.

If I do decide to keep the 14" MBP, I might return it in favor of the 10-core Pro. Then again, shipping times are out to the 2nd week of December now, so I'd have to wait a while for the replacement. A $200 difference may not justify that.

To the OP: is there any reason not to just keep the order and see how you like it when it arrives? That's the beauty of Apple's return policy. I think it's hard to really know from reading reviews and forum posts alone.

 

[watchmainspring]

I'm in a similar boat. My usage is fairly light. I have the M1 MBA, and I love the all-day battery life, thin and light form factor, and snappiness. I've never felt that it was underpowered for my workflow.

However, a few things have bugged me about it:

• A display that is far worse than my iPad Pro
• Terrible speakers. We don't have a TV, and we mostly stream TV/movies on my M1 MBA. Even at full volume, it's barely loud enough for this, and it's not a good experience.
• Dongle-mania. With only two Thunderbolt ports, no SD slot, etc., I have so many dongles I need to travel with. I do a lot of photography as a hobby, so the SD port on the new MBPs is very attractive.
• Pretty crappy webcam. Sadly, I'm in video meetings about 2-3 hours a day, if not more, on most days. It would be nice to have a better camera.

The new 14" MBP addresses all of these issues, so I ordered it. I went with the Max, which was probably a mistake as its power is unlikely to ever be used (relative to the Pro). I think I will use it alongside of my M1 MBA for 7-10 days to get a sense of the trade-offs... better display, webcam, audio, and ports vs. better battery life and lighter/smaller size.

If I do decide to keep the 14" MBP, I might return it in favor of the 10-core Pro. Then again, shipping times are out to the 2nd week of December now, so I'd have to wait a while for the replacement. A $200 difference may not justify that.

To the OP: is there any reason not to just keep the order and see how you like it when it arrives? That's the beauty of Apple's return policy. I think it's hard to really know from reading reviews and forum posts alone.

Thanks for your input. Wow 2nd week of December?! Yeah I'm going to let the order ride. If it does what they say it does, I'll sell the MB air. I agree the Air's speakers, camera and display leave room for improvement. Hopefully the 14 "pro" lives up to it's marketing. I know my 16" pro has amazing speakers for a laptop. They destroy my 2021 x17 Alienware speakers.

 

[WilliamG]

You will likely discover that the 14" MBP is functionally no better than your M1 Air, and the battery life will be worse. Per Apple:
M1 Air: 15 hrs wireless web
14" MBP: 11 hrs wireless web
16" MBP: 14 hrs wireless web

Don't be misled by the advertised max screen brightness. This is for HDR movies, the max static brightness is only 500 nits (compared to 400 nits for the Air)

New MacBook Pro Tidbits: SD Card Speeds, Peak Brightness for SDR Content, eGPUs Still Not Supported, and More

Apple unveiled new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models earlier this week, and we've since confirmed some additional details about the...

www.macrumors.com

Of course, you can just order it because you simply want it. Let the order go through, try it out for 14 days before returning.

I do think that getting the Max version for your use is simply making an extra cash donation to Apple. The 10-core max and the 10-core pro have the same CPU (and same CPU benchmark performance), and you have no need for the extra GPUs and encoders in the Max - they will be permanently idle

People said I was making the same mistake with my i9 MacBook Pro 16”. I wish I had something faster. Even Web browsing with a zillion tabs open is actually really, really system-resource intensive. The more power, the better. M1 Max all the way.

 

[Macalway]

If you buy one of these just for pleasure and you can't really afford it, it will be stressful, which defeats the purpose.

Lot's of people are doing this of course, btw.

 

[ajaan]

Terrible speakers. We don't have a TV, and we mostly stream TV/movies on my M1 MBA. Even at full volume, it's barely loud enough for this, and it's not a good experience.

We do the same. But use a HomePod mini for $99. Something to consider, as it will outperform any of the Pro speakers.

 

[watchmainspring]

People said I was making the same mistake with my i9 MacBook Pro 16”. I wish I had something faster. Even Web browsing with a zillion tabs open is actually really, really system-resource intensive. The more power, the better. M1 Max all the way.

Wow now that's telling. My 16" MacBook pro is noticeably sluggish under load. And those fans will start blasting which destroys battery life.

 

[WilliamG]

Wow now that's telling. My 16" MacBook pro is noticeably sluggish under load. And those fans will start blasting which destroys battery life.

Yep. i9, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD. Slow all the time. Drives me nuts.

 

[watchmainspring]

Yep. i9, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD. Slow all the time. Drives me nuts.

Yeah I have 32gb and 2tb. I suspect the biggest issue is heat. Now I am heavily considering swapping out the 16" models. I go back to school next year though and I don't think a 16" computer is wise for that.

 

[WilliamG]

Yeah I have 32gb and 2tb. I suspect the biggest issue is heat. Now I am heavily considering swapping out the 16" models. I go back to school next year though and I don't think a 16" computer is wise for that.

Yeah, a new 14” MBP might be great for you. I can’t wait for my new MBP to arrive today so I can be rid of this 16” i9.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Yeah, a new 14” MBP might be great for you. I can’t wait for my new MBP to arrive today so I can be rid of this 16” i9.

Looking forward to hearing about your experience! Especially battery life.

 

[WilliamG]

Looking forward to hearing about your experience! Especially battery life.

Be nice to run multiple displays without the fans running full speed just idling. Stupid computer…

 

[watchmainspring]

Be nice to run multiple displays without the fans running full speed just idling. Stupid computer…

wasn't the 15" with the same i9 processor "faster" than the i7?

 

[WilliamG]

wasn't the 15" with the same i9 processor "faster" than the i7?

Stands to reason the i9 would be faster.