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After installing macOS Sonoma, and letting it index for several hours while plugged in, I can attest to Sonoma feeling way more responsive than Ventura. Let's hope it only gets better with subsequent updates.

For context, I have the base M1 Pro 14" MacBook Pro.
 
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I've been using Sonoma since the early betas and it has been running so smoothly I often forget I am using a beta OS. Probably because I'm using a 2023 M2 Max MacBook Pro 16" which has the newer/newest hardware.
 
I updated Safari to 17.0 in Ventura right before upgraded to Sonoma, and ran speedometer 2.1 multiple times. After that, upgraded to Sonoma and ran again. This was done on my newly purchased MBA 15.

Overal, the number did increase. But never reached over 500. I noticed the Safari minor version are different. But both are up to date.

Safari 17.0 on Ventura.
1695783523511.png


Safari 17 on Sonoma.
1695783554624.png
 
I updated Safari to 17.0 in Ventura right before upgraded to Sonoma, and ran speedometer 2.1 multiple times. After that, upgraded to Sonoma and ran again. This was done on my newly purchased MBA 15.

Overal, the number did increase. But never reached over 500. I noticed the Safari minor version are different. But both are up to date.

Safari 17.0 on Ventura.
View attachment 2282266

Safari 17 on Sonoma.
View attachment 2282267
Im noticing MBA's are getting a lot hight scores them my 16" M2 Max MBP lol.

im still getting around 450 after several hours and a restart,
 
how is battery life?

curious most of all for 15 M2 MBA but 13 M1 MBA would be a good data point too
 
I've been using Sonoma since the early betas and it has been running so smoothly I often forget I am using a beta OS. Probably because I'm using a 2023 M2 Max MacBook Pro 16" which has the newer/newest hardware.
I'm using an older machine (Intel) and it runs very smoothly so far as well. There seems to be a noticeable difference between Ventura and Sonoma, and I think it is due to software improvements not hardware.
 
After so many tries I was getting 450 points every time on
Sonoma. So I did a factory reset and now I'm getting what I thought Id get... now I'm getting over 500 every time.

Screenshot 2023-09-28 at 23.58.16.png
 
After so many tries I was getting 450 points every time on
Sonoma. So I did a factory reset and now I'm getting what I thought Id get... now I'm getting over 500 every time.

View attachment 2285563
I'm curious. When I read comments in Mac forums, I see people say they factory reset their Mac or recommend people to reset their Mac because of some problem. Isn't that a huge pain in the a** to reset and redo everything? I assume they're not just using some cloning tool and reimage their Mac since that will just bring the problem back (I don't know if that is even possible)

So what gives?
 
I'm curious. When I read comments in Mac forums, I see people say they factory reset their Mac or recommend people to reset their Mac because of some problem. Isn't that a huge pain in the a** to reset and redo everything? I assume they're not just using some cloning tool and reimage their Mac since that will just bring the problem back (I don't know if that is even possible)

So what gives?
I didn't have to do much, apart from changing a few settings all of my apps and safari bookmarks and so on were backed up.

What ever was the issue seems to have gone. Within the hour everything was back up and running again from start to finish.
 
I'm curious. When I read comments in Mac forums, I see people say they factory reset their Mac or recommend people to reset their Mac because of some problem. Isn't that a huge pain in the a** to reset and redo everything? I assume they're not just using some cloning tool and reimage their Mac since that will just bring the problem back (I don't know if that is even possible)

So what gives?
I guess they delete the user account, wipe out SSD and reinstall the system. Wonder if it is worth additional 50 points in a benchmark scores, but hey some people do have free time :)
 
I am enjoying the betas of Sonoma so far though I have not engaged all the new items. However, much to my chagrin, it broke one of my regular apps. The app crashes upon start up leaving one of those long reports. The app in question, in case others have it, is Luminar Neo, a photo app. Overall, I like what Sonoma brings and in a strange way it reminds me of when the OS was sort of "fun."
 
After so many tries I was getting 450 points every time on
Sonoma. So I did a factory reset and now I'm getting what I thought Id get... now I'm getting over 500 every time.

View attachment 2285563
I only get 450 every time on my 14" M2 Max in Sonoma. I would love to know what is causing the reduction in performance. I'm not willing to do a reset of my computer just to fix this.
 
Is Sonoma really faster than Ventura? Now on Ventura all ok, but I would really wanted faster experience. Sometimes has little lags/stutters in system animations and scrolling on MacBook Air M1.
 
Is Sonoma really faster than Ventura? Now on Ventura all ok, but I would really wanted faster experience. Sometimes has little lags/stutters in system animations and scrolling on MacBook Air M1.
here, safari is definitely faster, but my mac overall feels much the same as ventura. this is, of course, all anecdotal and not scientific. & the OS feels stable here, that's good too.
 
Is Sonoma really faster than Ventura? Now on Ventura all ok, but I would really wanted faster experience. Sometimes has little lags/stutters in system animations and scrolling on MacBook Air M1.
One thing I definitely noticed was resizing Safari is butter smooth in Sonoma now. Before when I'd resize a window, say with a Youtube video, it would have very laggy redrawing. This was on both my M1 Max MBP and Mac Studio.

Of course that isn't really "useful" but something has obviously changed for the better.
 
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It feels exactly the same. Not using Safari, the new wallpapers, or widgets, I can't tell at all I'm using Sonoma

Edit: no wait, there is one difference: I can make the text in Finder list view bigger now. Can't say Apple never did nothing for me
 
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I didn't have to do much, apart from changing a few settings all of my apps and safari bookmarks and so on were backed up.

What ever was the issue seems to have gone. Within the hour everything was back up and running again from start to finish.

What could have been cleared up if you reinstalled all of your existing files from a backup?
 
Hmm so last night I did some stuff on draw things (stable diffusion app, more efficient than automatic 1111, but still pretty memory hungry). I noticed the system started lagging. Switching between apps there was a noticable pause. I could see the screen redraw. Scrolling was a bit sluggish. Memory pressure showed green. This didn't happen on Ventura. System didn't become sluggish until I was well in the yellow or red with memory pressure.
 
Yes Sonoma is very fast and responsive!
The OS does need some wriggle room as I discovered over the weekend.
 
how is battery life?

curious most of all for 15 M2 MBA but 13 M1 MBA would be a good data point too
I'm using it on a base model M1 Air (8 GB RAM) and battery life seems about the same from what I can tell. I use Coconut Battery in the menu bar to keep tabs on how many watts the machine is pulling from the battery. I am still seeing usage sit under 5 watts for most stuff, down to maybe 2.5 or 3 watts if I'm just writing at medium brightness. And for zoom calls around 100% brightness, upwards of 10 watts. All of this is similar to Ventura.

This is pretty subjective, but the machine feels a tiny bit more laggy under Sonoma. Nothing severe, but just a little less snapiness than before. This could be any number of things, though, and I'm encouraged to hear how many people are seeing similar (or even better) performance on their Macs. Maybe I should uninstall some stuff or do some optimization.
 
I'm encouraged to hear how many people are seeing similar (or even better) performance on their Macs. Maybe I should uninstall some stuff or do some optimization.


I freed up 40GB on my MacBook Air M1 (256-8GB) this week. and noticed a snappier response since then in Sonoma.
as for battery in Sonoma:
I did notice a drop in the battery usage were I was steaming several euro football games Thursday and had 48% while that 4-5 hours would drop that to 75% with Ventura. I could have had the sewing for more power tho.
 
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