Think long and hard before getting rid of your Air or 13" M1 Pro

[DynamicNotch]

I was planning on selling my 13" MacBook Pro and replacing it with the 14" MacBook Pro. No way in hell am I doing that now. Here is why after having both now:

1. The 13" is thin and light. I KNOW the specs of the 14" say it isn't that much thicker and heavier, but, damn it, when I have them both, it just doesn't feel like that. The 13" just feels SO MUCH more portable than the 14".

2. Battery life on the 14" is trash compared to the 13". I KNOW the specs say it shouldn't be that much difference, but IT IS. My 13" is lasting HOURS longer than the 14".

3. No notch. It just is what it is. I can't stop seeing it.

4. Temperatures. Again, I KNOW the 14" shouldn't be getting hot, but damn it, IT IS. I can feel the heat randomly ramp up randomly during normal use. This just DOES NOT HAPPEN on the 13".

5. Touchbar is gone. I know some people hate it. I generally prefer it being there.

That said, I am keeping both.... because the 14" is crushing the 13" in regard to performance when I have CPU and GPU intensive work. It just is what it is. But the 13" will be my primary portable/casual use MacBook.

So, my take away is this, it is probably going to be a LONG TIME until Apple releases another MacBook Pro that checks all these boxes. (5 will never be checked again). I just don't see the notch going away for AT LEAST 3 generations. Battery life and heat and are going to be hard for them to ever match the 13" again because people are only going to be demanding more performance from here on out.

So, just think about tossing your 13", because it may be a long time to find such a damn good MacBook again.

Anyone here having overheating issues or getting hot with your new MBP 14” or 16” compared to past model years?

 

[cababah]

Anyone here having overheating issues or getting hot with your new MBP 14” or 16” compared to past model years?

There are some memory leak issues in Monterey that could be causing that...check your Activity Monitor but I think it is more SW based rather than anything wrong with the HW. If anything, I am amazed at how quiet and cool my 14" runs (albeit light loads) but even when there was a memory leak, the fans were barely audible and it was not overly warm before I restarted it.

My only comparison is a 2016 15" MBP (Intel) machine that doubled as a hovercraft whenever doing anything other than typing an email...

 

[jclardy]

I'm moving from the M1 Air to the 10 core 14" Pro. The only downgrade for me is battery for me, the Air was unbeatable (I'd be at 40-50% after a full workday on battery) while this Pro usually lands at around 20% in a similar situation, so I am more aware of the battery whereas I didn't have to think about it with the Air.

I wouldn't trade for the rest of it though. The screen is leagues better in brightness and color accuracy, the black levels and contrast are incredible, I can run the display at a tack sharp 2x while still having adequate screen real estate, the keyboard is slightly better IMO, and I have a TB4 port on the right side so my desk setup doesn't have to conform to my laptop. I really don't feel the size difference but I often would switch from a 16" MBP to the Air in the past. Plus it is about 30-40% faster for my Xcode projects.