I am really enjoying the screen estate and the beautiful screen. As far as performance goes, it seems close to the same but I am a light user so I am probably the wrong person to compare that. One thing I don't like much is the new keyboard seems to show smudges more easily due to the color, but that is a small complaint.
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Those of you who upgraded to a 14" or a 16" from a M1 Air or M1 Pro: What do you think?
- Thread starter Jacoblee23
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I upgraded from a M1 Air 16GB/512GB to a M1 Pro MacBook Pro 10/16/16 16GB/1TB.
The screen is miles better, no comparison. I love the connectivity options, the function keys, MagSafe and the support for more than 1 external display.
When it comes to performance, you won't notice a difference in a light (single core) workload. Where you start to see/feel a difference is in heavier workloads. The extra two or four performance cores do make a difference in multicore performance as seen in benchmarks, video editing etc... Also, if you make use of GPU intensive tasks, you will probably see a substantial gain in performance.
For light work, you did not need a MacBook Pro, unless you want it for other things besides performance. The M1 Air in particular has been great and with the discounts going on right now, it became even better.
The screen is miles better, no comparison. I love the connectivity options, the function keys, MagSafe and the support for more than 1 external display.
When it comes to performance, you won't notice a difference in a light (single core) workload. Where you start to see/feel a difference is in heavier workloads. The extra two or four performance cores do make a difference in multicore performance as seen in benchmarks, video editing etc... Also, if you make use of GPU intensive tasks, you will probably see a substantial gain in performance.
For light work, you did not need a MacBook Pro, unless you want it for other things besides performance. The M1 Air in particular has been great and with the discounts going on right now, it became even better.
Yeah, can confirm that, the performance seems to be the same, also for things light Adobe Lightroom... But the screen is really massive, hard to go back to Air M1 now. Also speakers are miles better on the 16" I bought, no comparison.
But I loved working with the trackpad on the Air, with my wrist on the table and just fingers touching the trackpad, this is more difficult with the big one.
I only upgraded because the employer will pay for it, otherwise I would probably by happy with the Air as it is
(but okay, the big screen is really addictive hehe)
But I loved working with the trackpad on the Air, with my wrist on the table and just fingers touching the trackpad, this is more difficult with the big one.
I only upgraded because the employer will pay for it, otherwise I would probably by happy with the Air as it is
(but okay, the big screen is really addictive hehe)
EDIT:// I misread the topic title but I'll leave my post as-is perhaps some would like to see a 16" to 16" comparison too.
I went from a 16" Core i9 8 Core Intel with 16GB RAM and a 5500m GPU to a 16" 32GB RAM, M1 Max (32 Core GPU variant).
Screen
Thus far I really like the new machine. The screen is unbelievable. I watched a lot of HDR content and it's pretty incredible simple as that. The 120Hz is great, the response time on the LCD feels vastly superior to my previous Intel 16".
Performance
Performance CPU wise is similar in feel to my 16" Intel which is to say everything is snappy all the software opens quickly and reacts fast to input. I did try some final cut exports and the M1 Max is obviously way faster. Moving around the timeline is also much faster and smoother than on my Intel system.
The storage is fast. I'm getting 5.5GB-6GB/s in benchmarks. I expect the 7.4GB/s quoted by Apple is either only attainable on the higher capacity (2TB, 4TB or 8TB) models or that's the raw speed without a file system. In any event, extremely quick storage and the random access is high too.
Graphically the system is very impressive. There were moments using my external 5K display on my 16" Intel would have certain applications (Chrome for instance) have intermittent lag when things got graphically intensive like viewing a very demanding webpage with lots of effects. This just isn't a thing on the M1 Max, it's extremely consistent.
I've not run any games on either machine so can't comment on that.
Noise
I think one of the most remarkable things about this computer is the silence. I've had the system about 36 hours and in that time I've done a 500GB data migration, I performed a 500GB Time Machine backup, I did several Final Cut Pro exports, I watched a 4K HDR movie for 2 hours, played some 8K videos for ***** and giggles.
All of those tasks would make the fans on my Intel 16" go off like crazy. Just watching a 4K video in YouTube could make it audible. Heck just plugging it into an external 5K monitor could make it audible if I got a little close to it.
Contrast that with the new 16" Apple Silicon system. I literally have not heard it yet. I have been unable no matter what I do thus far to get it to spin up. I don't know if the fans are just turned off or at a very low RPM but either way I can't hear a thing no matter how close I get to it.
Temperatures
And the system runs a lot cooler. It's instantly identifiable when you touch the bottom or the palm rests and the area above the keyboard that it just feels cold. I feel like my Intel 16" felt warm even if it was just sitting there idle.
Physical Body / Thickness
The new system does feel thicker when you hold it, the taper on the base is reduced giving it the appearance of being thicker and when you sit them side by side on a desk the new one does sit slightly higher but it's not a negative to me it's just different. It feels great to type on and I don't feel I'm straining to type on its slightly higher deck etc
Trackpad & Keyboard
Trackpad feels the same as the previous model which has always been great. The keyboard feels roughly the same but the keys on the new one are a bit lighter and don't take as much force to actuate. I like it, feels great.
I never liked the Touch Bar, found it an unnecessary annoyance that detracted from the usability of the machine. Having physical keys back is great but funny enough it is taking some getting used to.
Ports
In the past I've at most only used two USB-C ports simultaneously and I usually plug my laptop into a Thunderbolt 3 dock which allows the use of two external displays, wired ethernet and powers the laptop at the same time via the one cable.
The new machine works fine with that dock, though it is slightly slower to negotiate its connectivity with that dock compared to my Intel machine. We're talking an extra 2-3 seconds for a total negotiation time of about 7 seconds on the M1 Max equipped system compared to like 4-5 seconds on the Intel one. Not a problem but worth noting just because it's different, perhaps a Thunderbolt 4 native dock would negotiate faster I don't know.
The MagSafe port is nice, I had Macs with MagSafe 1 and 2 in the past and this feels just like MagSafe 2 but with some improvements. The cable is braided and is much more malleable. It has the same flexibility as a piece of twine instead of the USB-C power cables they shipped with my Intel 16" in the past which liked to keep its shape due to its stiffer plastic sleeving.
I am slightly disappointed that the HDMI port is 2.0 and not 2.1 but at the same time I never used the HDMI port on my 2015 15", I never purchased a USB-C to HDMI adapter for my 16" MBP and I guess I'll likely never use the HDMI port on this machine. I'm just disappointed because it's a very expensive machine and it should really come with modern protocols for all the ports it has in my opinion.
Conclusion
I'm already in love with this machine. The only real negatives I have are due to developers not yet having updated their applications to Apple Silicon. Rosetta works and it's fine it offers acceptable performance but certain apps like Discord which are still Intel only run like dog ****. It runs 10x better in both Safari on the Apple Silicon Mac and in the native client on my Intel based Mac.
I did forget to mention the notch. This actually doesn't bother me physically but the way Apple has handled it in software is atrocious. I use iStat Menus which puts a lot of icons in the menubar for information I'm interested in and well.. my menubar is full and many of my icons have simply disappeared with no way to reveal them. Apple needs to fix this, there has to be some way to reveal hidden icons as its a usability nightmare.
So hardware wise, great. Software could do with some work.
I went from a 16" Core i9 8 Core Intel with 16GB RAM and a 5500m GPU to a 16" 32GB RAM, M1 Max (32 Core GPU variant).
Screen
Thus far I really like the new machine. The screen is unbelievable. I watched a lot of HDR content and it's pretty incredible simple as that. The 120Hz is great, the response time on the LCD feels vastly superior to my previous Intel 16".
Performance
Performance CPU wise is similar in feel to my 16" Intel which is to say everything is snappy all the software opens quickly and reacts fast to input. I did try some final cut exports and the M1 Max is obviously way faster. Moving around the timeline is also much faster and smoother than on my Intel system.
The storage is fast. I'm getting 5.5GB-6GB/s in benchmarks. I expect the 7.4GB/s quoted by Apple is either only attainable on the higher capacity (2TB, 4TB or 8TB) models or that's the raw speed without a file system. In any event, extremely quick storage and the random access is high too.
Graphically the system is very impressive. There were moments using my external 5K display on my 16" Intel would have certain applications (Chrome for instance) have intermittent lag when things got graphically intensive like viewing a very demanding webpage with lots of effects. This just isn't a thing on the M1 Max, it's extremely consistent.
I've not run any games on either machine so can't comment on that.
Noise
I think one of the most remarkable things about this computer is the silence. I've had the system about 36 hours and in that time I've done a 500GB data migration, I performed a 500GB Time Machine backup, I did several Final Cut Pro exports, I watched a 4K HDR movie for 2 hours, played some 8K videos for ***** and giggles.
All of those tasks would make the fans on my Intel 16" go off like crazy. Just watching a 4K video in YouTube could make it audible. Heck just plugging it into an external 5K monitor could make it audible if I got a little close to it.
Contrast that with the new 16" Apple Silicon system. I literally have not heard it yet. I have been unable no matter what I do thus far to get it to spin up. I don't know if the fans are just turned off or at a very low RPM but either way I can't hear a thing no matter how close I get to it.
Temperatures
And the system runs a lot cooler. It's instantly identifiable when you touch the bottom or the palm rests and the area above the keyboard that it just feels cold. I feel like my Intel 16" felt warm even if it was just sitting there idle.
Physical Body / Thickness
The new system does feel thicker when you hold it, the taper on the base is reduced giving it the appearance of being thicker and when you sit them side by side on a desk the new one does sit slightly higher but it's not a negative to me it's just different. It feels great to type on and I don't feel I'm straining to type on its slightly higher deck etc
Trackpad & Keyboard
Trackpad feels the same as the previous model which has always been great. The keyboard feels roughly the same but the keys on the new one are a bit lighter and don't take as much force to actuate. I like it, feels great.
I never liked the Touch Bar, found it an unnecessary annoyance that detracted from the usability of the machine. Having physical keys back is great but funny enough it is taking some getting used to.
Ports
In the past I've at most only used two USB-C ports simultaneously and I usually plug my laptop into a Thunderbolt 3 dock which allows the use of two external displays, wired ethernet and powers the laptop at the same time via the one cable.
The new machine works fine with that dock, though it is slightly slower to negotiate its connectivity with that dock compared to my Intel machine. We're talking an extra 2-3 seconds for a total negotiation time of about 7 seconds on the M1 Max equipped system compared to like 4-5 seconds on the Intel one. Not a problem but worth noting just because it's different, perhaps a Thunderbolt 4 native dock would negotiate faster I don't know.
The MagSafe port is nice, I had Macs with MagSafe 1 and 2 in the past and this feels just like MagSafe 2 but with some improvements. The cable is braided and is much more malleable. It has the same flexibility as a piece of twine instead of the USB-C power cables they shipped with my Intel 16" in the past which liked to keep its shape due to its stiffer plastic sleeving.
I am slightly disappointed that the HDMI port is 2.0 and not 2.1 but at the same time I never used the HDMI port on my 2015 15", I never purchased a USB-C to HDMI adapter for my 16" MBP and I guess I'll likely never use the HDMI port on this machine. I'm just disappointed because it's a very expensive machine and it should really come with modern protocols for all the ports it has in my opinion.
Conclusion
I'm already in love with this machine. The only real negatives I have are due to developers not yet having updated their applications to Apple Silicon. Rosetta works and it's fine it offers acceptable performance but certain apps like Discord which are still Intel only run like dog ****. It runs 10x better in both Safari on the Apple Silicon Mac and in the native client on my Intel based Mac.
I did forget to mention the notch. This actually doesn't bother me physically but the way Apple has handled it in software is atrocious. I use iStat Menus which puts a lot of icons in the menubar for information I'm interested in and well.. my menubar is full and many of my icons have simply disappeared with no way to reveal them. Apple needs to fix this, there has to be some way to reveal hidden icons as its a usability nightmare.
So hardware wise, great. Software could do with some work.
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The M1 MacBook Air is the right Apple laptop for very nearly everybody, especially when equipped with 16GB of RAM. It has been the best Apple laptop I've ever owned up to today and I'm giving it to my partner to replace her very creaky 2015-era non-Retina MacBook Air.
That said, the 14" M1 Max 32-core GPU/64GB MacBook Pro I just received today is an incredible piece of kit. Obviously it's noticeably heavier and thicker than the M1 MBA. That said, it just feels great to hold and use. The mini-LED screen looks amazing, especially when playing HDR content. Is it quite as good as the per-pixel black levels of an OLED? No, but it's 90% of the way there and that's good enough for me—a far cry better than a standard LCD with full-screen backlight. The speakers sound great (for a laptop), the keyboard feels great (for a laptop), and it slotted right into my existing setup without a hitch, charging without complaint from my Thunderbolt 4 dock. Special mention has to go to the improved built-in headphone amp, which can now drive my 250Ω Beyerdynamic DT-990 Edition headphones with ease—no external headphone amp required!
It only took me 15 minutes to transfer all 300GB of stuff from my MBA to this machine via a Thunderbolt 3 cable using Migration Assistant. It took me twice as long to install the update to macOS 12.0.1 as it did to get my entire life moved from one machine to the other. My Parallels VMs—including my new, hardware accelerated macOS Monterey VM—run perfectly on this new hardware, especially with so much RAM to spread out. And the only way I've managed to get the fans to spin up was to run a multi-core Cinebench R23 benchmark. Everything else this machine has been as silent as the MBA.
I suspect this laptop will be with me for a very, very long time.
That said, the 14" M1 Max 32-core GPU/64GB MacBook Pro I just received today is an incredible piece of kit. Obviously it's noticeably heavier and thicker than the M1 MBA. That said, it just feels great to hold and use. The mini-LED screen looks amazing, especially when playing HDR content. Is it quite as good as the per-pixel black levels of an OLED? No, but it's 90% of the way there and that's good enough for me—a far cry better than a standard LCD with full-screen backlight. The speakers sound great (for a laptop), the keyboard feels great (for a laptop), and it slotted right into my existing setup without a hitch, charging without complaint from my Thunderbolt 4 dock. Special mention has to go to the improved built-in headphone amp, which can now drive my 250Ω Beyerdynamic DT-990 Edition headphones with ease—no external headphone amp required!
It only took me 15 minutes to transfer all 300GB of stuff from my MBA to this machine via a Thunderbolt 3 cable using Migration Assistant. It took me twice as long to install the update to macOS 12.0.1 as it did to get my entire life moved from one machine to the other. My Parallels VMs—including my new, hardware accelerated macOS Monterey VM—run perfectly on this new hardware, especially with so much RAM to spread out. And the only way I've managed to get the fans to spin up was to run a multi-core Cinebench R23 benchmark. Everything else this machine has been as silent as the MBA.
I suspect this laptop will be with me for a very, very long time.
One of the things about the M1 Macbook Air is it's portability. I have an iPad Pro 12.9 that I use the majority of the time, while I also had a M1 Macbook Air for anything I thought I couldn't do on the iPP. Thing is, a MacBook Air is pretty much the same screen real estate as an iPP 12.9. So for me stepping up to a 16 inch makes sense as the 12.9 becomes a complement, not just a matching screen.
If I need portability for quick trips, I have a 12.9 iPP, and now I have a near desktop solution that I can move from room to room easily. So for me personally the 16 inch made for a great solution.
If I need portability for quick trips, I have a 12.9 iPP, and now I have a near desktop solution that I can move from room to room easily. So for me personally the 16 inch made for a great solution.
I have the iPad Pro 11 inch and M1 13. Last night, I capitulated and ordered both the 14 and 16 after having cancelled my order for the 16 because I thought it was bulbous and chunky from early video reviews.
With respect to the 14, I honestly don’t think the extra 1 inch of screen real estate makes it that much more usable than my M1 13. I actually like the aspect ratio of the M1 13 as the 14 appears kind of tall and not wide enough. Having said, the 14’s screen is clearly better but I am very disappointed Safari does not feature ProMotion. Hopefully Apple will fix that soon. The 14 is definitely thicker and noticeably heavier than the M1 13, but the extra heft is welcome and makes it feel very premium. I don’t mind MagSafe though I will be connecting any of my MBPs to my LG 34 inch 5K2K using USB-C. I’m not a Pro and I won’t be using my MBP for presentations at work or elsewhere so the HDMI port is useless to me. I was rather disappointed about the SD card reader being last gen but it should still be serviceable, particularly once there’s a customized SD card for the 14/16 in which case I will permanently leave it in the slot and use it for extra storage for random files. I would be considered a very light user and the M1 13 is actually probably overkill for my needs, but I went with it because I prefer its exterior design over the M1 Air and I wanted the best battery life. I have never heard the fans turn on, and the only times I would feel the M1 13 warm up is when it’s connected to my monitor and I use Google Chrome and have multiple tabs open. I do like the fact that the 14 enables HiDPI on my monitor allowing more scaling options and a true 4K experience (which provides more screen real estate). I do not have this option on the M1 13. Where the 14 disappoints the most is in battery life, and only in comparison to the M1 13. I haven’t had time to test the battery but assuming the 11/14 battery life claim is accurate, I will be passing on this device.
The 16 looks and feels very thick. It’s a heavy and large beast and I would never travel with it unless it’s absolutely required. When I go back to the office and restart commuting, I’ll be taking my beloved iPad Pro 11 inch. Having said that, the larger screen is amazing, as is the battery life which I think will be very close to the M1 13.
There’s actually no reason for me to buy either the 14 or 16. Neither beats out the M1 13 in SDR brightness, the M1 13 is still king in battery life, and it’s super portable.
With respect to the 14, I honestly don’t think the extra 1 inch of screen real estate makes it that much more usable than my M1 13. I actually like the aspect ratio of the M1 13 as the 14 appears kind of tall and not wide enough. Having said, the 14’s screen is clearly better but I am very disappointed Safari does not feature ProMotion. Hopefully Apple will fix that soon. The 14 is definitely thicker and noticeably heavier than the M1 13, but the extra heft is welcome and makes it feel very premium. I don’t mind MagSafe though I will be connecting any of my MBPs to my LG 34 inch 5K2K using USB-C. I’m not a Pro and I won’t be using my MBP for presentations at work or elsewhere so the HDMI port is useless to me. I was rather disappointed about the SD card reader being last gen but it should still be serviceable, particularly once there’s a customized SD card for the 14/16 in which case I will permanently leave it in the slot and use it for extra storage for random files. I would be considered a very light user and the M1 13 is actually probably overkill for my needs, but I went with it because I prefer its exterior design over the M1 Air and I wanted the best battery life. I have never heard the fans turn on, and the only times I would feel the M1 13 warm up is when it’s connected to my monitor and I use Google Chrome and have multiple tabs open. I do like the fact that the 14 enables HiDPI on my monitor allowing more scaling options and a true 4K experience (which provides more screen real estate). I do not have this option on the M1 13. Where the 14 disappoints the most is in battery life, and only in comparison to the M1 13. I haven’t had time to test the battery but assuming the 11/14 battery life claim is accurate, I will be passing on this device.
The 16 looks and feels very thick. It’s a heavy and large beast and I would never travel with it unless it’s absolutely required. When I go back to the office and restart commuting, I’ll be taking my beloved iPad Pro 11 inch. Having said that, the larger screen is amazing, as is the battery life which I think will be very close to the M1 13.
There’s actually no reason for me to buy either the 14 or 16. Neither beats out the M1 13 in SDR brightness, the M1 13 is still king in battery life, and it’s super portable.
I recently bought a refurbed MacBook Air M1 and decided to return it to buy the MacBook Pro base model with the same 512 gb SSD / 16gb ram configuration. The screen, keyboard and audio are all noticeably better. Weight is not as bad as I originally expected although MBA is clearly lighter.
I would say if you plan on plugging it in all the time, get the MacBook Air - I'm sure it's powerful enough if you didn't have any issues with it for a year. As a mobile focused machine, the new MBP is the way to go - the screen is meaningfully better and it's much more refined in every way. As for wedge vs new rounded design - the wedge looks better in pictures but the new design isn't that bad in reality but my wife did say it looked "Retro..."
I would say if you plan on plugging it in all the time, get the MacBook Air - I'm sure it's powerful enough if you didn't have any issues with it for a year. As a mobile focused machine, the new MBP is the way to go - the screen is meaningfully better and it's much more refined in every way. As for wedge vs new rounded design - the wedge looks better in pictures but the new design isn't that bad in reality but my wife did say it looked "Retro..."
I have last generation MB Pro, last generation MB Air, MB Air M1 and new 14” MB Pro. Screen is nice but for daily use (browsing and Office) not that much of a difference. Speakers are significantly better on the new MB Pro. The MB Pro is also a lot chunkier and noticeable heavier than Air. Glad I did not order the 16”
I actually found myself putting the MB Pro aside and reverting back to MB Air M1 when moving around, on the couch etc. I was a bit underwhelmed the price taken into consideration. I may return the 14”.
I actually found myself putting the MB Pro aside and reverting back to MB Air M1 when moving around, on the couch etc. I was a bit underwhelmed the price taken into consideration. I may return the 14”.
So I had a bit more time earlier this morning with the 14 and while the screen is very nice, as I mentioned above, the extra 1 inch of screen real estate compared to the M1 13 doesn't really make a big difference. If Apple didn't limit SDR brightness to 500 nits (same as M1 13), then I guess the 14 becomes more compelling, but there's absolutely no reason to upgrade from the M1 13 to the 14 if you're not a Pro.
While I do wish that the SDR brightness was better, the screen overall still looks fantastic. I can tell the difference even in browsing in the screen quality.
oh for sure, 100% agree. for me personally, I still don't think that's worth the extra $1,000. I also like to use my ultra-wide so I'll be looking at that more than the MBP.
For me, I was on the M1 and went to the M1P 14" ... for me the big deal is the ports and the return of having the capability of multiple monitors. I went from my intel 2019 with a 34" and 55" 4K display array to only being able to have my 34" on the M1 because of it's limitations (Displaylink is NOT an answer)... so to natively get my second display back was huge.
The thing that seems to not be getting a whole lot of attention is the speakers. They're still laptop speakers, but holy heck they're great speakers for a laptop.
Given I paid $1049 on EPP last year for my M1 and they gave me $900 for trade on it, it's kinda a no-brainer... especially assuming they'll continue the trend going forward of generous trades. I like that Apple has finally gone with a fair trade value on laptops and phones, which makes it easy to keep up with always having the latest.
The thing that seems to not be getting a whole lot of attention is the speakers. They're still laptop speakers, but holy heck they're great speakers for a laptop.
Given I paid $1049 on EPP last year for my M1 and they gave me $900 for trade on it, it's kinda a no-brainer... especially assuming they'll continue the trend going forward of generous trades. I like that Apple has finally gone with a fair trade value on laptops and phones, which makes it easy to keep up with always having the latest.
My only criticism of the screen would be the PWM. After a few hours of use my head starts to ache, which my 13" M1 did not.
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