I received my new 14" MacBook Pro M4 machine today. 24 GB, 1 TB SSD in space black.
It took around 4 hours to migrate my 15" MBA (16GB 1 TB) to the new machine. Once migrated, around 1 hour had it configured correctly and working as expected. No unexpected issues except it stored way more photos on the machine in the optimized setting for Photos, thus eating a lot of my SSD space.
Pros:
1. Nicely made machine, as expected.
2. Color seems not as deep a black as the midnight color on the MBA. Greatly depends on the light.
3. Reduced screen size noticeable but not a show stopper.
4. Sound is fine but not up to the 16" but better than the Air.
5. Fast and responsive.
6. Keyboard identical to the Air and my 16" M1 Max MBPro.
7. Added SD card slot and port on the right side very helpful.
8. Screen is noticeable better than the Air, especially off axis. Color accuracy excellent.
9. Imports my Sony A7RV files very quickly.
10. Battery life is excellent.
Cons:
1. Too expensive especially if you need more storage.
I would really like to have more storage on the machine (my working photo library its around 980 GB as I found out today) but the $400 increment to add 1 TB is criminal. I can add an external 2 TB TB4 drive for $380 which would give me 3 TB but requires me to have a drive hanging off the port which sort of misses the point.
I have a 16" with 4TB but that is way too heavy for portable work. This machine misses the point for me and will probably end up going back to Apple. It is very functional and fast and will more than meet my CPU and GPU needs but I cannot get the storage which meets my needs at a decent price point. I wanted a light and therefore portable machine which had the performance and capabilities for my photo work. This machine almost makes it, but 1 TB is too small and the $400 extra they want for 1TB more is too expensive for a machine in this category. I will probably return the machine and sell the MBA, and revert to using my 16" M1 Max MBPro for the foreseeable future.
And yes, I should have seen this coming but my MBA was not used for much photography work and I had not realized how big my working library had become when I decided to get this more capable machine that could act as a more portable machine for photo work.
This is a phenomenal machine so long as you can live with the cost of storage. Apple really do know how to make life miserable.
It took around 4 hours to migrate my 15" MBA (16GB 1 TB) to the new machine. Once migrated, around 1 hour had it configured correctly and working as expected. No unexpected issues except it stored way more photos on the machine in the optimized setting for Photos, thus eating a lot of my SSD space.
Pros:
1. Nicely made machine, as expected.
2. Color seems not as deep a black as the midnight color on the MBA. Greatly depends on the light.
3. Reduced screen size noticeable but not a show stopper.
4. Sound is fine but not up to the 16" but better than the Air.
5. Fast and responsive.
6. Keyboard identical to the Air and my 16" M1 Max MBPro.
7. Added SD card slot and port on the right side very helpful.
8. Screen is noticeable better than the Air, especially off axis. Color accuracy excellent.
9. Imports my Sony A7RV files very quickly.
10. Battery life is excellent.
Cons:
1. Too expensive especially if you need more storage.
I would really like to have more storage on the machine (my working photo library its around 980 GB as I found out today) but the $400 increment to add 1 TB is criminal. I can add an external 2 TB TB4 drive for $380 which would give me 3 TB but requires me to have a drive hanging off the port which sort of misses the point.
I have a 16" with 4TB but that is way too heavy for portable work. This machine misses the point for me and will probably end up going back to Apple. It is very functional and fast and will more than meet my CPU and GPU needs but I cannot get the storage which meets my needs at a decent price point. I wanted a light and therefore portable machine which had the performance and capabilities for my photo work. This machine almost makes it, but 1 TB is too small and the $400 extra they want for 1TB more is too expensive for a machine in this category. I will probably return the machine and sell the MBA, and revert to using my 16" M1 Max MBPro for the foreseeable future.
And yes, I should have seen this coming but my MBA was not used for much photography work and I had not realized how big my working library had become when I decided to get this more capable machine that could act as a more portable machine for photo work.
This is a phenomenal machine so long as you can live with the cost of storage. Apple really do know how to make life miserable.
