16 MacBook Pro - Questions around M2 Pro vs M2 Max

[tommyparadise]

After spending more time with the 14, 16 MBP and 15 air, I've pretty well landed on 16 MBP with 4TB. The footprint is fine for me, weight workable and I played around with the demo FCP project and realised this 16 inch MBP is ideal for that application which is one of my key reasons for getting a new laptop (have M1 air, and Mac Studio M1 Max) - video editing on the road along with other business activities. I'll have to get a new bag for it and some camera stuff but that's okay.

I am keen to hear from anyone who's had decent time with both the M2 Pro 16 inch and the M2 Max 16 inch. Here's what I'm wanting to determine:

• Is there a noticeable improvement in battery life with the M2 Pro chip on the 16 inch over the max. I guess the best measure would be whether the laptop lasts a full work day including some video editing and other browsing/work activities like creating presentations, watching videos, video conferencing etc. If the M2 Max can last a full work day and thus potentially avoid taking a charger everywhere then I'm likely to go for more power.
• I use Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro as my video editing and music/audio editing suite. I'm pretty confident that Logic will be fine under heavy load with any choice. For Final Cut Pro, I'm interested to know if anyone has observed noticeable drawbacks with the M2 Pro chip editing 4K, 120fps, titles etc (maybe maximum video lengths of say 10-15 mins, but most of the time 2-5mins)?
• Also with heavy load, video projects and other browsing/apps open, is the M2 Pro and 32GB RAM likely to experience much of a slowdown?

Any help would be great. Budget is not much of a factor here as I want to get the best work tool that will last me the longest - but of course won't over spend if I don't have to.

 

[Mity]

I'm also researching this. I can't speak from experience but I found this battery drain test by LTT:

The M2 Pro/Max battery is supposed to be more efficient than the M1 Pro/Max above and you can extrapolate the difference between Pro and Max chips.

Hopefully someone can reply with actual usage stats.

 

[darngooddesign]

It’s kind of hard to say because compared to an M2-Max an M2-Pro might spend more time with its fans on for the same task which could mean greater battery drain. Assuming your credit card has enough space your best bet would be to buy both and keep the better one for your particular workload; or buy one and test it, then return and buy the other one and test that. If the second one is the one you hope to keep then if it lasts longer you wouldn’t need to return it.

Some people might scoff at purchasing and returning, but you’ll be helping someone looking for a refurb deal in the future. 😁

 

[Burnincoco]

For 200 dollars more you get double the Pro Res acceleration chips and 11 more gpu cores. Everything video gets done faster. I know you don't use Resolve (try it please) but that uses 100% of GPU cores for everything and it really helps.
Battery wise, I don't know compared to the Pro but I've edited for 6 hours straight on battery and still had a couple left at least. I have the M2 Max 30core and do what you do. Always glad I got that extra video editing power.