Be honest: Do you have buyer’s remorse, re your “new” MBP following the latest keynote?

[dasjati]

If I had too much money, I would get the base Mac Studio and a base MacBook Air. Instead I have the base MBP 14 and I am very happy with it, because it is exactly what I need. I ordered it right after that keynote last year.

I had a 2015 MBP 15 before and it is hard to overstate how much quieter the MBP 14 is. It has great battery life and all the ports I need.

I am in the market for a new Mac in 2025. We will see what Apple has to offer then and how much money I am willing to spend

 

[Chevysales]

As per the title.

Apple seems to have gone from long update cycles, to updating relatively quickly.

You just know the next MBP will have Centre Stage & Ultra as an option. So for those os you who went for high end configurations, do you now feel a bit … “hurt?”

Just a question, not trying to start up hate here.

Be honest… just cause you were unhappy with yours why do you think everyone else would be? It’s a tool not a manhood trophy.
Didn’t you send yours back?

No one can keep up with tech not mid 90’s, not now either.
Honestly if you thought about it in the amount of time you’d type this you would realize no one is getting 2 Max chips in a laptop anytime soon. Look at cooling Ultra needs in MacMini. Why do you think that is? Most complained about 2019 16” for heat how would and Ultra do?

My Maxed Max is just fine for now. Two years from now maybe a different story.

 

[Mr. Jenkins]

 

[TimFL1]

I went ahead and justified a purchase of a MBP 16.2“ M1 Pro, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD (space grey) just now after the lackluster event.

Going to retire my old 2018 15“ Pro, which has the butterfly curse and comes up on the 4 year butterfly warranty in a few months. I‘ll do one last repair of that for a new battery and the 3rd gen butterfly keyboard (my last repair was a few weeks before these hit, had issues again a few months after the repair but was too lazy to go through a repair again since I mostly use it in clamshell anyways) and then hand it down to my parents or friends.

I‘ll try to start going macOS fulltime, downgrading my gaming PC to a streaming machine for the few tools I can‘t use on macOS.

Quick update... I bought my MBP last week from amazon and it's amazing, but they discounted the same configuration by 200€ a few hours after I bought and refused to do partial refunds (I sound entitled, I know, but amazon always does this crap when I buy at their place).

So I just made the decision to return my device and buy another one from another retailer with more specs:
MBP 16.2" M1 Max (24GPU-Core), 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD in Space Grey. Costs me almost a grand more but I've kind of felt the regret of not going for something with 32GB RAM over the last week anyways. I am finally at peace with this configuration and with amazon not making any money off of me in this case.

Will pack my current MBP up for return when I get the in-store pick-up mail for the new one (and then drop the package off the day I go to pick up my Max variant to reduce downtime).

Call me crazy but I feel like this is the best decision I made this month so far.

 

[pshufd]

Quick update... I bought my MBP last week from amazon and it's amazing, but they discounted the same configuration by 200€ a few hours after I bought and refused to do partial refunds (I sound entitled, I know, but amazon always does this crap when I buy at their place).

So I just made the decision to return my device and buy another one from another retailer with more specs:
MBP 16.2" M1 Max (24GPU-Core), 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD in Space Grey. Costs me almost a grand more but I've kind of felt the regret of not going for something with 32GB RAM over the last week anyways. I am finally at peace with this configuration and with amazon not making any money off of me in this case.

Will pack my current MBP up for return when I get the in-store pick-up mail for the new one (and then drop the package off the day I go to pick up my Max variant to reduce downtime).

Call me crazy but I feel like this is the best decision I made this month so far.

I think that the 2021 MacBook Pros should come with 24 GB of RAM as base. The 2021 MacBook Pros have so much CPU power that I could see using these for a decade and macOS and other programs will only get bigger with time. I got 32 GB and 1 TB as well and am very happy though I have to admit that it has way more CPU power than I need for what I use it for. The RAM and SSD, though - I do use that.

 

[TimFL1]

I think that the 2021 MacBook Pros should come with 24 GB of RAM as base. The 2021 MacBook Pros have so much CPU power that I could see using these for a decade and macOS and other programs will only get bigger with time. I got 32 GB and 1 TB as well and am very happy though I have to admit that it has way more CPU power than I need for what I use it for. The RAM and SSD, though - I do use that.

Yeah the 16GB RAM were really grinding my gears a bit, because I'll probably push this to it's limits sooner rather than later. The issue is, barely any retailer stocks a Pro, 32GB and 1TB SSD variant since the price is pretty much nearing Max territory. I would've been content with a 32GB M1 Pro configuration though, but that's backordered or unavailable at most places here.

I was debating going 512GB but I then decided to not settle for less than 1TB because my Desktop PC has loads of 512GB SSDs that are always full. 512GB is probably enough for my use cases on the MBP, but I just want to have a hassle free experience without having to worry about any SSD space when working on projects or doing light gaming. I plan on going macOS only over the next few months anyways, so the extra internal space is a must have for me right after 32GB RAM (doing loads of development: Unreal/Unity game dev, app dev, web & backend dev with sometimes multiple projects running at the same time). The extra GPU power the Max brings is probably never going to be used there, but I really want to get into macOS gaming via e.g. CrossOver and loads of benchmarks show that the Max does have drastic performance improvements in GPU heavy games.

Needless to say, my Watch already noticed a drop in BPM the last hour because I feel at peace having upgraded my machine now.

 

[SA22C]

Nope. Jumped on the 13" MBP M1 last year and it's been a great little computer. I used a 2013 15" MBP Retina right up until the M1 dropped and I have every intention to use my 13" for at least five years.

 

[perplx]

Nope the only rumoured m2 cpu feature I would like is nested virtualization, but it's not a deal breaker by any means. This laptop does everything I need, has great battery life and is completely silent most of the time. It should be usable for like 10 years.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Be honest… just cause you were unhappy with yours why do you think everyone else would be? It’s a tool not a manhood trophy.
Didn’t you send yours back?

No one can keep up with tech not mid 90’s, not now either.
Honestly if you thought about it in the amount of time you’d type this you would realize no one is getting 2 Max chips in a laptop anytime soon. Look at cooling Ultra needs in MacMini. Why do you think that is? Most complained about 2019 16” for heat how would and Ultra do?

My Maxed Max is just fine for now. Two years from now maybe a different story.

Who said “everyone else would be?”

I was simply asking a question: Sparking a debate.

I think you read too much into it.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Quick update... I bought my MBP last week from amazon and it's amazing, but they discounted the same configuration by 200€ a few hours after I bought and refused to do partial refunds (I sound entitled, I know, but amazon always does this crap when I buy at their place).

So I just made the decision to return my device and buy another one from another retailer with more specs:
MBP 16.2" M1 Max (24GPU-Core), 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD in Space Grey. Costs me almost a grand more but I've kind of felt the regret of not going for something with 32GB RAM over the last week anyways. I am finally at peace with this configuration and with amazon not making any money off of me in this case.

Will pack my current MBP up for return when I get the in-store pick-up mail for the new one (and then drop the package off the day I go to pick up my Max variant to reduce downtime).

Call me crazy but I feel like this is the best decision I made this month so far.

What a foolish move on Amazon’s part.

It will cost them more that the price of refunding you the difference to sell it as refurbished.

Some companies and their policies just do not make any sense.

There has to be leeway.

 

[Ifti]

Will be ordering a M1 Max MBP next week......

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

I was planning to buy, but now gonna wait for the next upgrade of MBP

What system are you using now?

 

[AbhiAchShan]

What system are you using now?

MBA 13, 2020 Intel Ones

 

[senttoschool]

I think that the 2021 MacBook Pros should come with 24 GB of RAM as base. The 2021 MacBook Pros have so much CPU power that I could see using these for a decade and macOS and other programs will only get bigger with time. I got 32 GB and 1 TB as well and am very happy though I have to admit that it has way more CPU power than I need for what I use it for. The RAM and SSD, though - I do use that.

I agree. We've been stuck at 16GB default for MBP for what? A decade almost?

Everything else has been upgraded except the default amount of RAM. Today, 16GB can easily get mauled by modern apps, even for basic office workers.

Plenty of Android phones have 16GB of RAM.

It's embarrassing that a Macbook Air has 8GB and a Macbook Pro has 16GB.

Give us 8GB of additional RAM for each model but keep the same SSD size. I'll be plenty happy with that.

 

[ader42]

Nah, I think 512GB is too little and that is worse than the RAM imho.

 

[xraydoc]

The M1 Pro and M1 Max machines look fantastic, and the Mac Studio is a machine I've wanted for years...

UNFORTUNATELY (for me), Apple simply made the MacBook Air M1 too good. I have one, and even after a year, it's more than sufficient for my computer power needs. I did buy the 8-core GPU machine, 16GB of RAM and a decent 512GB of storage space, so my machine definitely has some room to breathe compared to 7-core, 8GB machines. And when I first ordered it, I thought maybe it would be just a transitional machine for me until the M-series transformation was more complete. But nonetheless, it's impossible for me to justify a new Mac at this time -- and that's coming from someone who typically has no trouble justifying new Apple kit under past circumstances. Even docked to my 32" 4K desktop display and a whole bunch of desktop peripherals, the little M1 just keeps chugging along in complete and utter silence.

My requirements for a Mac aren't particularly stratospheric to begin with, but at present, there's nothing that the Mac Studio Max/Ultra could possibly do faster for me than the simple original M1 already does. 99% of the time, the computer is waiting for me, not the other way around. I don't edit massive 4K videos (mostly some short medical imaging animation clips for which an extra 10 seconds of processing and export time would make no practical difference). Nor am I a Photoshop professional. In fact, the most sophisticated image editing application I own is Pixelmator Pro, and even that has more features than I need and everything I do still happens in the blink of an eye, even the ML-based super-resolution upsizing of photos and images.

I couldn't even tell you if the spinning rainbow beachball cursor even exists any more in macOS Monterey as I've not seen one since switching to the M1.

And even the absence of multiple display support beyond one external display on the M1 Air hasn't dissuaded me. I wouldn't have space for a second 32" monitor anyway and wouldn't want to go back to two 27" displays.

I think after decades of needing faster and faster computers, going back to my first Apple ][, computer speed (at least on the desktop), may have hit the point of diminishing returns for me. And I used to almost always start pining for more power even with brand-new machines.

I even had some extra funds in my university faculty equipment/travel allotment (thanks to COVID for limiting travel) to use by the end of the academic year, and chose not to purchase a new Mac.

Clearly not everyone needs a new computer every year, but even the massive improvement the M1 Ultra has over the basic M1 isn't enough to motivate a one-time self-professed (perhaps former) "power user" like me. I guess for that, my wife is happy to not have to listen to me gush over the new Macs for once!

Not suggesting the new machines aren't useful for others -- this is simply my realization. The M1 is finally a fast-enough computer that, for what I do, I no longer feel I need more power after years of wanting more. It's a strange sensation...

 

[chouseworth]

Be honest: Do you have buyer’s remorse, re your “new” MBP following the latest keynote?

No, but I would now have lots of buyer’s remorse if I had ordered a Studio Max or Ultra based on what I have seen in comparisons to the M1 Mini and 16 inch M1 Pro MBP, both of which I own, at least given my workflow. I am now convinced that the Studio is a niche product that cannot really be justified except for the most demanding video professionals.

 

[Kristain]

Quick update... I bought my MBP last week from amazon and it's amazing, but they discounted the same configuration by 200€ a few hours after I bought and refused to do partial refunds (I sound entitled, I know, but amazon always does this crap when I buy at their place).

So I just made the decision to return my device and buy another one from another retailer with more specs:
MBP 16.2" M1 Max (24GPU-Core), 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD in Space Grey. Costs me almost a grand more but I've kind of felt the regret of not going for something with 32GB RAM over the last week anyways. I am finally at peace with this configuration and with amazon not making any money off of me in this case.

Will pack my current MBP up for return when I get the in-store pick-up mail for the new one (and then drop the package off the day I go to pick up my Max variant to reduce downtime).

Call me crazy but I feel like this is the best decision I made this month so far.

I did exactly the same thing. Bought a 16 Pro with 16gb/1tb and ended up returning it on the last day and picking up a 16 Max 32gb/1tb. Love the machine although part of me wonders if I really needed the Max/32gb uplift. The extra encoders make rendering ridiculously fast though.

 

[KnownSyntax]

I have 0 regret when it comes to buying my mid-tier MacBook Pro 14" (M1 Pro). As with any technology, clearly over time there will be a bunch of changes whether that ranges from just performance gains, storage increasing, or RAM/other components increasing or getting upgraded to their newest form.

You can't really compare smartphones to laptops in terms of their cycles (although as we approach the past few years, you kind of can since the major Changs are becoming slower/slower).

 

[cupcakes2000]

I am now convinced that the Studio is a niche product that cannot really be justified except for the most demanding video professionals.

That's obvious, and even Apple themselves allude to it.

 

[Fomalhaut]

No, I have no regrets buying my MBP14 M1 Max - and I can't really see why anyone else would regret buying an MBP in the last 6 months upon seeing the Mac Studio.

The Mac Studio is interesting and a nice addition to the Mac lineup, but it doesn't appear to offer any huge improvements if you already have a new MBP, which people presumably bought because they need a laptop (at least some of the time) and not a desktop.

To re-hash a (somewhat tired) car analogy, why would you feel bad about the launch of a new off-road pick-up truck when you've just bought a family sedan? you weren't in the market for the truck in any case, which is why you bought the sedan.

The only group of people who might feel a twinge of regret are those who didn't need a laptop, but bought an M1 Max MBP because it was "the fastest Mac", and now realise they could have saved up to $900 to buy the same spec in a Mac Studio (assuming they already have screen, keyboard, mouse).

Of course, those who bought an Intel Mac Pro recently might be kicking themselves - but they could have seen the writing on the wall even when the M1 came out in October 2020, and had it confirmed when the M1 Pro/Max were launched. If you bought an Intel MacPro after that, then you must have had a very compelling business reason, so they probably don't care.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Anyone who follows Apple even slightly carefully knows the following things about the first release of a multi-release design generation:

- There will always be newer features in subsequent releases in that design generation
- The first release is always the least reliable (especially with iPhone and MacBook Pro design generations) with at least one Apple Repair Extension Program

Also, most people wanting to buy the first release of a multi-release design generation don't care about the above. Anyone who does care about the above and still buys a first release of a multi-release design generation is just being short-sighted.

 

[Sterkenburg]

Or perhaps one just wants to move on from a suboptimal design where the same reliability issues dragged on for 4 refreshes in a row before Apple finally threw in the towel...

 

[ader42]

Anyone who follows Apple even slightly carefully knows the following things about the first release of a multi-release design generation:

- There will always be newer features in subsequent releases in that design generation
- The first release is always the least reliable (especially with iPhone and MacBook Pro design generations) with at least one Apple Repair Extension Program

Also, most people wanting to buy the first release of a multi-release design generation don't care about the above. Anyone who does care about the above and still buys a first release of a multi-release design generation is just being short-sighted.

I had the 1st gen intel MBP and it worked great until I retired it when I got a 2014 MBP.

I also have a 2014 5k iMac that is still running absolutely fine today.

I have the new 16” MBP and it’s great. If the Mac Studio had been announced at the same time as the MBPs then I would have bought an M1 Ultra Mac Studio - and I would be regretting that as the perfromance does not currently scale as well as anticipated. The M1 Max MBP is simply better value.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Anyone who follows Apple even slightly carefully knows the following things about the first release of a multi-release design generation:

- There will always be newer features in subsequent releases in that design generation
- The first release is always the least reliable (especially with iPhone and MacBook Pro design generations) with at least one Apple Repair Extension Program

Also, most people wanting to buy the first release of a multi-release design generation don't care about the above. Anyone who does care about the above and still buys a first release of a multi-release design generation is just being short-sighted.

Kind of....but I think there is a middle ground.

I accept that obviously there will be iterative improvements to new products, possibly as early as 6 months later. This freaks some people out...but it is just the nature of tech.

However, I don't like to take a risk on untried new technology, however much it has been hyped up in pre-reviews.

I bought a new MBP14, but only after a pretty extensive period of research and waiting for any negative conclusions from long-term reviews (i.e. after about 3 months). I got somewhat burned (almost literally ) buying the MBP16 in 2019 after seeing rave reviews about how it "fixed" all the problems with the older models. Only a couple of months later did people start complaining about the thermal performance, and then how the AMD 5600M GPU "fixed" all the problems with the 5500M and overheating when using the GPU.

YouTube review cycles tend to go from the (iJustine-like) excessive "OMG - this is a game changer!" videos...followed by..."10 problems with product x..."....and then "Why I made a mistake buying product x....".

If you get passed those phases, and back it up with some more serious in-depth reviews from places like AnandTech, plus actual user experience reports on forums such as this one, then you can get a reasonably clear picture of whether there are any serious issues with the new release.

I also think there is an optimal time to get on board with a product release cycle. To get maximum use out of a new product, you would ideally buy it at the beginning of its lifecycle, and upgrade after the release a new version, one or more generations later. Obviously buying an M1 a month before the predicted release of M2 would be sub-optimal unless (a) there was a good chance that M2 would have some hidden defect or (b) you got the M1 at a large discount. But you also don't want to take unnecessary risk by being an early adopter of brand-new tech.

In the case of M1 Pro/Max, my calculation was that it was based on M1, which had been very successful, so wasn't really a completely new-generation, and that it was likely to be an 18-24 month release cadence, so it made sense to buy immediately after the initial launch hype had cleared up, and after the machines had been battle-tested by thousands of real users.

So far, my calculations have been correct - it's a fantastic machine