I over bought, 16" Max, 32GB

[davethinksbig]

Lol…at least until next year.

When the warranty ends, the SSD fails, and you quickly realise that all the major components are soldered to the logic board and are protected by Apple’s T2 chip or similar. After kicking and screaming you eventually plead with the politely mannered empathetic Apple rep for some sort of concession. You’re a loyal Apple customer afterall, but alas their hands are tied and you eventually give in to paying for apple to fit a new logic board at a price starting at around £750 for a base model.

You couldn’t afford to replace the machine every 1-2 years, your not made of money like your friend who buys through his business, claims the VAT back and writes off against his profit. But now, your committed, you’ve just shelled out 1/2 what the machine is currently worth and can’t afford to change. Better hang on to it until the next repair when you can finally scrap it, in the meantime sip on some camomile tea because you read it helped with sleep. Thanks for purchasing at Apple, see you again next year.

Anyway, that’s what happened to me. I’ve had the pleasure of having repair work on all of my last 3 macbook pro’s and there is a serious point I’d like to mention. Anyone who is buying on the basis of ‘future proofing’ for a number of years should consider (particularly if moving up from a machine pre logic board soldering and apple T2 chip, because you may not be aware). The newer machines, have only a handful of components that are repairable. Even a screen repair will require a whole top shell (last one I had done was £500+).

And, although the new generation of machines appear to rectify many issues that alienated some ‘Pro’ users from upgrading to their latest machines. Their reliability isn’t proven and it suits (not suggesting intentionally) for Apple to have a model where after a couple of years the cost of repair eventually exceeds the resell value of the device and the device is subsequently scrapped by the user.

For this reason, I would always buy the spec I anticipate needing for a couple of years and then opt for the longest warranty or insurance product possible (checking the wording carefully) alongside the purchase as a way of ‘future proofing’. Then once that ends, sell the device and start again. In the UK John Lewis Added Care is a cheaper alternative to Apple care and it's pretty sound, they replaced a screen that was infiltrated by a thunderfly for me.

I wouldn’t buy a used one.

I stand, and hope, to be corrected on cost and repairability of the new machines. But I suspect it hasn’t changed.

I’ll probably buy something with 32gb ram for running VM’s.

 

[PeterJP]

Anyway, that’s what happened to me. I’ve had the pleasure of having repair work on all of my last 3 macbook pro’s and there is a serious point I’d like to mention.(...) The newer machines, have only a handful of components that are repairable.

Sorry to hear that happened to you. I haven't heard many people having such bad statistics. At work, I bought plenty of macbooks (pro and air) and others take in their own, so I see quite a few machines. Regretfully, you seem to have been unlucky. So far, I'm on machine 3 myself. The first one was flawless and still is after 7 years. The second one was a refurb and broken. Of course, it showed up after the 3 week guarantee Apple gives on refurbs here, so I had hell to swap it for this one. This third machine is the leafblower Intel 16". So there, I'm also at 66% crap, now I think of it. Hoping my 14" will push that back down to a respectable 50% ? If not, my next one will be a base model and nothing more to limit the expense of having to replace it again.

I wouldn’t buy a used one.

After my refurb adventure, no, indeed. Macs used to have a good reputation, like buying a second hand BMW, that they would last for a long time. Since 2016, I don't think that's true anymore.

 

[m1maverick]

Sorry to hear that happened to you. I haven't heard many people having such bad statistics. At work, I bought plenty of macbooks (pro and air) and others take in their own, so I see quite a few machines. Regretfully, you seem to have been unlucky. So far, I'm on machine 3 myself. The first one was flawless and still is after 7 years. The second one was a refurb and broken. Of course, it showed up after the 3 week guarantee Apple gives on refurbs here, so I had hell to swap it for this one. This third machine is the leafblower Intel 16". So there, I'm also at 66% crap, now I think of it. Hoping my 14" will push that back down to a respectable 50% ? If not, my next one will be a base model and nothing more to limit the expense of having to replace it again.

It is my understanding refurbished systems purchased from Apple carry the standard one year warranty. Or were you attempting to just exchange it instead of repairing it?

 

[PeterJP]

It is my understanding refurbished systems purchased from Apple carry the standard one year warranty. Or were you attempting to just exchange it instead of repairing it?

I’m pretty convinced here in Belgium, where standard warranty is 2 years, refurbs only had 3 weeks. I must have looked it up when I was experiencing the problems at the time. Refurb is not very common with Apple here. The machine was crashing all the time and that was a known issue (at least on the forums) with some of the first shipped batches. Almost criminal they sold it as a refurb actually. But I documented everything exceedingly well with logs etc and got it swapped for a brand new one in the end. Probably because I drove the local support manager to despair.

 

[m1maverick]

I’m pretty convinced here in Belgium, where standard warranty is 2 years, refurbs only had 3 weeks. I must have looked it up when I was experiencing the problems at the time. Refurb is not very common with Apple here. The machine was crashing all the time and that was a known issue (at least on the forums) with some of the first shipped batches. Almost criminal they sold it as a refurb actually. But I documented everything exceedingly well with logs etc and got it swapped for a brand new one in the end. Probably because I drove the local support manager to despair.

That's odd that they do not offer the standard warranty on refurbished items. Here is the US the warranty for refurb is the same as new.

I have had Apple do a number of repairs / replacements for items outside of warranty. What is the saying? You don't pay Apple a premium for the product you pay a premium for the support.

 

[hans1972]

It's a free country, do whatever you please. That was the point, that is still the point.

I never said either of the two bullets - neither did I say I need 32 GB, nor did I say I demand 32 GB. It isn't me who needs to take lessons in language comprehension.

You didn't, but there are people in these forums that do.
This was an attack on them.

 

[hans1972]

It's a free country, do whatever you please. That was the point, that is still the point.

I never said either of the two bullets - neither did I say I need 32 GB, nor did I say I demand 32 GB. It isn't me who needs to take lessons in language comprehension.

You didn't, but there are people in these forums that do.
This was an attack on them.

This forum is replete with users happily running decade-old Apples that just refuse to rot away into oblivion.

And with little memory also.

 

[loby]

Yes, there have been huge leaps in the last 2 years, mostly due to M1 and now M1 Pro/Max. However, I don't think we will see such large jumps for a long time, if ever.

Hopefully, Apple will advance Apple Silcon iterations more than Intel has in the last decade, but I think we shoudn't set our expectations unreasonably high. A 10-20% annual improvement for the same class of SoC (i.e. M1, Pro, Max, Max Duo, Max Quad ....) sounds likely looking at recent iPhone/iPad advances.

I think we've just had the "big leap", which is why I think now is a good time to get onboard with Apple Silicon.

I'd love to be proven wrong and blown away by big jumps every year, but I think this is just wishful thinking of a self-confessed fan-boy

I think also this is correct, but not because of technology constraints. Profitability is the name of the game instead of putting out the best technology available.

Apple can just add incremental updates every year and gauge and determine the leaps and amounts by seeing what the market offers. They can just keep ahead now by just offering a little above what others are putting out at least for the next few years. They can be in control now instead of playing “catch-up” again.

It is plainly seen that Apple has already developed (in-house) what we will see as far as Cores and RAM possibilities well well into the future. Just like car design, Apple is probably already well into 2025 and maybe beyond. Who knows. But definitely they are not putting out what they have already developed as far as their best or current technology (power and capacity), and from a business sense they of course shouldn’t.

To them now they probably laugh at us who are drooling over the M1 MAX and to them the M1 MAX looks like “pre-school” in what is currently REALLY available and what will be revealed soon…

The future will be interesting indeed…

 

[loby]

When the warranty ends, the SSD fails, and you quickly realise that all the major components are soldered to the logic board and are protected by Apple’s T2 chip or similar. After kicking and screaming you eventually plead with the politely mannered empathetic Apple rep for some sort of concession. You’re a loyal Apple customer afterall, but alas their hands are tied and you eventually give in to paying for apple to fit a new logic board at a price starting at around £750 for a base model.

You couldn’t afford to replace the machine every 1-2 years, your not made of money like your friend who buys through his business, claims the VAT back and writes off against his profit. But now, your committed, you’ve just shelled out 1/2 what the machine is currently worth and can’t afford to change. Better hang on to it until the next repair when you can finally scrap it, in the meantime sip on some camomile tea because you read it helped with sleep. Thanks for purchasing at Apple, see you again next year.

Anyway, that’s what happened to me. I’ve had the pleasure of having repair work on all of my last 3 macbook pro’s and there is a serious point I’d like to mention. Anyone who is buying on the basis of ‘future proofing’ for a number of years should consider (particularly if moving up from a machine pre logic board soldering and apple T2 chip, because you may not be aware). The newer machines, have only a handful of components that are repairable. Even a screen repair will require a whole top shell (last one I had done was £500+).

And, although the new generation of machines appear to rectify many issues that alienated some ‘Pro’ users from upgrading to their latest machines. Their reliability isn’t proven and it suits (not suggesting intentionally) for Apple to have a model where after a couple of years the cost of repair eventually exceeds the resell value of the device and the device is subsequently scrapped by the user.

For this reason, I would always buy the spec I anticipate needing for a couple of years and then opt for the longest warranty or insurance product possible (checking the wording carefully) alongside the purchase as a way of ‘future proofing’. Then once that ends, sell the device and start again. In the UK John Lewis Added Care is a cheaper alternative to Apple care and it's pretty sound, they replaced a screen that was infiltrated by a thunderfly for me.

I wouldn’t buy a used one.

I stand, and hope, to be corrected on cost and repairability of the new machines. But I suspect it hasn’t changed.

I’ll probably buy something with 32gb ram for running VM’s.

This is SO TRUE and thanks for adding this to the conversation. I am hoping this changes with the new MacBook Pros and they hit the mark.

Took my MacBook Pro 2018 (over $4,000 paid) in twice and eventually they replaced the entire insides. The screen was the only thing not replaced after all the repairs. IF I did not have Apple Care, I would be in deep trouble. After two years of purchase, I would have spent another $1,000 to fix (after first paying over $4,000 for it), plus the next year another $800…(still in Apple Care).

All of us are hoping this has changed with the new MacBook Pros…only time will tell.

No such thing as future proofing now a days, just buy what you can afford and need and call it a day.

 

[macintoshmac]

You didn't, but there are people in these forums that do.
This was an attack on them.


And with little memory also.

Indeed!

 

[funwithstuff]

The big reasons for buying the Max are 1) GPU power or 2) better video encode/decode support or maybe 3) you need 32GB RAM. If none of those are true you could save a bit of money, but if you do edit videos, especially with Final Cut Pro or Resolve, you'll really notice the difference with the Max. I've tested both and the Max is fantastic.

 

[PeterJP]

That's odd that they do not offer the standard warranty on refurbished items. Here is the US the warranty for refurb is the same as new.

I just checked. Warranty is indeed 1 year. It must have been 3 weeks return period.

I think also this is correct, but not because of technology constraints. Profitability is the name of the game instead of putting out the best technology available.
(...)
It is plainly seen that Apple has already developed (in-house) what we will see as far as Cores and RAM possibilities well well into the future. Just like car design, Apple is probably already well into 2025 and maybe beyond. Who knows. But definitely they are not putting out what they have already developed as far as their best or current technology (power and capacity), and from a business sense they of course shouldn’t.

Well, that is most definitely only partly true. Chip companies like Intel, TSMC, and now Apple, always have a roadmap that stretches deep into the future. But it's not because in 5 years' time the Apple chips will be 2nm, that Apple could actually release it now. There's a very big difference between working on technology and having it ready for mass production. Yes, Apple will have a number of larger chips running in their labs. Pre-production runs to test the machines as a whole. They will have also have a number of chips of 2 generations ahead, which are prototypes to test the actual chip itself. If they hadn't, they'd be dead next year. But that doesn't mean they can produce 1 million machines with them now even if they wanted.

 

[m1maverick]

The big reasons for buying the Max are 1) GPU power or 2) better video encode/decode support or maybe 3) you need 32GB RAM. If none of those are true you could save a bit of money, but if you do edit videos, especially with Final Cut Pro or Resolve, you'll really notice the difference with the Max. I've tested both and the Max is fantastic.

Did you mean 64GB of RAM? The Pro is available with 32GB of RAM but not 64GB. You need to choose the Max for 64GB of RAM.

That said I watched a Youtube video that summed it up nicely. It said, paraphrasing, if you don't know which one to choose then the Pro is all you need.

 

[Playfoot]

Sorry to hear that happened to you. I haven't heard many people having such bad statistics. At work, I bought plenty of macbooks (pro and air) and others take in their own, so I see quite a few machines. Regretfully, you seem to have been unlucky. So far, I'm on machine 3 myself. The first one was flawless and still is after 7 years. The second one was a refurb and broken. Of course, it showed up after the 3 week guarantee Apple gives on refurbs here, so I had hell to swap it for this one. This third machine is the leafblower Intel 16". So there, I'm also at 66% crap, now I think of it. Hoping my 14" will push that back down to a respectable 50% ? If not, my next one will be a base model and nothing more to limit the expense of having to replace it again.


After my refurb adventure, no, indeed. Macs used to have a good reputation, like buying a second hand BMW, that they would last for a long time. Since 2016, I don't think that's true anymore.

To a point, I would agree. Other than the late 2016 MacBook Pro, custom spec machines we purchased, we had essentially no issues. The one I am typing on, is on the fourth keyboard, 2nd or 3rd screen (can't remember), two failed batteries. I would say about 60% of the machines required many repairs.

Having said that, we pushed under the Apple Care, and given our history, post Apple Care, Apple was good. Not great, but good.

Prior to these machines, Apple machines have been super. In fact, we still have a 2008 17" still going strong for calendar, music, videos, etc.

Agree on the re-conditioned. And we do try to buy with an eye to using for at least 5, if not more years....

 

[PeterJP]

That said I watched a Youtube video that summed it up nicely. It said, paraphrasing, if you don't know which one to choose then the Pro is all you need.

I definitely overspeced with my M1Max, hoping the extra memory bandwidth would be beneficial. Turns it it only helps the GPU, not the CPU. Ah well, it gives me the feeling that even if I end up doing something GPU intensive in the next several years, the machine will cope.

To a point, I would agree. Other than the late 2016 MacBook Pro, custom spec machines we purchased, we had essentially no issues. The one I am typing on, is on the fourth keyboard, 2nd or 3rd screen (can't remember), two failed batteries. I would say about 60% of the machines required many repairs.

Yeah, I forgot that many of our machines since 2016 also required keyboard repairs... And one misbehaving, but that just happens occasionally with any brand.

Having said that, we pushed under the Apple Care, and given our history, post Apple Care, Apple was good. Not great, but good.

In Europe, we already get 2 year warranty anyway so AC has much less added value.

Agree on the re-conditioned. And we do try to buy with an eye to using for at least 5, if not more years....

The refurb was for myself actually. For work, it's always going to be new. Big benefits for returns in general. Also, if we buy enough (as in: 2 MBPs per year) we get a discount with Apple.

 

[currocj]

I just picked up and am typing on my new 16" base with 1TB ssd upgrade. Love it. I fretted base, ram upgrade, ssd upgrade or both ... for weeks. A few YouTube reviews pretty much stated the extra RAM won't do much right now unless your rendering or compiling something big. I mostly use my machine to VDI into work, so I definitely didn't need this beast, but hopefully I've future proofed for 4 years when I'll upgrade again to the M5Pro? Maybe then I'll finally get the 32GB of RAM (been sitting at 16GB RAM since my 2012 MacBook Pro I picked up in '14)

 

[ghanwani]

I mostly use my machine to VDI into work

Is the VDI running Windows? Does it work OK on Apple Silicon? My work requires that the machine have a quad core CPU which my current MBA is not (dual core Intel), so I was considering getting an M1 MBA.

 

[pshufd]

I enjoyed watching some short videos and listening to music on the MacBook Pro 16 and I just have to say that the sound and screen on these things is just incredible. The sound is better than my Beats Fit Pro, Beats Flex, and Jaybirds. I also don't need the CPU and GPU horsepower though I think that it's good to get 32 GB of RAM these days if you are considering doing some professional work on them. My plan is to use the MacBook Pro for trading, development and a bit of video work. I think that I would have been fine with the M1 CPU + 32 GB of RAM, and multiple external monitor support. It is possible that the M1 Air will have this.

The MacBook Pro is overkill in several areas for my needs but Apple's Mac product line needs to be filled out and you take what you can get right now. There were large numbers of people that bought an M1 Mac knowing that they need or want more but buying it now because of their current needs with plans to upgrade down the road.

 

[Sitti]

I still have maxed out mid-2012 MBPr. Back then many people considered it overkill and overpriced. But it lasted to this day and actually still handles 4K video editing quite reasonably well. It has been a great investment and I'd consider it money well spent. But it's finally a time for me to upgrade. I ordered maxed out 16" M1 Max. In my opinion the cost of upgrading RAM and SSD to max aren't really unreasonable. Check out the cost of external SSD drive of similar size. It's almost the same as the cost of maxing out. Might as well pay the price now and get that storage internally from beginning with far better performance. You can never have too much RAM and storage?

 

[throAU]

Hopefully, Apple will advance Apple Silcon iterations more than Intel has in the last decade, but I think we shoudn't set our expectations unreasonably high. A 10-20% annual improvement for the same class of SoC (i.e. M1, Pro, Max, Max Duo, Max Quad ....) sounds likely looking at recent iPhone/iPad advances.

Apple have been making 20-80% or more jumps with their processors on a regular basis since 2010.

I don't think they're going to be slowing down that much any time soon, especially as they add or increase the use of things like ML cores, GPU processing, etc.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Apple have been making 20-80% or more jumps with their processors on a regular basis since 2010.

I don't think they're going to be slowing down that much any time soon, especially as they add or increase the use of things like ML cores, GPU processing, etc.

I’d love to see that, but I suspect direct CPU/GPU advances will not move as fast in the next 10 years. A14 to A15 but quite minor with some power savings.

I agree that we will see other kinds of advances in other areas, such as ML, hardware codecs and other niche functions.

The fact we now get the equivalent of a $2000 Afterburner card built-into the SoC is truly impressive.

 

[Bodhitree]

I’d love to see that, but I suspect direct CPU/GPU advances will not move as fast in the next 10 years. A14 to A15 but quite minor with some power savings.

I agree that we will see other kinds of advances in other areas, such as ML, hardware codecs and other niche functions.

I’m not so sure. If I see what AMD is doing with Zen 3 or Intel with Alder Lake then it looks like Apple will have to produce a yearly 20% improvement at least in order to keep up for a few years at least. I’m sure they can, but we will have to see how the chip design team adapts from just looking after A-series SoCs to also having to update the M-series chips. Things will take time to settle down.

For the rest, I have a family member who is seriously looking at the new MacBook Pro’s, I think she is enticed by the bigger screens but honestly it would be overkill for her. All she does is some browsing, online banking and looking after her photo’s. She doesn’t need the mobility, so I might get her to look at the 24” iMacs as a cheaper alternative.

 

[Thomas Davie]

You buy to the limits of your budget to the extent that it will meet (or exceed) your needs. So even if you’ve overpurchased, at least one is not financially impacted adversely.

I’m on medical retirement; could get by w/PC - but why? purchases are quite feequently driven by emotion amd if you can afford it - ticketyboo.

I do all of my banking on my 3rd gen iPad Pro 12.9 but wanted Macs for PC games and light video editing. Don’t need them, willnever do anything serious on them.

And that is my recommendation; spend until you know that if you spend more it will hurt. If your budget OP allowed you to buy your MBP fantastic.

I’m driven by emotion and want. after getting an MBA/MBP I panicked b/c there were no USB ports other than USB-C. All of my external hard drives with video content wouldn't work w/o a hub or dongle so I went and got an iMac. Ot rately gets used (once or twice a week). But it’s there, sitting ready as capacity in case I need/want it.

I’m at home 24/7/365 doing dialysis so why not treat myself. Others may fall into similar circumstances.

Tom

 

[Fomalhaut]

after getting an MBA/MBP I panicked b/c there were no USB ports other than USB-C. All of my external hard drives with video content wouldn't work w/o a hub or dongle so I went and got an iMac.

Tom

You know you can get USB-A to USB-C adapters for $2-3 and attach them to all your USB cables, right?

MUROSE USB C Adapter , USB C to USB A Adapter , USB C to USB A 3.0 Adapter(White)

MUROSE USB C Adapter , USB C to USB A Adapter , USB C to USB A 3.0 Adapter(White)

www.amazon.com

Tha’s a much cheaper solution than buying a new iMac….

 

[philosopherdog]

i was misled by the videos arguing that 16 gb was sufficient. i returned my 16 gb pro for the 32 gb max. i'm a developer and often running a ton of ram hogging apps. the extra $400 off was very tempting but in the long run if you are a pro making a living on this box it's nothing. not the time to cheap out imo.