Is the MBP M1Pro only for video editors and 3d modelers?

[GooseInTheCaboose]

Can any other people/professionals make good use of the m1pro besides people who make movies and 3d models? Is it useful for productivity in any other situations?

Or should other folks just use the M2 Airs?

 

[yitwail]

Can any other people/professionals make good use of the m1pro besides people who make movies and 3d models? Is it useful for productivity in any other situations?

Maybe not even them, because it can only have 10 GPU cores, and doesn't have that all singing, all dancing, pro motion mini LED display.

 

[Slartibart]

Can any other people/professionals make good use of the m1pro besides people who make movies and 3d models? Is it useful for productivity in any other situations?

besides e.g. educators, medical professionals, businesses, writers, archeologists, experts in cuneiform, life science scientists, programmers, students of various study programs, et cetera? Naaa… a slate and some chalk keeps everyone covered. 🙃

more serious: this is one of the entry models - that they present a certain leap in power efficiency combined with a high degree of relative computing power let professionals of certain fields early on jump on these and somewhat skewed the conversation subjects.
These are really, really nice laptops - if you switch from some previous model you’re in for moments to be simply wowed.
Yes, there are programs you can’t run on them (or it doesn’t make sense for a variety of reasons) but if one checks their list of requirements/software to use and does some research beforehand, the entry AS models are an excellent choice. Especially in a professional environment, if applicable.

 

[JahBoolean]

I need a pro chip to drive two external displays ...

To note that simply running my displays seems to utilize 27%-45% of the GPU has to give =).

 

[kasakka]

There is no reason you can't use them for whatever you do. You see e.g reviews putting a lot of focus on video editing, 3D modeling etc because those are not only fairly easy to benchmark and compare to other devices but YouTubers are basically video producers so of course they are going to focus on workflows important to them.

For "the layman" buying the M1 Pro is probably more useful just for having support for more external displays. If your typical workflow involves having several monitors besides the laptop itself, then the Pro is pretty much a must.

 

[GooseInTheCaboose]

besides e.g. educators, medical professionals, businesses, writers, archeologists, experts in cuneiform, life science scientists, programmers, students of various study programs, et cetera? Naaa… a slate and some chalk keeps everyone covered. 🙃

more serious: this is one of the entry models - that they present a certain leap in power efficiency combined with a high degree of relative computing power let professionals of certain fields early on jump on these and somewhat skewed the conversation subjects.
These are really, really nice laptops - if you switch from some previous model you’re in for moments to be simply wowed.
Yes, there are programs you can’t run on them (or it doesn’t make sense for a variety of reasons) but if one checks their list of requirements/software to use and does some research beforehand, the entry AS models are an excellent choice. Especially in a professional environment, if applicable.

Ah yes, I have no doubts the m1pro will be enough for most of them, my real question is, are most of those you listed better suited for the Air M2 at this point? Or does the M1Pro (14”) provide solid benefits for them in comparison to the M2 Air? (Or, what situations would the Air be inadequate?)

 

[bengtc]

It's for whoever wants one

 

[Slartibart]

Ah yes, I have no doubts the m1pro will be enough for most of them, my real question is, are most of those you listed better suited for the Air M2 at this point? Or does the M1Pro (14”) provide solid benefits for them in comparison to the M2 Air? (Or, what situations would the Air be inadequate?)

Well, here is Apple’s comparision of both machines.

IMHO if one finds a bullet point of personal importance on the M1Pro side in this comparision (whichever), they’ll go with the M1Pro.
Otherwise it’s the M2.

 

[xraydoc]

Ah yes, I have no doubts the m1pro will be enough for most of them, my real question is, are most of those you listed better suited for the Air M2 at this point? Or does the M1Pro (14”) provide solid benefits for them in comparison to the M2 Air? (Or, what situations would the Air be inadequate?)

The display is much nicer on the 14" MBP as compared with the M1/M2 MBA. If you watch movies & videos, look at graphics & pictures, or need a brighter display (for use outdoors, for example), you'll like the MBP much better. 120Hz refresh rate. Mini-LED backlight for incredible blacks.

I have a friend who's a writer. For him, the two most important things on a laptop are its display and its keyboard. CPU and GPU performance mean nothing to him, because this computer is only ever as fast as he can type. But because of the display on the 14" MBP, he chose it for his laptop.

And the display on the 14" MBP is almost a full inch bigger and gives you at least a bit more room for multiple windows. The 16" MBP, obviously, is in a whole other class insofar as display size.

If you need more than one external display, the MBP is for you. The M1 and M2 MBA can only support one display (this is one of the reasons I replaced my M1 MBA with a 14" M1Pro).

The speed of the SSD on the M1Pro/M1Max MacBook Pro is 2x that of the M1 or M2 MBA (and >3x the speed of the SSD in the base 256GB M2). Read and write speeds of >5000MB/sec! It adds yet another layer of responsiveness to the MBP over the MBA. Again, perhaps not mission critical for the casual user, but some people like things to be as snappy as possible nonetheless. On top of that, the memory bandwidth of the M1Pro is 2x that of the M2. So between that and the faster SSD, the computer will stay super responsive in situation where one may run out of physical RAM and macOS must swap portions of RAM to and from the SSD. For example, you open up TONS of graphics-heavy Chrome tabs and start hitting your RAM ceiling. Switching back and forth might eventually start occurring "slowly" on the M2 (though still way, way faster than on an Intel-based Mac), but will happen ~2x faster on an M1Pro or M1Max.

And none of these above has anything to do with the extra CPU and GPU cores as compared with the M2 MacBook Air.

 

[kp98077]

I feel the pro is for anyone working, air is for students, parents etc. those who don’t need serious upgrades. I don’t like how everyone says the MBP is for “film or graphic artist” plenty of professions benefit from a Pro …..
I also believe the keyboard is better in the 14 pro than the m2 air - not sure why but the m2 air feels very shallow!! Anyone else seeing this? Also the M2 display is average, images and or fonts simply aren’t as sharp as 14 pro.

 

[nfl46]

Lol. I use my 16 M1 Pro just to watch YouTube and movies. Did I need the power? Nope. But I wanted that screen though!

 

[kp98077]

Lol. I use my 16 M1 Pro just to watch YouTube and movies. Did I need the power? Nope. But I wanted that screen though!

haha do you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[aevan]

Can any other people/professionals make good use of the m1pro besides people who make movies and 3d models? Is it useful for productivity in any other situations?

Or should other folks just use the M2 Airs?

If you can afford it and ultra-portability isn't a priority, even just for media consumption it's still better. Better screen, better audio, heck - even better GPU for games. It's just that it is a very expensive computer to justify for things like that. But if you can comfortably afford one - yes, it is very useful for any type of productivity.

 

[grizzlified]

Can any other people/professionals make good use of the m1pro besides people who make movies and 3d models? Is it useful for productivity in any other situations?

Or should other folks just use the M2 Airs?

Just got the 16" M1 Pro which was a pain to wait for here in the Philippines. I can say that the bigger and better screen of the M1Pro 16" does my job as a developer very well. Even with the added weight I still bring it with relative ease to the office during stakeholder presentations and use it more than my mac mini with a 5k2k msi ps341wu. As long as budget isn't an issue the big pro motion screen is well worth it.

 

[nfl46]

haha do you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sadly I do. Lol. Man, that screen though.

 

[spiderman0616]

I'm not a professional graphic designer, photo editor, or video editor, but I do know how to do those things when I need to, and I love having MacBook Pro in those situations. Also, I know Macs haven't historically been great for gaming, but it sure is nice to be able to finally play some more recent games and crank up all the graphics settings while retaining smooth frame rates. And like others keep mentioning, that screen.......

If you do any tasks where you can benefit from more available cores, more available RAM, active cooling for sustained workloads, or even if you just love watching video or listening to music on your laptop, go with a MacBook Pro. If you're just checking email, surfing the web a little bit, etc. go for the Air.

 

[mreg376]

Lol. I use my 16 M1 Pro just to watch YouTube and movies. Did I need the power? Nope. But I wanted that screen though!

And the of course after spending that much money, if you already were going to get 32GB of ram, may as well spend the extra $200 for the Max 24 core with its double memory bandwidth and support for additional external displays...

 

[leman]

Ah yes, I have no doubts the m1pro will be enough for most of them, my real question is, are most of those you listed better suited for the Air M2 at this point? Or does the M1Pro (14”) provide solid benefits for them in comparison to the M2 Air? (Or, what situations would the Air be inadequate?)

Sustained performance. For example, I use my laptop to prototype statistical simulations and run data transformation pipelines. I need it to consistently provide high performance under load.

 

[calstanford]

The display is much nicer on the 14" MBP as compared with the M1/M2 MBA. If you watch movies & videos, look at graphics & pictures, or need a brighter display (for use outdoors, for example), you'll like the MBP much better. 120Hz refresh rate. Mini-LED backlight for incredible blacks.

I have a friend who's a writer. For him, the two most important things on a laptop are its display and its keyboard. CPU and GPU performance mean nothing to him, because this computer is only ever as fast as he can type. But because of the display on the 14" MBP, he chose it for his laptop.

And the display on the 14" MBP is almost a full inch bigger and gives you at least a bit more room for multiple windows. The 16" MBP, obviously, is in a whole other class insofar as display size.

If you need more than one external display, the MBP is for you. The M1 and M2 MBA can only support one display (this is one of the reasons I replaced my M1 MBA with a 14" M1Pro).

The speed of the SSD on the M1Pro/M1Max MacBook Pro is 2x that of the M1 or M2 MBA (and >3x the speed of the SSD in the base 256GB M2). Read and write speeds of >5000MB/sec! It adds yet another layer of responsiveness to the MBP over the MBA. Again, perhaps not mission critical for the casual user, but some people like things to be as snappy as possible nonetheless. On top of that, the memory bandwidth of the M1Pro is 2x that of the M2. So between that and the faster SSD, the computer will stay super responsive in situation where one may run out of physical RAM and macOS must swap portions of RAM to and from the SSD. For example, you open up TONS of graphics-heavy Chrome tabs and start hitting your RAM ceiling. Switching back and forth might eventually start occurring "slowly" on the M2 (though still way, way faster than on an Intel-based Mac), but will happen ~2x faster on an M1Pro or M1Max.

And none of these above has anything to do with the extra CPU and GPU cores as compared with the M2 MacBook Air.

And why does a writer need absolute blacks as background and the refresh rate?

 

[spiderman0616]

And why does a writer need absolute blacks as background and the refresh rate?

Movies?

 

[xraydoc]

And why does a writer need absolute blacks as background and the refresh rate?

Why does a writer want the best display available? Seems like a silly question, since he stares at the screen all day long, but for an exact answer, I guess you'll have to ask him.

As I recall back in January or so when he bought, he mentioned the 120Hz super-smooth scrolling was appealing to him. It's great for me and my documents generally don't exceed 25 pages. My friend's are 150+ pages long. I don't know if you've seen ProMotion on Apple devices before, but it's pretty nice!

My friend also uses writing apps (not sure which, to be honest) which have a setting to invert colors to white on black to reduce distractions. Apparently he thought the XDR display in the 14" MBP looked better than the other options.

 

[mollyc]

i’m a stay at home mom hobbyist photographer with a 16” m1 max and 64gb of ram.

this computer is for anyone who wants it and can afford it.

 

[leman]

And why does a writer need absolute blacks as background and the refresh rate?

Because if you stare at text all day long you might as well stare at beautifully rendered crisp and smooth text. Eye fatigue is a real thing and new Apple displays are some of the best for text work.

 

[GooseInTheCaboose]

And why does a writer need absolute blacks as background and the refresh rate?

Interesting, will there be no improvement with black text on white background from the miniled?

I could imagine some might appreciate deep black letters on white or off white backgrounds, and also the higher ppi makes small letters look a lot more crisp?

 

[GooseInTheCaboose]

Why does a writer want the best display available? Seems like a silly question, since he stares at the screen all day long, but for an exact answer, I guess you'll have to ask him.

As I recall back in January or so when he bought, he mentioned the 120Hz super-smooth scrolling was appealing to him. It's great for me and my documents generally don't exceed 25 pages. My friend's are 150+ pages long. I don't know if you've seen ProMotion on Apple devices before, but it's pretty nice!

My friend also uses writing apps (not sure which, to be honest) which have a setting to invert colors to white on black to reduce distractions. Apparently he thought the XDR display in the 14" MBP looked better than the other options.

Do you find the 120hz helps you get lost less when scroling through big documents or libraries?