Nothing wrong with that kind of comparison. In fact, M1 is truly impressive in all those benchmarks. An entry level passively cooled machine can go toe to toe with a large desktop with twice as many cores? That’s unheard of.
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M1 Comparison reviews....
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Nothing wrong with that kind of comparison. In fact, M1 is truly impressive in all those benchmarks. An entry level passively cooled machine can go toe to toe with a large desktop with twice as many cores? That’s unheard of.
Apple were talking 98% of PCs sold, i.e., by SALES VOLUME (which tbh is a fair enough metric).
98% of pcs sold aren't i7 or i9. A huge amount of global PC sales aren't even i3. Think celeron and pentium.
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According to Apple? I don't remember seeing that anywhere....
If Apple labels the MacBook Pro as "Pro", it is fair to compare it to other laptops in the Prosumer category.
If Apple intends on the M1 being a suitable replacement for the previously used Intel chips, then it is fair to compare the M1 to laptops, and not just the energy efficient ones.
If Apple does intent on the M1 Macs being like Ultrabooks, in terms of power consumption, battery life, and performance, then they should say so. Although, I am unsure where that leaves the M1 Mac Mini.
Yeah, it is just marketing, and you cannot go by Apple statistics. Or other companies' statistics as well.
They will advertise vague statistics that make their product look better than the competition, any they could be true, but when put into context, it really isn't nearly as impressive.
So, PC fan boys don't suddenly start praising Apple and their new M1 chip?
Are you really that surprised? I would be much more surprised if the PC guys started complementing Apple on things.
Let's look at what Apple considers Pro. The MacBook Pro 13 inch has an i5 and they charge $100 more for it than the M1.
The Mini/M1 is replacing an i3 and they are charging $100 less for the M1 version.
In the current Mini lineup, you have the M1 version at $899 and the i5 version for $1,099.
I don't consider the i3 or i5 pro CPUs and Apple has priced the M1 below both of them.
I never considered the 13 inch MBP a Pro model. The 15s and 16s? Yes.
You may not, but Apple does. It is right there in the name, MacBook Pro.
AFAIK, Apple has never labeled the M1 Macs as Ultrabook or Ultrabook-like.
The point is, there is nothing wrong with comparing the M1 to other Macs or PC with Intel.
You can argue about what class the M1 Macs are in (again, Apple considered the M1 MBP, and "Pro" class laptop), but that doesn't really matter, as the M-chips are supposed to be replacing Intel, so I would expect a similar performance to Intel.
No they don't.
Their Intel 13 inch models offer 4 ports, 32 GB RAM and 4 TB options. And the Core i7.
Their 16 inch models offer up to 64 GB of RAM and up to 8 TB SSD. And are only Core i7 and i9.
The Ultrabook category was created with the MacBook Air.
I am trying, but still don't understand what you are trying to say.
Maybe quote what part of my post you are responding to with "No, they don't", so I can understand it in context.
It is fair to compare anything to anything as long as you keep the context in mind.
You are getting lost in semantics. To understand what Apple intends M1 to be it's enough to see where they are putting it: entry-level machines with very low power consumption. They even left the Intel 13" Pro intact for now, even though it is slower in every single regard than M1. Compared to the Intel lineup, the M1 is the analogue of the i3 series — entry-level ultra-mobile SoC.
Who cares what words they use to describe stuff? I am not even sure what you are arguing agains. "Ultrabook" was a marketing campaign by Intel in order to promote a certain type of a laptop. Funnily enough, Intel came up with "Ultrabook" after after the success of MacBook Air. In many ways, MBA is the original "Ultrabook". The main reason why Apple themselves does not use the term is probably because they don't want to be associated with the Intel campaign.
My point is: stop looking at what things are called and start looking at how things are. "Ultrabook" refers to a certain idea of a lightweight, compact portable machine with a good battery life. M1 machines are the ideal "Ultrabooks" according to the ultrabook criteria.
The Mac mini is just that, an ultracompact box on an ultraportable basis. You only need to look at Mac mini teardowns to realize that it's an afterthought. The M1 is developed for the laptop, not the desktop. They could have put something 3-4 times faster in the Mini and still have space to spare.
M1 performs significantly better than the Intel processors it replaces, so I again am not sure what your argument is. In fact, the performance difference between the Intel processors M1 has replaced is larger than the performance difference between the M1 and an AMD 5800X.
@pshufd Thanks, I understand what you are saying, it wasn't really clear before:
My response would be to look at Apple's own press release on the M1 MacBook Pro:
While other people do not, it sounds like Apple still considers the M1 MBP as "Pro".
They even compare it to other laptops with i7, so why can't everyone else?
My response would be to look at Apple's own press release on the M1 MacBook Pro:
Apple said:
Apple said:
Apple said:
While other people do not, it sounds like Apple still considers the M1 MBP as "Pro".
Apple doesn't compare the M1 to only the i3, they like to aim higher:
Apple said:
What things are called are important when you are talking about categories and classes. The M1 MBP is not an Ultrabook by Apple's own classification of it. The consider it a high performance compact pro notebook.
They even compare it to other laptops with i7, so why can't everyone else?
That's marketing. Marketing often doesn't reflect the truth or reality.
Apple doesn't consider the M1 MBP as pro. They may state that but they don't believe it.
Who wouldn't M1 MBP not be "Pro"? It is faster at running statistical simulations and compiling code than my 16" i9 Intel machine.
I don't care at all what Apple compares M1 to. Again, you are getting lost in marketing rhetorics. Judge the product by what it is (positioning, performance, efficiency, features), not by it's marketing materials.
For the record, I never claimed that M1 "competes with i3". What I said is: in the final Apple Silicon lineup, the M1 will take a similar place as what i3/former Y-series take in the Intel's lineup. To be more precise: I very much doubt that Apple is in fact positioning their chips to compete agains certain Intel brands. They just don't give a damn. They care about the overall product and its performance, not Intel's or AMD arbitrary performance classes. Apple has its own criteria and its own philosophy which is very different from other manufacturers. And yet, M1 is still entry-level hardware.
Apple does not have an "Ultrabook" classification to begin with. You are talking about categories that don't exist and mix things in the process. According to the Ultrabook trademark holder (Intel), M1 laptops are not ultrabooks, since only Intel machines can be ultrabooks by definition. Still, they meet — and surpass, by a large margin — the intrinsic criteria associated with ultrabooks (size/power consumption/battery life).
What is Intel i7 even? Quad-core i7 Tiger Lake? A six-core Coffee Lake? An 8-core Comet Lake? Which one do you mean exactly?
To be honest: why bother ?
Those wanting to compare the M1 to top of the line Intel/AMD: let them. They're into it to either justify their own inability to switch to macOS or their own decisions trying to justify their past purchases.
Those you could convince and not make a mistake: there's too many others sending the wrong signal anyway, they'll never believe it till they are ready to try it for themselves.
Even if they're misguided or outright trying to be malicious: they'll never convince somebody who wants a machine running macOS.
Moreover once the next batch of ASi machines arrives, it'll dawn on them this was just the start.
In other words: let them enjoy their wintel junk.
And here I sit typing this on a MP7,1 ... while being free of windows. Hoping for magic to make it a MP8,1 all of sudden.
Those wanting to compare the M1 to top of the line Intel/AMD: let them. They're into it to either justify their own inability to switch to macOS or their own decisions trying to justify their past purchases.
Those you could convince and not make a mistake: there's too many others sending the wrong signal anyway, they'll never believe it till they are ready to try it for themselves.
Even if they're misguided or outright trying to be malicious: they'll never convince somebody who wants a machine running macOS.
Moreover once the next batch of ASi machines arrives, it'll dawn on them this was just the start.
In other words: let them enjoy their wintel junk.
And here I sit typing this on a MP7,1 ... while being free of windows. Hoping for magic to make it a MP8,1 all of sudden.
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While it may not be true, this leaves people free to test their claims and compare with higher performance machines.
Well, @pshufd doesn't.
pshufd doesn't even think that Apple considers the M1 MBP a pro machine:
This was pretty much my point. I wouldn't consider the M1 MBP an Ultrabook.
It isn't what I mean, it is right from Apple's M1 MBP press release:
Apple's Press Release said:
I’m not sure it’s credible to claim to know what Apple believe. Yeah...that’s probably the most polite way of wording my response.
I’m not sure it’s credible to claim to know what Apple believe. Yeah...that’s probably the most polite way of wording my response.
I have a 2015 MacBook Pro 15 inch. That was a pro machine for that time. It can drive two 4K monitors with ease. The MacBook Pro/M1 can't do that. My 2014 has an HDMI port, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, an SD slot, and 2 USB-A ports. The MacBook Pro/M1 has two Thunderbolt ports.
The M1 systems can do a lot of work but their in low-end systems.
I’m not sure it’s credible to claim to know what Apple believe. Yeah...that’s probably the most polite way of wording my response.
There have been two 13” MacBook “Pro” models since the 2016 redesign. If you recall, back then they were pushing the 12” MacBook as an ultraportable, and did not update the MacBook Air to a Retina display. The low end ”Pro” did not have the Touch Bar back then, and it had a 15W processor vs. the 28W chip in the higher-end 4-port Pro. At the rollout, Phil Schiller said Apple essentially viewed that low end “Pro” as the “Retina Air.” My guess is that Apple thought at the time that it would eventually phase out the MacBook Air and return to a MacBook/MacBook Pro lineup.
However, at $1299 vs the $999 older Air, the 12” MacBook and base 13” Pro didn’t sell in the volumes Apple wanted, so they released the 2018 MacBook Air with essentially the new MacBook-class processor in a hybrid chassis about the same size as the 13” MacBook Pro but with a mostly (now fully) passive cooling system. Eventually they brought the Touch Bar (but not the extra 2 ports or 28W processor) to the base 13” Pro.
I had a work 2015 MBP 13 and it was standard equipment. What I always recall is the fan spinning up for Zoom conferences. And there are lots of complaints on the MBP forum here on the dual-core MBP 13s. I think that the tenth gen was an improvement but it was hard to consider those systems as pro. Look at the iMac and then the delta to the iMac Pro. The MacBook Pro 13 Intel isn't at the levels of the iMac much less the iMac Pro.
I always used my own MacBook Pro 15s for work, except for Zoom where I used the work system. The quad-core made a big difference in performance as did the discrete graphics.
Isn’t all this discussion a bit pointless anyway? If Apple are marketing them as pro machines then it’s reasonable to compare them to other pro machines. Apple can’t market them as pro machines and then say’ “no no no. Just compare them to ultra books please”. I still say that price is the main underlying factor in comparisons anyway... surely there can be no complaints if the air is being compared to other £1000 laptops?
Price is definitely a major factor as all three of these are their lowest price Macs in their own categories and across all categories.
But Apple has already talked about 8, 12, 16, 20 and 32 Performance core chips over the next 18 months. My arithmetic says that 4 Performance cores are fewer than 8, 12, 16, 20 and 32.
Exactly....
I can understand debating if a M1 MBP (or any other "Pro" Apple device) should be considered a pro device, but the OP is asking if it is fair to be compare the M1 MBP to devices with i7+ chips in them.
To me, the answer is yes.
If Apple is going to market the MBP as "powerful" and "pro", then being compared to mid to high range spec machines is completely fair.
I have no gripe with people comparing M1 to top of the line x86 CPUs — it is an interesting and relevant comparison in order to learn about the technology and engineering choices. But I am quite surprised that some people conclude that M1 is "nothing special" because it does't outperform desktop CPUs three times it's size and 6 times it's power consumption...
And even more surprising, it's quite often that I read something like "M1 is a very large chip, Apple is going to have difficulty to scale...". Really folks? M1 is 120mm2, Tiger Lake is 146mm2, Renoir (4800U) is 150mm2. In which world is M1 considered a "large chip"?