I think Apple knows that some people are loyal to a particular product line (i.e., “I’ve always bought MacBook Pros”). For some of those people the 14” will be overkill in terms of price and specs, but they still may want an M1 MBP. This way Apple can still say that the M1 MBP “starts at” $1299.
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M1 MacBook Pro 13" owners: are you upgrading?
- Thread starter petvas
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I have an M1 MBP and I'm not replacing it. My workflows wouldn't benefit the performance bump, and I honestly prefer the old design. Also I love the touchbar (yes, one of the few people, apparently).
The M1 is already way faster than any other MBP I've owned before and I never notice any spinning beach ball anymore. Also it's silent and cool. I don't need to replace it and I will let it run its course.
The M1 is already way faster than any other MBP I've owned before and I never notice any spinning beach ball anymore. Also it's silent and cool. I don't need to replace it and I will let it run its course.
I have been reading a lot of information about the new MacBooks today and I think I have a good idea what these laptops are for. I have some comments to make though, some things that are not as great as they seem at first:
If Apple made a 13" or 14" MBP with the M1 and the new display, I would immediately get it. I just like the extra battery life which is actually insane. With the new laptops battery life returns to normal. This is a tough pill to swallow.
I am still on the fence if I should buy the new 14" MBP.
Some things about what a Pro is:
A Pro is not someone which fits the profile of a YouTuber or PodCaster. A Pro is a person who uses a computer device to create any kind of work. Video and Audio Pro's certainly can have additional scaling and performance requirements and should have appropriate devices to do their job as effective as possible, but the same applies to an IT Pro, an author, a teacher, a doctor, etc.
The M1 is for the majority of people the ideal computer. The M1 Pro and Max CPUs are even faster and scale much higher, so they are there to satisfy such demands on workloads. I don't like the fact that Apple doesn't make an M1 based MBP with the new display (without the notch please). Anyway, I am still on the fence.
- Performance will be great, better than the M1 chip, but only when using multiple cores. The difference in single core tasks will not be noticeable.
- The design reminds me of the 2015 MacBook Pro. I cannot say that this is a new design. I prefer the design of the 2020 MacBook Pro
- The lack of the Touch Bar is a shame. I know many people hate it, but the Touch Bar is really useful for autocompleting text, using emojis and setting the volume.
- The battery life as I mentioned before is good, but definitely worse when compared to the M1 13" MBP.
- The new XDR display is only brighter than then 13" MBP when viewing HDR content. I would have hoped that the new display is much brighter in all conditions. This is unfortunately not the case
- The Menu bar has increased and looks strange. I am sure that people will eventually get used to it, but still, it doesn't look good.
- The Notch..Well, I can live with it but I see no reason to have it. I prefer bigger bezels.
- The new laptops are thicker and heavier.
- The MagSafe is back and that is a welcome change
- I don't care about SDCard and HDMI slots. I would prefer to get a Gigabit Ethernet port (or 10 Gbps)
- Promotion: This is the reason number 1 for me to get the new laptop.
- The display offers a perfect 2x scaled Retina resolution, which I absolutely love. Reason number two for me to get the new laptop.
- The performance will indeed be great, but to be honest, for my needs the M1 is more than enough. Good to have the extra power though
If Apple made a 13" or 14" MBP with the M1 and the new display, I would immediately get it. I just like the extra battery life which is actually insane. With the new laptops battery life returns to normal. This is a tough pill to swallow.
I am still on the fence if I should buy the new 14" MBP.
Some things about what a Pro is:
A Pro is not someone which fits the profile of a YouTuber or PodCaster. A Pro is a person who uses a computer device to create any kind of work. Video and Audio Pro's certainly can have additional scaling and performance requirements and should have appropriate devices to do their job as effective as possible, but the same applies to an IT Pro, an author, a teacher, a doctor, etc.
The M1 is for the majority of people the ideal computer. The M1 Pro and Max CPUs are even faster and scale much higher, so they are there to satisfy such demands on workloads. I don't like the fact that Apple doesn't make an M1 based MBP with the new display (without the notch please). Anyway, I am still on the fence.
16GB M1? My base M1 MBP beach balls on me all the time with a bunch of Google docs open. For the $720 trade in I’ll happily swap it for a 14” base.
With the M1 i feel like im literally standing in the middle.
The M1 model feels too little for me and the new mbp's feel too much.
If the M1 would've had 2 more ports and the ability to get 32gb of ram, I would have bought it straight away.
Which is why I might have to go for the 14"
I mostly use my laptop for general things but that can include coding, light video editing etc. I'm really confused.
The M1 model feels too little for me and the new mbp's feel too much.
If the M1 would've had 2 more ports and the ability to get 32gb of ram, I would have bought it straight away.
Which is why I might have to go for the 14"
I mostly use my laptop for general things but that can include coding, light video editing etc. I'm really confused.
In the exact same boat, except I don’t currently have a laptop and I cannot decide between the 13 and 14 inch variant. Once you customize the 13 inch version to 16GB and 512GB, it’s fairly close in price to the 14 inch base model with same memory configuration.
Definitely not the M1 but the 8GB of memory - memory pressure going into the red fairly often.
I bought the base M1 MBP because of “typical users only need 8GB” and “Apple handles memory differently with the M1”. As it turns out I need 16GB so for me at least, trading in the 13” to get the 14” base makes sense.
When not beach balling the M1 was perfectly fast.
In hindsight that's great, however many of us bought the M1 last year, so the question is - is it worth upgrading now? Because and sale or trade in of the M1 laptop will result in as significant financial loss.
Fair enough. However Apple offered a 16GB RAM upgrade option with the M1 last year, which I personally took. Never had any beach-balling.
Yes but only to the base 14. I want to be able to use 2 monitors when docked and I like the 120hz miniLED screen when not docked.
I would have been fine with 16 as well, but instead of buying a new 13 w/16 now I’ll get the base 14 and get $720 for my trade in which isn’t bad for a base M1 with a year’s worth of heavy usage.
Indeed. I have had quite a few messaging and asking if they should upgrade and my answer is no, keep your M1 MBA/MBP it will still be fine for you over the next few years.
Too many get caught up in the hype of it all.
I wonder, why do you accept such a trade? Apple's terms are ridiculous. Here in Germany there are companies that buy used products, like Zoxs.de and flip4new.de. I can sell my 16GB M1 13" MBP for 1200€. Apple offers me only 600€ for the same computer..
I don’t “have” to accept anything. When I get my new 14” I can decide if I want to sell privately through a place like Swappa or return via Apple’s process. I paid $1200 for it new (base M1 MBP, not 16GB), used it heavily for a year, and the going rate seems to be only $200 more than what Apple is offering.
I want to see how much wear is on the SSD (did a lot of swapping) and battery cycles as well, because Apple just cares if it is in good physical condition and turns on. A private buyer may be a lot pickier.
Edit - my MBP has 18 battery cycles and 92% health.
As far as data written…180TB so far. On a 256GB capacity drive. DriveDx says 88% left but I’m not so sure?
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I have similar use case although I use VS Code for Flutter. Do you have any idea if the 8 Core M1 Pro is more powerful than the classic M1? If yes, by what percentage?
From the recent benchmarks, should be ~33% faster in multicore performance. Single core is pretty similar across the whole M1 family.
Add to that the better display and audio. If that ain't worth to you much, then of course do not upgrade. I am in such a dilemma right now. I do have a preorder for the 14" MBP with 10 Cores/16 GPU Cores but I do love my M1 13" MBP. The only thing that makes me want to upgrade is the display and the native Retina resolution.