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M1 Pro, M1 Max MBP owners are you going to M4?

Have an M1 Max. Was happy to sit tight. But i'm now thinking i won't get a better trade-in value than now. I'm someone who likes to trade in old stuff to offset cost and maybe with preventing e-waste.
Also now that Trump is elected i'm wary of tariffs and future cost of Apple products

If i trade in my M1 Max now its worth ~ £1100. With education discount i can get a 14" M4 Pro/48GB/1TB or base binned M4 Max/36GB/1TB for ~£1310 or ~£1710 respectively
I'm leaning towards the M4 Pro with more RAM but part of me wonders if i should just spring for the M4 Max, Don't need the encoders but for gaming.

I'm especially irritated with the RAM/storage pricing this year. If i could get M4 Pro with 36GB RAM i'd be all set. I hate that i have to spend ~400 quid for a RAM upgrade which is why i'm considering the Max

But by buying the Max i'm basically playing into Apple's hands. And i'm worried about thermals in the 14" chassis.

Unfortunately 24GB isn't enough for me anymore. Arrrgh.:eek:
 
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I've just upgraded from the MacBook Pro 14" M1 Pro, 16GB/1TB to the MacBook Pro 14" M4, 16GB/1TB.
I didn't want to upgrade originally--my M1 Pro MacBook Pro still performs perfectly. I was going to hold on until Apple releases a cellular MacBook Pro, which may happen once they make their own modems and integrate them in the chip.

What really tipped me over is the nano texture. Holy moly that display is amazing. I'll finally be able to work from the beach without brighness being at 200% to fight reflections!!

Wi-Fi 6E on this machine is meh. I have a Ubiquiti Wi-Fi 7 AP and the speeds are just as bad as on the M1.

IMG_9730 Small.jpeg
IMG_9729 Small.jpeg
 
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DeanCorp said:
I bought a UniFi U7 Pro and the WiFi 7 on my iPhone 16 Pro Max is incredible 980Mbps standing directly in front of it. If I walk to our bench which is 5.5m away (still line of sight) I got 197Mbps. I’d happily use 5GHz in terms of speed and reliability.
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Most of that is 6GHz though, not 7.
Wi-Fi 7 on my 16 did not improve the speeds vs my 15 on 6E.
 
What is everybody's thoughts on going to an M3max right now? I found a great deal in the Apple refurb store:
3500€ incl Vat for the maxed out chip with 2tb and 48gb ram...
Maybe that's the smarter move right now, coming from an m1max, if we consider that another upgrade might be due in 2 years already due to the OLED display?
 
LogicalApex said:
That's an expensive outlay just for access to the limited Mac game selection.

I have a PC for gaming. Better selection and performance at a cheaper price.
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Who says it's for a limited Mac game selection? If you don't care about online play (which isn't really possible due to anticheat), and I don't, you can play just about any thing that runs on Windows using Whisky or Crossover combined with the Game Porting Toolkit and play it at a fairly high level. Some games require a little more work than others, but the days of being limited to poorly written Mac Ports, years after the game came out were over when GPTK was released. So if I'm going to spec a gaming PC to go with my Mac, why not just combine the two?
 
I sold my M1 Max MBP and bought the M4 Pro Mac Mini. My MBP was docked on my desk 95% of the time, so I got this to hold me over until the next MBP redesign. 👍
 
venom600 said:
Who says it's for a limited Mac game selection? If you don't care about online play (which isn't really possible due to anticheat), and I don't, you can play just about any thing that runs on Windows using Whisky or Crossover combined with the Game Porting Toolkit and play it at a fairly high level. Some games require a little more work than others, but the days of being limited to poorly written Mac Ports, years after the game came out were over when GPTK was released. So if I'm going to spec a gaming PC to go with my Mac, why not just combine the two?
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Those all make sense, to me, if you already have a Mac for other purposes. It doesn't make a lot of sense, to me anyway, to buy a M4 Max Mac for gaming as your post aimed at doing.

You could buy a Steam Deck for portable gaming with no "hacking" involved.

You could buy a decent gaming PC with access to all of these games, including online support, for less with no "hacking" involved.

But that's just my view.
 
chfilm said:
What is everybody's thoughts on going to an M3max right now? I found a great deal in the Apple refurb store:
3500€ incl Vat for the maxed out chip with 2tb and 48gb ram...
Maybe that's the smarter move right now, coming from an m1max, if we consider that another upgrade might be due in 2 years already due to the OLED display?
Click to expand...
If you find a good deal go for it. M3 Max still very much a good chip
 
DeanL said:
I've just upgraded from the MacBook Pro 14" M1 Pro, 16GB/1TB to the MacBook Pro 14" M4, 16GB/1TB.
I didn't want to upgrade originally--my M1 Pro MacBook Pro still performs perfectly. I was going to hold on until Apple releases a cellular MacBook Pro, which may happen once they make their own modems and integrate them in the chip.

What really tipped me over is the nano texture. Holy moly that display is amazing. I'll finally be able to work from the beach without brighness being at 200% to fight reflections!!

Wi-Fi 6E on this machine is meh. I have a Ubiquiti Wi-Fi 7 AP and the speeds are just as bad as on the M1.

View attachment 2452592View attachment 2452593
Click to expand...
Had a change of mind myself. Had convinced myself that a matte screen protector (like the ones I have on my iPad Pro and M1 Pro are as good as nano texture);

Bought the high end 14" unit in store and have been struggling to find any downsides.
I am even starting to like the black colour (got a black iPad Pro and a black iPhone too); think this one is a keeper!
 
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Kylo83 said:
Anyone with m1 shouldn’t go to m4 it’s not worth it, for better benchmarks that don’t translate to real world. 99% of people will be able to do everything on the M1 Max so what if you save 30 second export time
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Exactly

 
DeanL said:
I've just upgraded from the MacBook Pro 14" M1 Pro, 16GB/1TB to the MacBook Pro 14" M4, 16GB/1TB.
I didn't want to upgrade originally--my M1 Pro MacBook Pro still performs perfectly. I was going to hold on until Apple releases a cellular MacBook Pro, which may happen once they make their own modems and integrate them in the chip.

What really tipped me over is the nano texture. Holy moly that display is amazing. I'll finally be able to work from the beach without brighness being at 200% to fight reflections!!

Wi-Fi 6E on this machine is meh. I have a Ubiquiti Wi-Fi 7 AP and the speeds are just as bad as on the M1.

View attachment 2452592View attachment 2452593
Click to expand...
I found the UniFi U7 Pro to be meh. How far away are you sitting? When I went directly upstairs (plastered walls and 20cm thick floorboards) I got 200Mbps. Standing directly in front of it I got 980Mbps. I’m back on my UniFi NanoHD and getting 520Mbps consistently. I also found the U7 Pro to get rather hot, plenty of people on Reddit are complaining. I would guess your issue is more with the UniFi AP than the WiFi 6E chip in the MBP.
 
Forgive the question, and I don't mean to hijack but I don't want to create a new thread as I recon some knowledgable folk in this thread could help.....

I currently have a 2022 M1 Max MB Pro 14" 10 Core CPU & 24Core GPU 32gb ram with 1TB HD, but am considering a change to one of the M4 versions, I work outside a lot and the nano screen has real appeal to me. To see the same sort of performance as the above machine what variant would I need to get me closest ?

FWIW I do a lot of photo editing, working with files from Canon R5/R3 for the most part. I typically have Photoshop, Photomechanic, and, for those that might be familiar the Focus software created by Getty running in tandem.

TIA
 
reefer110 said:
Forgive the question, and I don't mean to hijack but I don't want to create a new thread as I recon some knowledgable folk in this thread could help.....

I currently have a 2022 M1 Max MB Pro 14" 10 Core CPU & 24Core GPU 32gb ram with 1TB HD, but am considering a change to one of the M4 versions, I work outside a lot and the nano screen has real appeal to me. To see the same sort of performance as the above machine what variant would I need to get me closest ?

FWIW I do a lot of photo editing, working with files from Canon R5/R3 for the most part. I typically have Photoshop, Photomechanic, and, for those that might be familiar the Focus software created by Getty running in tandem.

TIA
Click to expand...

You'd probably be fine with the M4 Pro. More than fine in fact
 
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DeanCorp said:
I found the UniFi U7 Pro to be meh. How far away are you sitting? When I went directly upstairs (plastered walls and 20cm thick floorboards) I got 200Mbps. Standing directly in front of it I got 980Mbps. I’m back on my UniFi NanoHD and getting 520Mbps consistently. I also found the U7 Pro to get rather hot, plenty of people on Reddit are complaining. I would guess your issue is more with the UniFi AP than the WiFi 6E chip in the MBP.
Click to expand...

A few meters away in the same room.
I don't know that the U7 is the issue--I can only see good reviews? But also I've just re-done speedtests and my iPhone on Wi-Fi 7 and MacBook on 6E match.
Turns out the SpeedTest macOS app is slower than on the website.

But basically my comment stands: Wi-Fi 7 and 6E on iPhone yield similar results probably because it's 2x2 and not 4x4.

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I've had a change of heart. Got a tempting trade-in offer for my M1 Max so i'll be getting rid of it. This will also allow me to 'downgrade' to a 14" MBP

Now just need to test the M4 Pro vs M4 Max to see if i can get away with just the Pro.
 
NickYanakiev said:
Yes. Only to decide I want to give it another chance- really liking the nano texture display. The black colour doesn't cause it to become a fingerprint magnet as I feared either so happy days.
Click to expand...

I would go silver this time even though I much prefer black. The black rubs off with just your finger nails from what I hear.
 
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spiritbox said:
I sold my M1 Max MBP and bought the M4 Pro Mac Mini. My MBP was docked on my desk 95% of the time, so I got this to hold me over until the next MBP redesign. 👍
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I also did something like this and bought the base M4 Pro Mac mini. I wasn't planning to get anything new this year, but my 14-inch M1 Max MBP is docked almost 99% of the time for the past two years.

During my first year of ownership, traveling with my M1 Max bothered me more than I thought and I found myself not needing all that power on the go. So, I got a cheap M1 Air (16GB RAM) for travel and my M1 Max has been just about permanently docked.

This got me thinking that if I am going to have a two computer setup, I don't need them both to be MacBooks. So, I got the base model M4 Pro mini. I haven't sold my M1 Max yet, as I am going to use the mini through the extended return period until January and see if it meets all of my needs.

I was worried about the downgrade in RAM from 32GB to 24GB, but so far, in my daily workflow I haven't noticed any difference. The 12 core M4 Pro is just as fast as my M1 Max and the GPU also seems almost equal, as my M1 Max has the 24 core variant.
 
moldy lunchbox said:
So you wanna get sand on a $2,000+ new laptop?
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Pretty sure I wrote "work from the beach" and not "work in the sand on a beach".
Lots of beaches have longchairs that will prevent my Mac from touching it.
And yeah, I've been working from various beaches around the world since at least 2021 without issues.
 
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