First, my order: 14" Space Black MBP M3 Max 16/40 64GB 2TB
For reference, I'm coming from a 16" MBP Intel i9 2.3GHz Radeon 5300 32GB 2TB and iMac 27" 5K Intel i9 3.6GHz Vega 48 64GB 2TB. I work from home, multitask pretty heavily, and this is replacing both devices. I have a couple 4K displays I plan to dock it to in my studio, but today I tested it on battery.
My machine arrived yesterday mid-afternoon. I spent much of yesterday afternoon and evening setting everything up from scratch. Today, I had my first full work day, and it was a fairly busy day at that. These are my first day impressions that I jotted down:
For reference, I'm coming from a 16" MBP Intel i9 2.3GHz Radeon 5300 32GB 2TB and iMac 27" 5K Intel i9 3.6GHz Vega 48 64GB 2TB. I work from home, multitask pretty heavily, and this is replacing both devices. I have a couple 4K displays I plan to dock it to in my studio, but today I tested it on battery.
My machine arrived yesterday mid-afternoon. I spent much of yesterday afternoon and evening setting everything up from scratch. Today, I had my first full work day, and it was a fairly busy day at that. These are my first day impressions that I jotted down:
- Love the color, it's similar to my car.
- Fingerprints don't seem to be of much concern. They exist somewhat but it doesn't bother me.
- I'm actually glad that it's not black, it looks distinguished from other laptop brands, and it looks darker in person than in the studio lighting of the reviewers online.
- Speed is absurd, everything is fluid and amazing.
- I doubt I will fully tap this power very often. Should last me the rest of this decade if I don't break it. Daily tasks are effortless.
- Installing everything from scratch took about half the time it did on my iMac, which I installed from scratch this time last year because it was having some software issues. With this hefty CPU and crazy fast SSDs, apps install in no time at all. I blasted right through all of that. Typically apps would install before I could go retrieve the next app to install. Honestly my 1Gbps fiber was a big limiting factor!
- I'm actually wondering if there is something to what Apple claims about the unified memory being like extra memory?
- For instance, on my old Intel iMac with 64GB memory, it typically uses 42-48GB most days (and if I'm doing something really crazy, it might peak around 58-60GB). After a full and busy workday of multitasking, this thing was hovering in the 30-34GB range in iStat. That's at least 8GB LOWER than normal.
- This thing shares RAM between the CPU and GPU, so I fully expected usage to be at least 8GB HIGHER. I cannot explain this, Apple is doing witchcraft. Glad I didn't pay for more than 64GB. Honestly, 48GB probably would've been fine, but at least I am fully future proof in that regard and it's only a difference of $200.
- Display is gorgeous, fluid, bright and contrasty.
- ProMotion is nice but I don't notice it as much as I do the excellent contrast and color reproduction, especially in the peak highlights like the sun in an HDR video, which looks unreal.
- The MiniLED sort of bloom seems to bother me less on here than on my iPad for whatever reason. Not saying my iPad is bad, I actually like that display, just in some situations it's more noticeable. Does this thing have more dimming zones? I also don't keep my display on the highest brightness setting most of the time, where the small amount of bleed is typically more apparent. Theory: Maybe the high HDR brightness dilates pupils enough to not notice the small light bleed in the darkness?
- Even though it's 14", it's actually roughly the same resolution as my old, bigger 16”, which was surprising. So I can run it at a higher resolution and have more desktop space. I'm running it scaled so I have more desktop space and the PPI is high enough that it doesn't matter or bother me, and I'm fairly particular. Although some text is on the small side, I may have more problems with this as I get older which may result in less screen space and push me back towards a 16". For now it's fine.
- Battery lasts a very long time.
- The main thing that drained my battery was a 90 minute Zoom meeting that started 30 minutes into my workday. In the first two hours I used about 25% of my battery, but then I realized that I had left it on high power mode after some testing last night, and I had some effects on like Studio Light and that gesture detection that I need to turn off.
- I put it on low power mode the rest of the day, including listening to about three hours of music this afternoon at about 40% volume. By the end of the workday, my battery was at 20%. And again, this is the day where I'm on video calls the most, usually, and it was a heavier work day. Perfect. Probably won't even need low power mode most days unless I'm working and watching video during a long day of travel.
- Notch is fine since it's tucked into the menu bar. I installed TopNotch which completely hides it, and that blends well with the dark mode that I already love to use all day. I've also used Bartender for years so my many icons don't run into it. Looks very good overall with the way I have it setup.
- Feels more solid and high quality than I expected compared to my old Intel machine.
- Doesn't flex or creak. It is just nice to touch and the sides feel less sharp. The top display portion feels better, not exactly sure why.
- 14" is the perfect size to me. Weight difference vs. 16" is quite noticeable, but still not as jarring as a MacBook Air. 14" just seems like such a great intermediate size. Looking forward to those bezels pushing all the way into the corners on my next one!
- The speakers are much fuller than I expected out of a 14" device. At least as good as my old 16", maybe even a little better? No longer have it so can't directly compare. I'm no audiophile but I'm able to recognize quality and these are great for what they are.
- It doesn't get hot.
- The fans are at 0 about 95% of the time after it quickly cranks through whatever I throw at it so most of the time it's dead quiet.
- I actually wish it was a little warmer because it's winter—it's almost cool on my lap most of the time! But it's great to be able to use it in my lap all day without problems, very much unlike my old Intel MBP. I'm sure it will be great in the summer!
- The power usage is so low, it's usually hovering between 8-15W in iStat. This is a fraction of my old iMac, enough to probably actually notice a small difference on my energy bill. We have a newer home and keep things fairly efficient around here.
- It is so nice to have ports back!
- Especially the SD card reader. No dongles for me! And no HDMI dongles when traveling. Nice.
- MagSafe! My kids have already tripped on the cord and my MBP barely moved after the cable went flying when I had it plugged in while doing setup stuff yesterday evening. I remember with my old MBP, which I didn't use portable very often because it ran so hot and the performance suffered, I would have to be very careful with my cable and device placement to keep it safe from children tripping on it. Wish Apple would make a longer MagSafe cable, but a two foot high quality braided USB-C extension cable should work.
- No Touch Bar! It's great to have a real ESC key. It's also so much faster to hit buttons for controls across the top. Even the TouchID button feels better since it's more like an iPhone home button style ring now. Sorry, not sorry, the Touch Bar was a gimmick.
- I love being able to run some iPad and iPhone apps. Sure, Mac apps are always better, but when there's no alternative? Better than nothing!
- I wish more were made available, especially Things because it's $50 and I already shelled out for the iPad app and iPhone app and it's basically the same as those. Too bad side loading was killed off. I figured there would be a way around it since this is a Mac, but I haven't been able to find a solution. I wish Apple would leave it up to us. Not sure if the EU rulings will play into this in some way.
- I'm surprised that some apps, like RadarScope, that usually require a separate subscription for the Mac app are allowed so I don't have to pay for a subscription twice. The apps are not very different. And I'm glad that I can easily view my Tempest Weather Station from my Mac now, and change settings for my Eve home devices, view my Traeger grill temperature, and more.
- It's nice to be able to click on some of these Widgets and have them open the Mac app instead of having a message about opening on my iPhone. Feels more seamless and slick.
