Macbook Pro (14") M3 or M3 Pro - differences for basic usage

[Ugene425]

Dear Macbook readers,

My 'vintage' MacBook Pro 16" 2014 is almost maxed out of memory (256GB) and is falling apart (trackpad doesn't work, a key has come off the keyboard, screen has these weird permanent smudges/blotches/bleeding on it) and so I now need to fork out a lot of money to buy a new device with more memory. Sigh

Given the high cost of Apple toys I try to make them last as long as possible before upgrading. I was leaning towards the M3 Pro on the MBP (with 1 TB storage). However I only really use my current 2014 laptop for viewing photos and doing monthly backups (photos/iphones), YouTube, emailing, streaming Netflix/Prime/Apple TV etc and basic web browsing. No photo/video editing has ever been done. Is the M3 Pro chip overkill as opposed to getting the standard M3 chip which has 8GB RAM? (The M3 chip is £570 cheaper in comparison to the M3 Pro chip). I was leaving towards M3 Pro chip for longevity reasons as I only buy a new laptop once every 10 years or so and really want to make the right decision and don’t want it becoming obsolete anytime soon. That said, £570 is a lot more additional money to fork out IMO for a more powerful chip. It begs the question would I see any of that benefit?

Question - given my basic usage as explained above, do I buy the M3 chip laptop or spend another £570 (say at John Lewis) and go with the more expensive M3 Pro chip. Does anyone have the standard M3 laptop? My concern is would the M3 chip would start to becoming a lot more slow etc after a few years of updating Apple software and having loads of photos stored on it (say 100+GB)? I do wonder if I would see any benefit of spending another £570 for my basic usage? Coming from my 2014 MBP I am sure the standard M3 chip would be leaps and bounds better. The M3 standard chip seems to have the best battery life out of all of them (M3 Pro / M3 Max).

The Macbook Air do not make 1TB memory laptops hence why I am not considering them as an alternative.

If anyone has the M3 Pro and M3 14" laptop I would love to hear your reviews/opinions on here.

Thank you for reading. 😊

 

[specialstyle]

I have the 14 inch M3 Pro but I don't think you would see the benefit of the pro chip... seriously, you should save your money if you're not rendering stuff or really hitting on it hard.

I see what you're saying about the updates slowing things down over time... but that's going to happen no matter what you get. I have a 2012 MacBook with a core i7 that I just upgraded from and while it's definitely slowed down a bit with the newer software.... it's still a really good machine believe it or not.

Hope that helps your decision!

 

[Ugene425]

Thank you for your reply. My 2014 Macbook Pro laptop is still working pretty good too. Just the memory issue along with the screen, missing key and track pad issues. 10 years to own a Mac device/computer is pretty good going I think given how much they update their products! They are just so darn expensive and depreciate so quickly. Interesting hearing you have the M3 Pro 14 inch. Did you go for the new black colour? It does look awesome! I assume you do a lot of video editing/gaming/rendering etc hence why you went for the Pro chip?

Have you ever bought refurbished Mac devices from Apple? You save a little I guess, such as this M3 14":

Refurbished 14-inch MacBook Pro Apple M3 Chip with 8‑Core CPU and 10‑Core GPU - Space Grey - Apple (UK)

Originally released October 202314.2-inch (diagonal) Liquid Retina XDR display;1 3024x1964 native resolution at 254 pixels per inch8GB unified memory1TB SSD2Touch ID1080p FaceTime HD cameraTwo Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports

www.apple.com

 

[specialstyle]

You could always wipe it clean and get an external mouse haha. They are expensive, but if you amortize the cost of the machine over time it's like $200-300 per year for it. I got the dark black one. Yes, I do a lot of video rendering & editing -- I have a desktop I do most of my work on but the old laptop could no longer run the latest final cut pro and thus, I couldn't open the project files anymore -- and since I'm using it as a business expense for a youtube channel (hint hint it becomes a write-off in the states) I figured it was time to pull the trigger.

I often buy refurbished stuff to save money. Apple has a good warranty for their stuff, its as if you bought it new.

I just bought an older 27 inch iMac core i9 from eBay, and it turned out to be basically brand new with the film on the screen and everything and saved money with that. It's actually a better machine than the latest one for my use case! ;-)

 

[DaveEcc]

On Apple's UK site, I see the both 13" and 15" Air can get up to 2TB storage. But yeah, their new prices never have sales... that why you look at refurbs, where you typically get more options than what other stores carry.

On their refurb store (scroll to the bottom of Apple's site to find the link) I see the 13" 16/1TB for 1439, which is just 90 quid than John Lewis's 16/512GB option. A similar slight bump to 1609 from 1549 for the 15".

 

[specialstyle]

You can definitely score a deal on a mac though, you just need to look at other retailers. I know Amazon in UK isn't what it is here, but they're doing a back to school deal right now where you can save some doll-hairs. Also when black Friday rolls around they always do a gift card of some kind to push out the old so that the new M4s can sell.

 

[wordsworth]

Have a look at the Very website as you’re in the UK. They have some deals currently – some reductions and a further 10% on top of those. A couple of weeks ago they had 20% off. I seriously considered the MacBook Pro M3 Pro at the time. I’ll wait until the 20% comes up again and see what’s what. There may even be new Macs by then, too. That may affect any decision making on my part.

 

[bradman83]

The Macbook Air do not make 1TB memory laptops hence why I am not considering them as an alternative.

Do you mean 1TB storage? You conflate memory (RAM) and storage (SSD) a few times in your post.

While it's true that the pre-built MacBook Air units that are carried by third party retailers don't usually include a 1TB configuration you can order directly from Apple and configure a MacBook Air with up to 2TB of storage.

For basic use a regular M3 chip is fine, but I would strongly recommend maximizing the RAM to either 16GB or 24GB, especially if you'd like to keep the laptop for almost as long as your current one. That will have a bigger impact on performance than the chip itself will. (The base M3 chip is as fast as an M1 Pro/Max chip in CPU multicore from three years ago).

One advantage of going with the M3 Pro is that you get 18GB of RAM by default and it's easier to find models with 1TB of storage at third party retailers. Assuming Apple updates the MacBook Pro series to the M4 variants during the fall timeframe this year you can probably snag a clearance deal from Amazon or an electronics retailer on the outgoing M3 models.

 

[Ugene425]

Yes sorry 1 TB storage. Having spoken to Apple sales support yesterday they said why not buy a 512TB M3 Pro and then use iCloud to save all my photos etc. As well as saving myself over £300 in the process. Longevity is key for me as cannot afford to keep upgrading the device every 3-4 years or so. I look after my device and hope I can get 10 years out of the new one. I am leaning towards the M3 Pro due to it having more ‘unified memory’ and longevity.

Apple refurb shop (UK) are selling M3 Pro in that cool space black for just over £2k. https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...cea27435c8d8d12c7ec9a3a2bdaf7dd6ad6d636d86975

I knows it slight overkill for my needs but with various Apple software updates offer the course of the next 3-4 years this will easily handle it.

Is the iCloud worth using and loading all my photos going back 10-15 years onto? Also is it worth having them all on the laptop if you buy one TB?

 

[Ugene425]

You can definitely score a deal on a mac though, you just need to look at other retailers. I know Amazon in UK isn't what it is here, but they're doing a back to school deal right now where you can save some doll-hairs. Also when black Friday rolls around they always do a gift card of some kind to push out the old so that the new M4s can sell.

Thanks. I have been looking at Apple refurbished macs as they are slightly cheaper. John Lewis is a popular website in UK and they come with a two year warranty as standard. I think I will buy a refurbished one from Apple and pay £100 annually for Apple care. Here is one:

Refurbished 14-inch MacBook Pro Apple M3 Pro Chip with 12‑Core CPU and 18‑Core GPU - Space Black

Originally released October 2023 14.2-inch (diagonal) Liquid Retina XDR display;¹ 3024x1964 native resolution at 254 pixels per inch 18GB unified memory 1TB SSD² Touch ID 1080p FaceTime HD camera Three Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports

www.apple.com

 

[bellflyer14]

I didn't need the pro chip but I scored a deal on an excellent condition open box M3 Pro MBP 14" from Best Buy here in the U.S. On sale for $500 off making it $1499. Found an open box for $1413. This machine should last me a good long while

 

[DrWojtek]

You should get the regular M3 with 16 GB of RAM (16 GB RAM is important) with at least 512 GB SSD.
Whether or not you choose an Air or a Pro is up to you and the prices you find. The active cooling on the Pro is not needed for your use cases at all. But you might enjoy the better screen if you enjoy watching media on it.

Amazon and Best Buy have had numerous deals on these lately. Maybe some other store if you are not in the US?

And I would go with an external 1 TB SSD for about 100 bucks over an iCloud sub.

You will not benefit from the M3 Pro horsepower at all, the M3 is sufficient. I have more advanced use cases than you and I would be fine with an M3. I use a 2018 8850H Intel CPU, waiting for M4 or M5.

That being said, if you find a really great deal on an M3 Pro, why not?

 

[Ugene425]

You should get the regular M3 with 16 GB of RAM (16 GB RAM is important) with at least 512 GB SSD.
Whether or not you choose an Air or a Pro is up to you and the prices you find. The active cooling on the Pro is not needed for your use cases at all. But you might enjoy the better screen if you enjoy watching media on it.

Amazon and Best Buy have had numerous deals on these lately. Maybe some other store if you are not in the US?

And I would go with an external 1 TB SSD for about 100 bucks over an iCloud sub.

You will not benefit from the M3 Pro horsepower at all, the M3 is sufficient. I have more advanced use cases than you and I would be fine with an M3. I use a 2018 8850H Intel CPU, waiting for M4 or M5.

That being said, if you find a really great deal on an M3 Pro, why not?

Thank you. Currently here in the UK there are no 16GB+ RAM on the M3 14" refurbished Macbook Pro on the Apple website. I feel the 512GB will be fine for the next few years but going forward after that I might regret not having the 1TB. £2,200 is what I would pay for a M3 Pro refurbished space black model, 14". 1TB storage with 18GB RAM/Unified Memory.

Having spoken to Apple they were really praising how good the icloud now is (in conjunction with Apple improving their AI) or storing 100+ GB of photos/videos etc. Have you found this? From what I understand, you can still view all the photos on your mac/ipad/iphone but the memory is radically reduced as it is all stored on the icloud?

 

[DrWojtek]

Thank you. Currently here in the UK there are no 16GB+ RAM on the M3 14" refurbished Macbook Pro on the Apple website. I feel the 512GB will be fine for the next few years but going forward after that I might regret not having the 1TB. £2,200 is what I would pay for a M3 Pro refurbished space black model, 14". 1TB storage with 18GB RAM/Unified Memory.

Having spoken to Apple they were really praising how good the icloud now is (in conjunction with Apple improving their AI) or storing 100+ GB of photos/videos etc. Have you found this? From what I understand, you can still view all the photos on your mac/ipad/iphone but the memory is radically reduced as it is all stored on the icloud?

Sorry, I do not use iCloud for photo backups. Can't tell you anything there. But I cannot stress the point more that whatever you do, do not get an M3 with just 8 GB RAM. It will become sluggish in just a year probably. macOS will require more than 8GB for normal use case very soon, if not already.

 

[specialstyle]

Thanks. I have been looking at Apple refurbished macs as they are slightly cheaper. John Lewis is a popular website in UK and they come with a two year warranty as standard. I think I will buy a refurbished one from Apple and pay £100 annually for Apple care. Here is one:

Refurbished 14-inch MacBook Pro Apple M3 Pro Chip with 12‑Core CPU and 18‑Core GPU - Space Black

Originally released October 2023 14.2-inch (diagonal) Liquid Retina XDR display;¹ 3024x1964 native resolution at 254 pixels per inch 18GB unified memory 1TB SSD² Touch ID 1080p FaceTime HD camera Three Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports

www.apple.com

yeah I would do that. Even refurbished you won't know the difference. Sometimes it's an open box return, or they realized they can't afford it or something... and you get the savings ;-)

 

[Ugene425]

Thanks chaps 😊