So, after my first MBP came with a broken screen, a few days ago, I finally got a new one. 16", base model, 1Tb SSD, Space Gray. And I am amazed how good it is. But it's not just about the amazing performance. Or the insane battery life. What really amazed me is how well rounded this computer is. Apple Silicon is so good - and not just because of the speed or efficiency.
The "little" things
- Attaching or detaching an external display, turning Side Car on or off, moving displays around (left or right to the MacBook's screen), changing resolution - is instant now. There is no screen flicker, turning to black or anything - it is instant. You attach a monitor, it lights up. You detach it - windows just transfer to the built-in screen. You change the resolution - elements just resize. For years I thought screens had to flicker, turn off and back on - whenever you change these things - but no, no they don't.
- I see a lot of people comparing Apple and Intel/AMD CPUs based on benchmarks, but they are missing the point. It's not that Apple chips are faster per watt (they are), it's that they make the Mac feel more like a different kind of computer. For me, Macs were like PCs but with nicer hardware and nicer OS. But now, these feel like a different class of device. It's like a jump from HDD to SSD. Having a second GPU, hearing fans for most things, waiting for anything during regular use - feels like hard drive platters and mechanical parts compared to solid state draves. Other PC CPUs can even win at benchmarks at this point - I'd still choose Apple Silicon because of how they make using a Mac feel.
- iOS and iPad apps actually work fine. Better than I expected. Sure, they are not built for Mac, but they are surprisingly usable. iPad art apps support Wacom pressure sensitivity. Media apps that support Files on iOS/iPadOS open files from your disk like regular apps. They all work extremely fast and are smooth. Their widgets work. Like, if you told me Overcast was a Mac app, I'd believe you. Of all apps I tried - IKEA app was the only one that had an issue, as it detected my Mac as a jailbroken device
Hardware
- Keyboard is great, speakers are great, the computer looks amazing. You know all that - to quote Han Solo: It's true. All of it.
- The screen is something else. Look, I've heard of people complain about ghosting, response times, flicker. I don't know what to tell you - if you're one of those people, you know what you like and what you dislike. For me - this screen looks amazing. HDR looks insane. Blacks are OLED level. Colors pop. Viewing angles are great. It looks just as good, if not better than my iPad Pro mini LED screen. And if it wasn't for blooming, it would look better than my OLED TV for media consumption (and it's close).
- Speaking of HDR, not really a hardware feature, but macOS has amazing HDR support. Compared to Windows, it's such a huge difference. Not only can you get "localized" HDR on the screen (like, just in the YT window, or within the frame of a photo) while the rest of the screen is SDR - you get the same effect on external HDR screens that support local dimming zones or have self-emissive displays. It works great on my OLED TV.
- The computer is silent and cool. It takes an effort to get it warm and to hear the fans. Ironically, fans are quieter than any previous generation, or any laptop I've ever tried.
- I don't know if it's the chip or the new sensor, but Touch ID is insanely fast. I barely tap the button and it registers. I've used Touch ID on iPhones, iPads and Macs - this one feels faster.
- The hinge feels really nice.
RAM
- I've always said that some people need 32 or 64Gb RAM, but not everyone - and for me, 16Gb is certainly enough. And I'm not a casual user either. I opened up Blender, Zbrush, Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint and opened some heavy projects in those apps. My Mac was just as responsive. Then I opened several tabs with big Artstation images. Then I opened a few tabs with ClickUp documents, which spend around 1Gb each. Then, just for kicks, I opened World of Warcraft alongside those (I subbed again just to test this out 🙂). I have no idea in what universe I'd ever want a game open alongside those things, but hey, why not. Everything ran smoothly. I was multitasking and working without lag and getting back to some smooth frame-rates in Shadowlands. I completely understand some projects benefit from 32 or 64Gb, but I'm really starting to doubt some claims here how their MacBooks were laggy because of 16Gb RAM.
- Speaking of RAM, Activity Monitor on my previous MacBook was almost always in the green, but the swap file was several gigabytes in size. Here, it rarely uses swap at all - it's usually 0 or a couple of tens or hundreds of Mb. The pressure does go into yellow more often, but it rarely swaps (it compresses memory it seems, and does some dark magic behind the scenes, I have no idea, but it almost always hovers between 10 and 14Gb no matter what I have open). It never gets slow or irresponsive (and I did try to get it to lag). I usually told people to check their memory pressure, but now I'd just say - don't even look at it. Is the computer slow or unresponsive? No? Good, you're fine (and even if it does lag, people seem to attribute every slowdown to RAM for some reason). With that said, when I did manage to get it to swap (by, um, running WoW alongside Blender, Zbrush, Photoshop and CSP as I said), it also didn't slow down.
- There's definitely a reason to get more RAM if your projects are huge. There really is. I keep saying: it's not Apple's conspiracy to get you to spend more - if you need it, you know you need it, you can have it. But for a lot of workflows - maybe even most workflows - comparing RAM between these new Macs and old Macs and PCs is like comparing RAM on iPhones and Android devices. RAM is RAM, true, Apple is not magically increasing the value of a Gigabyte with unicorn dust - but how well a computer runs and how responsive it is - that's a separate thing, and the rules are different here.
The "little" things
- Attaching or detaching an external display, turning Side Car on or off, moving displays around (left or right to the MacBook's screen), changing resolution - is instant now. There is no screen flicker, turning to black or anything - it is instant. You attach a monitor, it lights up. You detach it - windows just transfer to the built-in screen. You change the resolution - elements just resize. For years I thought screens had to flicker, turn off and back on - whenever you change these things - but no, no they don't.
- I see a lot of people comparing Apple and Intel/AMD CPUs based on benchmarks, but they are missing the point. It's not that Apple chips are faster per watt (they are), it's that they make the Mac feel more like a different kind of computer. For me, Macs were like PCs but with nicer hardware and nicer OS. But now, these feel like a different class of device. It's like a jump from HDD to SSD. Having a second GPU, hearing fans for most things, waiting for anything during regular use - feels like hard drive platters and mechanical parts compared to solid state draves. Other PC CPUs can even win at benchmarks at this point - I'd still choose Apple Silicon because of how they make using a Mac feel.
- iOS and iPad apps actually work fine. Better than I expected. Sure, they are not built for Mac, but they are surprisingly usable. iPad art apps support Wacom pressure sensitivity. Media apps that support Files on iOS/iPadOS open files from your disk like regular apps. They all work extremely fast and are smooth. Their widgets work. Like, if you told me Overcast was a Mac app, I'd believe you. Of all apps I tried - IKEA app was the only one that had an issue, as it detected my Mac as a jailbroken device
Hardware
- Keyboard is great, speakers are great, the computer looks amazing. You know all that - to quote Han Solo: It's true. All of it.
- The screen is something else. Look, I've heard of people complain about ghosting, response times, flicker. I don't know what to tell you - if you're one of those people, you know what you like and what you dislike. For me - this screen looks amazing. HDR looks insane. Blacks are OLED level. Colors pop. Viewing angles are great. It looks just as good, if not better than my iPad Pro mini LED screen. And if it wasn't for blooming, it would look better than my OLED TV for media consumption (and it's close).
- Speaking of HDR, not really a hardware feature, but macOS has amazing HDR support. Compared to Windows, it's such a huge difference. Not only can you get "localized" HDR on the screen (like, just in the YT window, or within the frame of a photo) while the rest of the screen is SDR - you get the same effect on external HDR screens that support local dimming zones or have self-emissive displays. It works great on my OLED TV.
- The computer is silent and cool. It takes an effort to get it warm and to hear the fans. Ironically, fans are quieter than any previous generation, or any laptop I've ever tried.
- I don't know if it's the chip or the new sensor, but Touch ID is insanely fast. I barely tap the button and it registers. I've used Touch ID on iPhones, iPads and Macs - this one feels faster.
- The hinge feels really nice.
RAM
- I've always said that some people need 32 or 64Gb RAM, but not everyone - and for me, 16Gb is certainly enough. And I'm not a casual user either. I opened up Blender, Zbrush, Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint and opened some heavy projects in those apps. My Mac was just as responsive. Then I opened several tabs with big Artstation images. Then I opened a few tabs with ClickUp documents, which spend around 1Gb each. Then, just for kicks, I opened World of Warcraft alongside those (I subbed again just to test this out 🙂). I have no idea in what universe I'd ever want a game open alongside those things, but hey, why not. Everything ran smoothly. I was multitasking and working without lag and getting back to some smooth frame-rates in Shadowlands. I completely understand some projects benefit from 32 or 64Gb, but I'm really starting to doubt some claims here how their MacBooks were laggy because of 16Gb RAM.
- Speaking of RAM, Activity Monitor on my previous MacBook was almost always in the green, but the swap file was several gigabytes in size. Here, it rarely uses swap at all - it's usually 0 or a couple of tens or hundreds of Mb. The pressure does go into yellow more often, but it rarely swaps (it compresses memory it seems, and does some dark magic behind the scenes, I have no idea, but it almost always hovers between 10 and 14Gb no matter what I have open). It never gets slow or irresponsive (and I did try to get it to lag). I usually told people to check their memory pressure, but now I'd just say - don't even look at it. Is the computer slow or unresponsive? No? Good, you're fine (and even if it does lag, people seem to attribute every slowdown to RAM for some reason). With that said, when I did manage to get it to swap (by, um, running WoW alongside Blender, Zbrush, Photoshop and CSP as I said), it also didn't slow down.
- There's definitely a reason to get more RAM if your projects are huge. There really is. I keep saying: it's not Apple's conspiracy to get you to spend more - if you need it, you know you need it, you can have it. But for a lot of workflows - maybe even most workflows - comparing RAM between these new Macs and old Macs and PCs is like comparing RAM on iPhones and Android devices. RAM is RAM, true, Apple is not magically increasing the value of a Gigabyte with unicorn dust - but how well a computer runs and how responsive it is - that's a separate thing, and the rules are different here.
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