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MacBook Pro M3 Pro --- 14" or 16"?
- Thread starter sidgriffey
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Because the base model has an M3 chip, rather than an M3 Pro, with 8GB of RAM. Last year’s base model 14” had an M2 Pro chip with 16GB of RAM. The base model M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14” is the same price as last year.
The new base model replaces the old 13” M2 MacBook Pro.
Apple’s marketing got you on this one. In the M1 and M2 generations, the 14” models started with a binned Pro chip for $2000. This new “cheaper” 14” model comes with a vanilla M3 chip. The Pro chip still starts at $2000.
The better comparison is to the $1300 Touch Bar 13” model that this new 14” is replacing. The new 14” is $300 more. Though, that money does get you a much nicer quality screen, more ports, better speakers, and an overall more modern design. I’d say it’s probably worth the trade off. But it was really disingenuous of Apple to claim they were making the 14” cheaper. It’s not an apples to apples (pardon the pun) comparison.
I figured there would be some answer like this. I’m glad I asked and I appreciate both of you spelling this out for me!
Curious did anyone go from a 13" to the 14" and was it a big enough jump that you're satisfied? From my M1 MBA anything is big upside I guess, but still afraid the 14" will feel cramped compared to the 16" for important stuff.
Sort of. I went from the M1 MBA to the 15" MBA, then a 16" MBP, and back to a 14".
Finally found my happy medium with the base M3 Max MBP 14". Love the performance and haven't heard the fans at all during a 10-minute denoise session of 306 RAW images. My previous 16" M1 Max took 33% longer to complete the same task.
The 15" and 16" MacBooks are great but they're a tad too wide for me and uncomfortable for lap and couch use.
14” felt a lot better than my 13” vs my 16”.
interesting. I have a 16 inch currently. In the past have had 2 MacBooks but found it frustrating to manage both i.e. keeping them synced (iCloud does help) and charged. Trouble is can only use one Mac at a time and I found my self using one more than another.
I went from my M1 14" MBP to the M3 Pro 16". K don't travel with my MacBook's, I have iPad's for that so the 16" just sits on my desk most of the time. The thing I struggled with is the M3 Pro vs M3 Max. At the end of the day, for my needs, I didn't think the extra cost of the Max was worth it. The M3 Pro is plenty enough for most people.
There's a bunch of battery life videos on YouTube. The 16" is the winner. But, of course, it's bigger, thicker and heavier.
16 in for Screen Size and Longer Battery life.
14 in for Portability and Weight.
Both are great machines.
14 in for Portability and Weight.
Both are great machines.
I returned my 16" Max which had 36 RAM, less cores and 1 TB. 1 TB wasn't enough for the long term. And the machines depreciate a lot, so I wanted to get at least 2TB, and actually, I need 4TB. I still have a costly plastic casing for it too. Since I still have it, indicates I am still thinking about a 16". I bought the cover to ensure the machine if returned, was as good as new. And I have some hard floors so a cover prevents a ding. If found the notebook quite heavy and very bulky compared to my 15.4" MacBook Pro. It felt so too without the cover. I had measured it compared to my 15.4", and thought they'd feel much the same. But the squareness makes a radical difference. I know now why Apple / Ives sacrificed various things to provide the 15.4" with tapered edges. They make it much easier to pop in a bag. I guess too with less ports, the old form factor reduced weight as well.
The lack of affordable internal drive capacity has become a killer for me. Especially since it is not upgradable. I do some CAD stuff too so the M3 had a bit of appeal. But I may just get a refurb M2 MacBook 14" with some disk capacity. I feel ripped off paying 3 times the price for internal storage capacity. With a 14", I could just sit a bit closer to the screen. The alternative is a 15" macbook Air, and a desktop. My Mac Pro desktop does need to be replaced. I thought the 16" might achieve that. But the MacPro has got so much beautiful drive capacity ... and they are designed to last. Notebooks seemed designed to wear out much earlier than a desktop.
I'm starting to think Windoze. A 16" Framework looks more responsible to me. Why should we be making things planned to be land fill?
The lack of affordable internal drive capacity has become a killer for me. Especially since it is not upgradable. I do some CAD stuff too so the M3 had a bit of appeal. But I may just get a refurb M2 MacBook 14" with some disk capacity. I feel ripped off paying 3 times the price for internal storage capacity. With a 14", I could just sit a bit closer to the screen. The alternative is a 15" macbook Air, and a desktop. My Mac Pro desktop does need to be replaced. I thought the 16" might achieve that. But the MacPro has got so much beautiful drive capacity ... and they are designed to last. Notebooks seemed designed to wear out much earlier than a desktop.
I'm starting to think Windoze. A 16" Framework looks more responsible to me. Why should we be making things planned to be land fill?
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I did the same thing, returning a 16" MBP due to weight. While 4.5 lbs in absolute terms isn't heavy, my main reasons for returning were explicitly size and weight. I had grown too accustomed to my lighter 13" rMBP and M1 MBA and the 16" just took up too much desk space and felt bulky just lugging around the house. I ultimately landed with a 14" Space Black M3 Max and love it!
As for storage, I desired more than 1TB but didn't deviate from the base M3 Max configuration and instead put the money in fast external NVMe storage. For less than the cost of adding 1TB (for a total of 2TB) from Apple, I instead purchased a 4TB Western Digital Black SN850X and external Thunderbolt case. Sure, I have to connect the external Thunderbolt NVMe drive but the speeds rival the internal storage of the MBP, and now I have 5TB combined compared to 2TB from Apple.
My other option is 20TB of space on my Synology NAS, accessible with four Gigabit connections. At some point I will upgrade the NAS and network switch to 10GbE.
As for storage, I desired more than 1TB but didn't deviate from the base M3 Max configuration and instead put the money in fast external NVMe storage. For less than the cost of adding 1TB (for a total of 2TB) from Apple, I instead purchased a 4TB Western Digital Black SN850X and external Thunderbolt case. Sure, I have to connect the external Thunderbolt NVMe drive but the speeds rival the internal storage of the MBP, and now I have 5TB combined compared to 2TB from Apple.
My other option is 20TB of space on my Synology NAS, accessible with four Gigabit connections. At some point I will upgrade the NAS and network switch to 10GbE.
Very interesting.
My Mac Pro has a Highpoint PCI raid card in it. It has two of its four slots filled, each being WD 2 TB 750 NVME units. The card provides with RAID O 4TB so the NVME card's speed is really not relevant, at least in an old Mac with slow PCI slots anyway. It runs though at about 5,500.
But if I bought an external case, I would be restricted by the speed of Thunderbolt 3 (which for an external is the same at Thunderbolt 4). If Thunderbolt 5 arrived in a Mac notebook, that would lower the bottleneck a lot I presume. It should be at least twice as fast. But of course, whether an affordable external PCI case with T5 would arrive, that would work connected to an Mac, is doubtful. There was a razer notebook shown at CES that claimed it was had a T5 port.
I have thought about you solution, but thought it would be too slow ... and T5 with external drive bays that would work connected to Apple, would cost Apple a lot of profit.
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