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MBP 16" (2019) base model vs MBP 14" M1 base model
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Will you be okay with the loss in screen real estate and potentially slightly worse speakers?
If you are, then yeah, the base 14" will be a very nice machine. I went with the 13" Pro M1 last year to replace my 16" MacBook Pro as well. The CPU was a nice improvement, but the GPU left much to be desired. It made sense: the M1 couldn't have possibly provided enough performance to match the 5500M with 8GB VRAM.
Then the 14" and 16" were announced and I jumped on them immediately. The 16" was very nice, but the added heft and bulk wasn't for me, plus the M1 Max was way overkill for my needs, so I sent it back and picked a 14" with 10 cores. That seems to be it: the M1 Pro is indeed faster than the 5500M with 8GB VRAM at all of the tasks that I needed the GPU for. The CPU is indeed also a lot faster than M1, and thus nicer than the Core i9.
Everything else... like how cool and quiet the device runs overall, the much better display, longer battery life, etc... are just icing on the cake.
If you are, then yeah, the base 14" will be a very nice machine. I went with the 13" Pro M1 last year to replace my 16" MacBook Pro as well. The CPU was a nice improvement, but the GPU left much to be desired. It made sense: the M1 couldn't have possibly provided enough performance to match the 5500M with 8GB VRAM.
Then the 14" and 16" were announced and I jumped on them immediately. The 16" was very nice, but the added heft and bulk wasn't for me, plus the M1 Max was way overkill for my needs, so I sent it back and picked a 14" with 10 cores. That seems to be it: the M1 Pro is indeed faster than the 5500M with 8GB VRAM at all of the tasks that I needed the GPU for. The CPU is indeed also a lot faster than M1, and thus nicer than the Core i9.
Everything else... like how cool and quiet the device runs overall, the much better display, longer battery life, etc... are just icing on the cake.
Thank you for your review. Looks like M1 really worth for getting one. But, as I know, Bootcamp is still unavailable on M1. Really hard to decide
Single core performance is essentially the same as the M1 13. The 14’s battery life is significantly worse than the 13 M1. There are now enough battery test videos on YouTube to prove this. Surprisingly, the new 16 has better battery than the 13 M1 in certain use cases.
Bootcamp will probably never be available for the M1 Macs.Thank you for your review. Looks like M1 really worth for getting one. But, as I know, Bootcamp is still unavailable on M1. Really hard to decide
If you are comfortable with the size and weight of your 16" then I would recommend the base 16" MBP. Runs cooler than the 14" MBP with better battery life and if you spec the 14" with the same version of the M1 Pro and the same RAM and SSD, the extra cost is minimal.
Many apps are multithreaded now and are basically running at least 50% faster than M1.
Battery life in the 14" is not "significantly worse." If the 13" Pro was pushed to use its GPU, it also barely lasts 5 hours.
Battery tests on Youtube do not take into account indexing time initially and all of them were rushed to get reviews out. In actual use, I have lost maybe 2 hours of battery life compared to the 13" Pro, but I'm still getting 12 hours or so. The 13" Pro does not last that long when its screen brightness is above 50% and my office is very bright.
16" is indeed the better choice but it's also much more bulky and heavy. Not suitable as a travel machine at all. Not to mention there's the speaker pop issue that Apple has not fixed since the 2019 model.
This is not true. The 14" has better battery life when you consider that the 14" often finishes tasks faster.
The 14" was clearly ahead of the 13" in battery life in productivity tasks.
When GPU tests kicked in, the 14" lost because it had twice the number of GPU cores. But you're getting way better performance.
Maybe in pure web browsing/video streaming, the 13" has more battery life. But as soon as you do anything moderately intense, the 14" seems to pull ahead.
it depend on usage . If you do video editing , maybe m1 leverage a bit more. If you do software development like me , it much not diff unless you do data crunching in your laptop instead of server.If you travel , go get it quick . The battery management is awesome.
The 16” is better at everything except portability.
So the question is, how important is portability to you to give up performance and battery life?
I believe Max Tech returned his 16” for this reason also, while acknowledging that the 16” is a superior machine in every way, he simply “enjoys” the portability of the 14” more.
So the question is, how important is portability to you to give up performance and battery life?
I believe Max Tech returned his 16” for this reason also, while acknowledging that the 16” is a superior machine in every way, he simply “enjoys” the portability of the 14” more.
for moderate use, the M1 13 destroys the 14 and the argument that the 14 has better battery life because it finishes tasks faster than the M1 13 is not practical comparison for most people. even when video editing, the M1 13 destroys the 14.
The 14's battery life is below 6 hours when using more than 50% brightness. There are multiple tests confirming that. You are the only person it seems that has struck gold in purchasing a 14 MBP with decent battery life. But even your unicorn is inferior to the battery life of the M1 13 and new 16.
I have been using my 14" at 80% brightness for a long while. It still lasts 9-10 hours. Even max brightness lasts longer.
As for other people, they must not be monitoring their usage properly. Monterey has memory leak and runaway process issues. I personally saw WindowServer reaching 100% until the MacBook was restarted. This was resolved by tweaking the right things in Safari. I doubt other reviewers have time to look, so they are most likely running into this issue as well, and that's why their battery is so abysmal.
And I have had a 13" Pro with M1. It is not "vastly" superior. With the same usage as the 14", the 13" doesn't last that much longer either. But it does perform TWICE as fast as the 13" Pro M1 at basically all of the "pro" tasks that I do (Capture One Pro and Fusion 360). This can clearly be seen from other reviews as well.
If you need proof that I had the 13" Pro M1, I still have the listing where I tried to sell the computer. Again, it DOES NOT last significantly longer than the 14" in actual use. If the 13" is getting 15-16 hours of use, then the 14" can get 13-14 hours with the same use. With my usage, the 13" barely lasts 13 hours or so, and the 14" lasts 10-11 hours.
P.S.: I also had a M1 Max 16" with me at some point. If we want to talk about idle battery life, that thing easily beat the 13" Pro. It was just too bulky and hefty for me. Otherwise I would keep it. Please stop painting the 13" Pro as a battery champ. It is not.
Just watch the video. The 14" was far ahead of the 13" in battery life for moderate to intense CPU-based workloads.
The only time the 14" lost was when it had to use all of its GPU cores.
It just seems like you're making stuff up to defend your false "significantly better battery life" claims.
I don't doubt that the 13" has better battery life for things like web browsing or streaming a movie. Afterall, it has 2x the number of efficiency cores and way fewer GPU cores to power.
Doesn’t look like you’ve met him yet. It’s kind of his thing to do that…you’ll get used to it if you spend enough time in this sub-forum.
Check for runaway WindowServer process. I think it's random and it will get stuck at 100% until you restart the computer. Seems like a problem with Monterey.
Without that, you should get the same battery life number I am getting. I constantly use iStat to monitor my usage. With light use, the computer should stay around 5W. If it's going over 5W constantly without dropping, then there's a high chance of a runaway process.
Now I know you have been lying all this time. The M1 13 is VASTLY SUPERIOR to the 14 in Battery Life for light to moderate usage.
Yes, if all you are doing is maxing out your computer by running power-hungry apps and tasks then the 13" does not have amazing battery life compared to the 14", but for a variety of tasks the 13" Pro has significantly better battery life than the 14". There is simply no way that the 14" with its more power-hungry screen and performance optimized SOC can match the 13" for a combination of light to moderate use with some heavy use thrown in, which is how most people use their laptops.
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Yeah, if are primarily running power-hungry, high-performance apps ("productivity" is a misleading term because there are plenty of less-demanding productivity tasks) then you'll want an M1-Pro/Max if for no other reason than you will spend less time waiting for your computer; and I think its true that battery life will be similar. But computer use is not simply a choice between 4K-rendering or web-browsing, and for a variety of uses the 13" will her noticeably better battery life. I'm not sure why people are arguing so hard against the fact that an efficiency-optimized SOC with a less power hungry screen will have a lot better battery life than a more power-hungry SOC and screen.
Do you own all of these computers? I can show you photos as proof I did. I have no reason to lie.
Even when not maxing out, the 14" does not last as little as some people are saying. You can monitor power consumption if you have iStat or similar app. The 14" on average uses about 4.8W during light load. The battery capacity in the 14" is 70WHr.
70 / 4.8 = 14.5 hours
Is that too far fetched? I don't think so. The screen of the 14" is not more power-hungry because it can only go above 500 nits with HDR contents. If you don't play HDR, it's exactly the same as the 13" or even better because the backlight can turn off or go lower when you have darker contents.
As for the 13" Pro, it averages around 3.4W during light load. The battery capacity is around 60WHr.
60 / 3.4 = 17.6 hours
Just in case you think I'm pulling those numbers out of nowhere, here's how much more power the 14" consumes compared to the 13" during light load:
4.8 / 3.4 = 1.41 = 41% more power
And here's the battery life delta:
14.5 / 17.6 = 0.82 = 82% = so the 14" is losing about 18% battery run time compared to the 13" Pro.
Here's the kicker: let's pull the Air in. It has a 50WHr battery and similar power consumption as the 13" Pro during light load:
50 / 3.4 = 14.7 hours
Guess what? That means the Air does not actually last longer than the 14" Pro.
Here's a kicker. Let's even assume that... you are right and that the 14" actually ends up using probably about TWICE the idle power consumption as the 13" Pro and Air. That means it should be using 6.8W during light load, yes?
70 / 6.8 = 10.3 hours
So why are these reviewers only getting 8-9 hours? Have you thought that perhaps that has something to do with Monterey bugs?
Here's one:
MBP 14" CPU Load issue windowserver + Audio Issue
I'm wondering how long this takes. Right now, windowserver takes about 30GB of RAM in an 16GB Macbook...it runs smooth, but still bothers me
forums.macrumors.com
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There is no argument. I am simply stating the obvious, yet there are some folks who are keen on deceiving others on this forum that the 14 actually has better overall battery life than the M1 13. I'm not sure if they are trying to just feel better about their expensive purchase or if they work for Apple, but clearly, the M1 13 has better battery life.