New M1 MBP - mini report

[OldCorpse]

As I mentioned in another thread, my iMac started failing and I had to get another computer RIGHT AWAY. I didn't want to buy an Intel iMac, and I was going to eventually also buy an M1 MBA 8GB/512GB - so I looked around. Unfortunately, the only option for IMMEDIATE purchase and delivery was an MBP 8GB/256GB. Bummer - I wanted the MBA, but even with the MBP I wanted at least 512GB SSD, but the only option for immediate buy and delivery was the 256GB. So I went with that. Space Gray.

Anyhow, I thought I'd give a micro review of what I see - mind you, I'm coming from a High Sierra iMac, so I have no experience of any later MacOS, and Big Sur is completely new to me.

A few points. Battery life is amazeballs. Insane. For a few tasks that I set for it, it wasn't super fast, but I might not be judging it right. Here's my experience. I have several external HDDs and I wanted to zero them out. Like in "secure erase" at the highest level (7 passes). Well, lemme put it to you this way - it's not exactly fast. I started with a 10TB drive on a USB3.0 to Thunderbolt connection, and the MBP was chugging away and chugging away - after approx. 48 hours, it was still only about 20% into the 2nd pass, with another 5 to go and 80% of the second pass. It would've taken weeks of non-stop work. Not exactly zippy - but I don't have anything else to compare it to, because when I tried that with my High Sierra iMac a few weeks ago, I quickly gave up as it was just as slow. So, I'm not blaming the MBP - maybe the process is just slow, what do I know. In any case after the 48 hours, I aborted this job.

Which brings me to the next point. I'm not super impressed with the memory handling on this 8GB RAM MBP. Here is what was happening - the MBP was working on secure erasing the 10TB drive, when I decided that I would watch an AppleTV+ series ("Tehran" fwiw - a darn good series, may I add). Well, after about 30 minutes or so of watching, a message appeared saying in effect that "the tasks appear to be very memory intense, and for better performance I may want to close some applications". OK, the ONLY things that were going were those two - the secure erase of an external drive and streaming a show on AppleTV+ through Safari (and I'm on a very fast AT&T fiber connection). OK, that I regard a bummer - it says to me that contrary to many reports here, the M1 MBP with 8GB RAM STRUGGLES with inadequate memory. Seriously, I'm very disappointed - literally, all I had going was secure erasing an external HDD and then if I want to watch some streaming content... that's too much?? Feh. Bad. Not good. This is actually a black mark agains the MBP. Not happy.

Next - I made the mistake of allowing automatic adjustments to the brightness of the screen. Unfortunatly, the MBP is extremely stupid with this "automation". I'm sitting in a room of average brightness and regularly the screen dims to what shows to be about the lowest level... like I can barely see what's on the screen it's so dim. I had to turn it off. FAIL.

Screen and Speakers - I watched the streaming content on the laptop and it was OK. But I was not blown away. Watching the same content on my 11 year old 27" iMac was shockingly better... yeah, yeah, I know, it's 27"... but the crispness and the quality of the image is OUTSTANDING on this 2009 iMac, whereas it's merely OK (subjectively!) on the MBP.

When I attached external powered speakers to the MBP through the headphones - the quality of sound was very good, no complaints there, so whatever the chipset they're using is quite decent.

Keyboards are famously subjective. Personally I am not super jazzed by the MBP keyboard, I've had better, but then again, I have not done a ton of typing on this MBP, so maybe I'll change my opinion.

That's it for now. I'll add more later.

 

[zkap]

I was in a similar boat so I'll add my two cents.

Wanted a MBA base model, but they are not easy to come by where I live, probably because they are the least expensive so they're constantly sold out. And so as I waited for the MBA to arrive to the store, I read about the differences between that and the MBP and I decided to go with the Pro, base model.

I am very happy with the speakers and the screen is great for me because I was coming from a 2017 Air, so I can't judge really. Battery life is fantastic and the speed is ok. And that's the most interesting point for me so far - speed. I am not blown away at all. This is not that amazing, and it's certainly not what I was expecting based on reviews. It shows very little in the way of blazing fast performance. 8 GB unified memory is enough for me, though.

All in all, don't misunderstand - I am delighted with his machine because it's a complete package, it has everything I want and I know in the future this will only get better. But it was definitely built up too much and the performance was blown out of proportion in the reviews and on this forum.

Would I still recommend this after experiencing it for ten days? Yes, definitely. I'd buy it again, that is all well and good. It's just not that mind-blowing and the performance is anything but instantaneous. I don't know how other people get 20 apps to open in two seconds, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't matter, I didn't buy it for that anyway, but I just find it funny that people revel in opening all of the apps in the dock for some reason.

 

[OldCorpse]

I hear you, zkap! After my experience so far, I'm not unhappy with the MBP - it's OK. But I'm not blown away (except for the battery life!).

I can easily see this being something that I graduate upwards from. It's not like my old late 2009 iMac that was a champ for the ages, something that I held onto for 11 years! There are models like that, whether desktops or laptops, or iPhone (for me, the champ I'm still using is the iPhone 6S), or iPad. There are the STARS.

And then there are the mediocre and even poor models. I'm not gonna say the M1 MBP is "poor", but it's definitely not a "long term" keeper. I can easily see myself buying a better next model, maybe an M2 or M3, because I'm just not that impressed with this M1 so far. Of course, it's all somewhat subjective, but that's my personal experience.

I just had another poor experience with the MBP. I was playing music from my external HDD through the MBP, and when done, I closed the Music app, and tried to eject my external HDD. It wouldn't do it, because it "was being used by a process". But nothing else was running! I even closed Safari - though I can't see how that would be relevant. So I had nothing running. I looked through the Activity Monitor, but couldn't see what the process could possibly be. I gave it some time, tried again - still can't eject. Finally I shut down the MBP and after that just disconnected the cable to the HDD. I have not hooked it up again. But the point is - underwhelming experience. I've used this exact HDD on my High Sierra 2009 iMac and *never* had this experience - never ever. So what gives? Just disappointing "user experience". It seems like every time I try something, I hit a snag. Maybe it's Big Sur and not the M1 MBP per se, but the point is - disappointing.

A steady drumbeat of "oops". Which is why I just can't see this MBP as a "keeper". Better must be had in the future. YMMV.

 

[russell_314]

As I mentioned in another thread, my iMac started failing and I had to get another computer RIGHT AWAY. I didn't want to buy an Intel iMac, and I was going to eventually also buy an M1 MBA 8GB/512GB - so I looked around. Unfortunately, the only option for IMMEDIATE purchase and delivery was an MBP 8GB/256GB. Bummer - I wanted the MBA, but even with the MBP I wanted at least 512GB SSD, but the only option for immediate buy and delivery was the 256GB. So I went with that. Space Gray.

Anyhow, I thought I'd give a micro review of what I see - mind you, I'm coming from a High Sierra iMac, so I have no experience of any later MacOS, and Big Sur is completely new to me.

A few points. Battery life is amazeballs. Insane. For a few tasks that I set for it, it wasn't super fast, but I might not be judging it right. Here's my experience. I have several external HDDs and I wanted to zero them out. Like in "secure erase" at the highest level (7 passes). Well, lemme put it to you this way - it's not exactly fast. I started with a 10TB drive on a USB3.0 to Thunderbolt connection, and the MBP was chugging away and chugging away - after approx. 48 hours, it was still only about 20% into the 2nd pass, with another 5 to go and 80% of the second pass. It would've taken weeks of non-stop work. Not exactly zippy - but I don't have anything else to compare it to, because when I tried that with my High Sierra iMac a few weeks ago, I quickly gave up as it was just as slow. So, I'm not blaming the MBP - maybe the process is just slow, what do I know. In any case after the 48 hours, I aborted this job.

Which brings me to the next point. I'm not super impressed with the memory handling on this 8GB RAM MBP. Here is what was happening - the MBP was working on secure erasing the 10TB drive, when I decided that I would watch an AppleTV+ series ("Tehran" fwiw - a darn good series, may I add). Well, after about 30 minutes or so of watching, a message appeared saying in effect that "the tasks appear to be very memory intense, and for better performance I may want to close some applications". OK, the ONLY things that were going were those two - the secure erase of an external drive and streaming a show on AppleTV+ through Safari (and I'm on a very fast AT&T fiber connection). OK, that I regard a bummer - it says to me that contrary to many reports here, the M1 MBP with 8GB RAM STRUGGLES with inadequate memory. Seriously, I'm very disappointed - literally, all I had going was secure erasing an external HDD and then if I want to watch some streaming content... that's too much?? Feh. Bad. Not good. This is actually a black mark agains the MBP. Not happy.

Next - I made the mistake of allowing automatic adjustments to the brightness of the screen. Unfortunatly, the MBP is extremely stupid with this "automation". I'm sitting in a room of average brightness and regularly the screen dims to what shows to be about the lowest level... like I can barely see what's on the screen it's so dim. I had to turn it off. FAIL.

Screen and Speakers - I watched the streaming content on the laptop and it was OK. But I was not blown away. Watching the same content on my 11 year old 27" iMac was shockingly better... yeah, yeah, I know, it's 27"... but the crispness and the quality of the image is OUTSTANDING on this 2009 iMac, whereas it's merely OK (subjectively!) on the MBP.

When I attached external powered speakers to the MBP through the headphones - the quality of sound was very good, no complaints there, so whatever the chipset they're using is quite decent.

Keyboards are famously subjective. Personally I am not super jazzed by the MBP keyboard, I've had better, but then again, I have not done a ton of typing on this MBP, so maybe I'll change my opinion.

That's it for now. I'll add more later.

Just FYI the speed for secure erasing an external hard drive is limited to the speed of that hard drive. You could have plugged it into an old Windows PC or a 50k Mac Pro and it wouldn’t matter

 

[OldCorpse]

Just FYI the speed for secure erasing an external hard drive is limited to the speed of that hard drive. You could have plugged it into an old Windows PC or a 50k Mac Pro and it wouldn’t matter

I thought it likely the case, which is why I wrote that I don't really blame the MBP for the slow speed of that particular operation. It does demonstrate that the usefulness of the speedy M1 is not an overall experience, but is limited to specific situations - it's not like just because you get the M1 *everything* will fly and you'll live in a magical world of instant speed. In this way, the M1 speed is good, but doesn't necessarily fundamentally change your user experience, because it's not always susceptible to speed being applicable. You might - as I did - get the MBP and not feel it any faster for your specific tasks than your old late 2009 spinning HDD iMac. I don't sit at the MBP thinking "wow, this thing is fast", because for my tasks, it's not.

What bums me out much more is the memory issue. I had ONE freakin' task running - the zeroing out of the external HDD, and the moment I decided to add streaming through Safari it punks with a memory message?? Wow, that's weak. That's like saying you really don't have a multitasking machine, you have a single purpose dedicated machine that can only do one thing at a time - in my specific experience. That's beyond weak. I don't care that someone else can open a bazillion apps. For my tasks - which I don't think of as particularly exotic - it's a single focus one task at a time machine. Bottom of the barrel. Super unimpressed. I mean, OK, maybe you could say, it's a low-end laptop with only 8GB RAM - but c'mon, first of all, you only have the option of another 8GB for a 16GB, so that right there shows Apple thinks that's as much as this machine can handle - so you'd think that the 8GB should be able to handle at least a couple of tasks at the same time. Also, if we're calling it a low-end laptop... erm, that would be the MBA, no? What exactly are you getting for the "pro" moniker in the MBP? If someone steps up to get the "pro", they'd expect to at least be able to run a couple of apps at the same time - and yet. I regard that as a no-questions asked FAIL.

The other issues of screen brightness adjustments and safe ejecting of external drives can be seen as perhaps small issues or whatnot, but it doesn't add to the feel of a premium product for this reason alone: I don't have these issues on an 11 year old iMac. It should *never* be the case that a decade old computer is better at anything than this brand new supposed wonder.

What I'm saying is that it's been a pretty underwhelming and disappointing product so far. If any friends ask about my experience and whether they should buy (so far I have two such friends whom I promised a report on my experiences), I'd give my honest opinion based on my experiences of how I use the computer - I'd recommend that if they can, they should wait and not buy this MBP, and instead wait for the M2 or maybe even M3.

And let me say this - I'm sad about it. I really, really wanted to love this MBP and be blown away by it, as it seems to be for so many folks reporting here. I was full of positive feeling. So I'm just incredibly sad to report that it's such a big disappointment. I've been using Apple computers since the 80's. I've loved many of them through the years. Most recently I've loved my late 2009 iMac (until just a couple of weeks ago the internal Seagate drive finally gave up the ghost), I still love my iPhone 6S, I love my iPad Air3 and so on. But this MBP is not it. For me, there's no magic here.

 

[rickeames]

I ran into memory slowdowns with the 8GB. Safari with multiple tabs was the culprit and I haven't had a single issue since going 16GB.

 

[OldCorpse]

Thank you for your feedback, rickeames. If simply having one application open - Safari with a bunch of tabs - can cause memory problems on the 8GB M1 machines, then I say there is a problem with either insufficient base RAM memory in these models, or poor memory handling. If it's insufficient, then they should recommend 16GB as base and have the option of more (32GB, 64GB etc.)... instead, it's 16GB max, just two times the default amount of 8GB! Of course if it's poor handling of memory by these M1 machines, that's a whole other scandal. Either way, that's unacceptable. It cannot be that simply running a process as common as a browser (native, no less!) with even a goodly amount of open tabs should cause memory problems! That's pathetic! That's an ordinary user surfing the net... shouldn't that be something that an M1 laptop can handle?! Or running two processes - on a MBP, i.e. "pro" no less - punks the memory, as in my case - again, pathetic. Not good.

The myth that needs to die is the early enthusiasm and propaganda that 8GB is totally adequate for most users. It's clearly not - because ordinary users who do nothing terribly exotic (surfing the net! running two processes!) are running into memory slowdowns. Mind you, I too fell for the myth. Ideally I was going to buy an 512GB SSD because I just thought that 256GB was really too little, but I kinda thought "8GB RAM sounds like enough from the reports!". Well, that was wrong. I know that from my own personal experience and now other folks reporting.

Bottom line, as we all knew - it takes some time for users to assemble enough time using the M1 machines to form accurate opinions. Early reports - often within minutes of unboxing and using - are clearly hopelessly inadequate, and merely give rise to myths like "8GB is totally enough!" and "wow, no memory problems!"... yeah, right.

I expect with more time passing we'll find more and more sad tales about the hopelessly inadequate memory problems on these early M1 machines.

At this point, my recommendation is to WAIT and not buy them, unless you absolutely need a new computer. I'd wait until the M2 or M3 have been out for a while so they can be thoroughly tested by the consumers, before taking the plunge, assuming they pass muster.

 

[jazz1]

Thank you for your feedback, rickeames. If simply having one application open - Safari with a bunch of tabs - can cause memory problems on the 8GB M1 machines, then I say there is a problem with either insufficient base RAM memory in these models, or poor memory handling. If it's insufficient, then they should recommend 16GB as base and have the option of more (32GB, 64GB etc.)... instead, it's 16GB max, just two times the default amount of 8GB! Of course if it's poor handling of memory by these M1 machines, that's a whole other scandal. Either way, that's unacceptable. It cannot be that simply running a process as common as a browser (native, no less!) with even a goodly amount of open tabs should cause memory problems! That's pathetic! That's an ordinary user surfing the net... shouldn't that be something that an M1 laptop can handle?! Or running two processes - on a MBP, i.e. "pro" no less - punks the memory, as in my case - again, pathetic. Not good.

The myth that needs to die is the early enthusiasm and propaganda that 8GB is totally adequate for most users. It's clearly not - because ordinary users who do nothing terribly exotic (surfing the net! running two processes!) are running into memory slowdowns. Mind you, I too fell for the myth. Ideally I was going to buy an 512GB SSD because I just thought that 256GB was really too little, but I kinda thought "8GB RAM sounds like enough from the reports!". Well, that was wrong. I know that from my own personal experience and now other folks reporting.

Bottom line, as we all knew - it takes some time for users to assemble enough time using the M1 machines to form accurate opinions. Early reports - often within minutes of unboxing and using - are clearly hopelessly inadequate, and merely give rise to myths like "8GB is totally enough!" and "wow, no memory problems!"... yeah, right.

I expect with more time passing we'll find more and more sad tales about the hopelessly inadequate memory problems on these early M1 machines.

At this point, my recommendation is to WAIT and not buy them, unless you absolutely need a new computer. I'd wait until the M2 or M3 have been out for a while so they can be thoroughly tested by the consumers, before taking the plunge, assuming they pass muster.

I have no technical background, but why is it all of a sudden lower RAM in the M1’s are supposed to negate years of higher RAM models....yes, yes, I’ve read the explanations of threaded RAM like capabilities of SSD HD’s. I went with the 16GB RAM on the MacMini M1. Has it failed me, well no. But I still think I’ll be disappointed if the next generation of the AS offers way higher RAM options.

Please don’t tell me it is all about cost savings, as much as I love Apple products, I don’t think for a minute that is their raison d'être. Yes, I had to look it up

 

[OldCorpse]

jazz1, I think there's probably a technical explanation, but like you, I don't have a technical background, so I can't tell you exactly. It just seems like there can't really be any other explanation than somehow the M1 in combination with the SSD uses memory extremely efficiently. I mean, I can't imagine that they'd say to themselves, "yes, we know it needs more RAM, but guess what, we'll intentionally cripple it with less". I think the clue here is in the fact that the only option for more RAM is 16GB. And not 32GB or 64GB. That tells me that they think 8GB should be able to handle pretty much all, with 16GB for extreme use. It's not like 8GB for barely crawling around, 16GB for light use, 32GB for more serious use and 64GB for extreme use. No, you get a full 50% right off the bat, 8GB - and you only get another 8GB, and that's that.

Why more efficient? The analogy here I think is between Apple having come out with their own chipsets for the iPhone. It's a famous fact, that you can't do an "apples to apples" (pun not intended) comparison between the RAM in Android and the RAM in iPhone. It seems that the iPhone needs less RAM to operate. Perhaps it's the same with the M1 vs Intel, that somehow the M1 uses RAM more efficiently, so you can't just go by raw number, like 8GB RAM on a M1 machine is not the same as 8GB RAM on an Intel machine. But I'm just guessing by analogy to the iPhone vs Android RAM situation.

However, regardless of what their good intentions, they didn't hit their target - because in use, many people, ordinary users (such as f.ex. myself and rickeames) are having insufficient memory problems with extremely pedestrian use scenarios. That's clearly a miscalculation on Apple's part. I can't imagine that they thought, hey, we'll give them 8GB RAM and it'll be so insufficient that it'll give them problems with merely Safari open with a bunch of tabs. Maybe they need to optimize. What's concerning is that this is not a third party problem - I could understand if, say, Chrome wet the bed because they released a browser with a massive memory leak, Apple can't control that. But in both cases cited here, it was all native apps - Safari with tabs and Safari streaming while Disk Utility is zeroing out an external HDD. That's nasty. Can't blame that on third party apps.

Bottom line, something has gone seriously wrong here. Either they have not optimized native apps (Safari in particular) sufficiently to work with 8GB RAM, or 8GB RAM is plumb not enough.

 

[Quackers]

While you were having ram problems did you have a look at Activity Monitor? Processes as well as memory.
If your Mac is new it may have still been indexing.
You say you only had one task running but maybe not.
For instance was Dropbox running?
1blocker?
Chrome?
You don't say what you've installed that could have been running in the background, if anything.
Just some ideas

I have no idea why secure erasing would be ram intensive. I just don't know enough, but it does sound strange.

Some of your other niggly issues I usually turn off at the outset (like screen dimming and that kind of thing).

 

[OldCorpse]

Thanks, Quackers. Here's the deal. When I've had those problems I've had the MBP for a few days, so I doubt Spotlight or whatnot was indexing much of anything... also because I literally installed NOTHING. Not chrome, not dropbox... nothing. Not a single app. The reason is because I wanted to experience the MBP in its initial state before I added anything. Plus, all my life on many platforms I've had a tendency to install a bunch of software that I ended up not using, or using rarely. This time, I decided to go in a radically different direction of extreme minimalism. I will install only what I absolutely need and cannot function without. So far, it's not been anything

So. The point is, that this is the best case scenario for this computer - nothing external has been installed or used.

I looked at the activity monitor, but admittedly only when I couldn't eject my external HDD. I didn't look at it when I got the memory problem, because I was watching a streaming show... but good point, I should've looked, it might've been educational. But regardless, I don't think the MBP should've had memory problems with such measly tasks running.

 

[Quackers]

Thanks, Quackers. Here's the deal. When I've had those problems I've had the MBP for a few days, so I doubt Spotlight or whatnot was indexing much of anything... also because I literally installed NOTHING. Not chrome, not dropbox... nothing. Not a single app. The reason is because I wanted to experience the MBP in its initial state before I added anything. Plus, all my life on many platforms I've had a tendency to install a bunch of software that I ended up not using, or using rarely. This time, I decided to go in a radically different direction of extreme minimalism. I will install only what I absolutely need and cannot function without. So far, it's not been anything

So. The point is, that this is the best case scenario for this computer - nothing external has been installed or used.

I looked at the activity monitor, but admittedly only when I couldn't eject my external HDD. I didn't look at it when I got the memory problem, because I was watching a streaming show... but good point, I should've looked, it might've been educational. But regardless, I don't think the MBP should've had memory problems with such measly tasks running.

I hear you
Some people have had problems and they were solved by re-installing macOS.
I appreciate that some would not want to do that, particularly when the erase process is so new.

 

[smoking monkey]

Unfortunately, the only option for IMMEDIATE purchase and delivery was an MBP 8GB/256GB. Bummer - I wanted the MBA

Which brings me to the next point. I'm not super impressed with the memory handling on this 8GB RAM MBP. the M1 MBP with 8GB RAM STRUGGLES with inadequate memory.

Next - I made the mistake of allowing automatic adjustments to the brightness of the screen.

Watching the same content on my 11 year old 27" iMac was shockingly better... but the crispness and the quality of the image is OUTSTANDING on this 2009 iMac, whereas it's merely OK (subjectively!) on the MBP.

-Sounds to me like you have massive buyers remorse.
-Memory Handling: Seems something was going on with your computer. I've thrown a fair bit at a MBA 8G the last couple of days and it's come through fine. Not a single slow down or beachball... so far.
-I've never used Auto Brightness on any device. All you do is turn it off, not really something to worry about.
-Video settings might be wrong. If the streaming content is HD then it should absolutely look better on the MBP than the non HD iMac.

It does demonstrate that the usefulness of the speedy M1 is ... limited to specific situations

Specific Situations? What? Like general computing tasks done by the vast majority of users? Haha. Perhaps better to say not all situations.

At this point, my recommendation is to WAIT and not buy them, unless you absolutely need a new computer. I'd wait until the M2 or M3 have been out for a while so they can be thoroughly tested by the consumers, before taking the plunge, assuming they pass muster.

These loooong posts are some world class ranting! Hard to know if justified or not considering your statements regarding a few of the issues.

I'm not saying these machines are perfect. They certainly aren't.

The one thing I do agree with you on is that people shouldn't buy these machines unless they needed an upgrade. So many people got them just because and that's not really a good enough reason and will lead to people feeling unsatisfied. A bit like yourself who really didn't want this machine, but was forced into it.

My 7C 8GR MBA M1 1TB has been fine. It's a solid piece of kit and compared to its predecessor it's a stonking piece of kit. It's still Gen 1 so it's gonna have some bumps, but overall I can't really fault it. Except for the screen size. But that's a personal issue, not an issue with the computer.

I don't use an external apart from backup (which was super fast. hundreds of gig in less than an hour for a brand new back up. No way I could do that previously on my 2013 MBP 15) AND i don't use any BT accessories with it. So two of the biggest issues so far with these M1s I don't have a use case that encounters them. But I'd think my use case is pretty normal and covers mostly what others would do.

 

[OldCorpse]

OK, I had to come back and report on this remarkable event. I was watching Apple streaming a movie on Safari (“On The Rocks” by Sofia Coppola, with Bill Murray and Rashida Jones... very weak movie, fwiw).

I had nothing else running. NOTHING. I still have not installed any other apps, it’s still the stock configuration, like the day I bought it.

About 30 minutes in, a message appeared in Safari, above the frame of the movie: “This webpage is using significant memory. Closing it may improve the responsiveness of your mac.”

I was astounded. I was literally running nothing else. I was streaming Apples own service on their own browser. I’m on the latest OS, BS 11.1.

AND IT’S RUNNING OUT OF MEMORY???

It gets better. I ignored the message. About three quarters into the movie, it *suddenly stops streaming*! I had to go back and start again, and moved to the point where it had collapsed, and finally finished the movie.

My jaw is still on the floor where it fell. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON???

This is beyond pathetic. A new M1 MBP with 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD, with nothing else installed cannot stream a movie from Apple’s own service on the stock Apple browser, on the latest up to date OS, BS 11.1., because it runs out of memory doing this one single task.

I am beyond astounded. There’s gotta be something wrong with my computer, no? This cannot be normal, can it? Can it???

 

[GiantKiwi]

OK, I had to come back and report on this remarkable event. I was watching Apple streaming a movie on Safari (“On The Rocks” by Sofia Coppola, with Bill Murray and Rashida Jones... very weak movie, fwiw).

I had nothing else running. NOTHING. I still have not installed any other apps, it’s still the stock configuration, like the day I bought it.

About 30 minutes in, a message appeared in Safari, above the frame of the movie: “This webpage is using significant memory. Closing it may improve the responsiveness of your mac.”

I was astounded. I was literally running nothing else. I was streaming Apples own service on their own browser. I’m on the latest OS, BS 11.1.

AND IT’S RUNNING OUT OF MEMORY???

It gets better. I ignored the message. About three quarters into the movie, it *suddenly stops streaming*! I had to go back and start again, and moved to the point where it had collapsed, and finally finished the movie.

My jaw is still on the floor where it fell. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON???

This is beyond pathetic. A new M1 MBP with 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD, with nothing else installed cannot stream a movie from Apple’s own service on the stock Apple browser, on the latest up to date OS, BS 11.1., because it runs out of memory doing this one single task.

I am beyond astounded. There’s gotta be something wrong with my computer, no? This cannot be normal, can it? Can it???

You must have had something else running in the background.

I currently have 28 tabs of Chrome on javascript heavy websites + iStatistica Pro + Discord (still under Rosetta and chomping through RAM) + Home app + a 1.8GB .PSD in Affinity Photo + Safari with On the rocks streaming and still only using 6.3GB RAM.

 

[Leon1das]

As I mentioned in another thread, my iMac started failing and I had to get another computer RIGHT AWAY. I didn't want to buy an Intel iMac, and I was going to eventually also buy an M1 MBA 8GB/512GB - so I looked around. Unfortunately, the only option for IMMEDIATE purchase and delivery was an MBP 8GB/256GB. Bummer - I wanted the MBA, but even with the MBP I wanted at least 512GB SSD, but the only option for immediate buy and delivery was the 256GB. So I went with that. Space Gray.

Anyhow, I thought I'd give a micro review of what I see - mind you, I'm coming from a High Sierra iMac, so I have no experience of any later MacOS, and Big Sur is completely new to me.

A few points. Battery life is amazeballs. Insane. For a few tasks that I set for it, it wasn't super fast, but I might not be judging it right. Here's my experience. I have several external HDDs and I wanted to zero them out. Like in "secure erase" at the highest level (7 passes). Well, lemme put it to you this way - it's not exactly fast. I started with a 10TB drive on a USB3.0 to Thunderbolt connection, and the MBP was chugging away and chugging away - after approx. 48 hours, it was still only about 20% into the 2nd pass, with another 5 to go and 80% of the second pass. It would've taken weeks of non-stop work. Not exactly zippy - but I don't have anything else to compare it to, because when I tried that with my High Sierra iMac a few weeks ago, I quickly gave up as it was just as slow. So, I'm not blaming the MBP - maybe the process is just slow, what do I know. In any case after the 48 hours, I aborted this job.

Which brings me to the next point. I'm not super impressed with the memory handling on this 8GB RAM MBP. Here is what was happening - the MBP was working on secure erasing the 10TB drive, when I decided that I would watch an AppleTV+ series ("Tehran" fwiw - a darn good series, may I add). Well, after about 30 minutes or so of watching, a message appeared saying in effect that "the tasks appear to be very memory intense, and for better performance I may want to close some applications". OK, the ONLY things that were going were those two - the secure erase of an external drive and streaming a show on AppleTV+ through Safari (and I'm on a very fast AT&T fiber connection). OK, that I regard a bummer - it says to me that contrary to many reports here, the M1 MBP with 8GB RAM STRUGGLES with inadequate memory. Seriously, I'm very disappointed - literally, all I had going was secure erasing an external HDD and then if I want to watch some streaming content... that's too much?? Feh. Bad. Not good. This is actually a black mark agains the MBP. Not happy.

Next - I made the mistake of allowing automatic adjustments to the brightness of the screen. Unfortunatly, the MBP is extremely stupid with this "automation". I'm sitting in a room of average brightness and regularly the screen dims to what shows to be about the lowest level... like I can barely see what's on the screen it's so dim. I had to turn it off. FAIL.

Screen and Speakers - I watched the streaming content on the laptop and it was OK. But I was not blown away. Watching the same content on my 11 year old 27" iMac was shockingly better... yeah, yeah, I know, it's 27"... but the crispness and the quality of the image is OUTSTANDING on this 2009 iMac, whereas it's merely OK (subjectively!) on the MBP.

When I attached external powered speakers to the MBP through the headphones - the quality of sound was very good, no complaints there, so whatever the chipset they're using is quite decent.

Keyboards are famously subjective. Personally I am not super jazzed by the MBP keyboard, I've had better, but then again, I have not done a ton of typing on this MBP, so maybe I'll change my opinion.

That's it for now. I'll add more later.

Hi, confused - how is the speed of erase of the external HDD linked with the speed of your CPU?

Isnt secure erase just a command of securely overwriting everything on the drive - for which speed of the drive itself is a bottleneck?

 

[leman]

I thought it likely the case, which is why I wrote that I don't really blame the MBP for the slow speed of that particular operation. It does demonstrate that the usefulness of the speedy M1 is not an overall experience, but is limited to specific situations - it's not like just because you get the M1 *everything* will fly and you'll live in a magical world of instant speed. In this way, the M1 speed is good, but doesn't necessarily fundamentally change your user experience, because it's not always susceptible to speed being applicable. You might - as I did - get the MBP and not feel it any faster for your specific tasks than your old late 2009 spinning HDD iMac. I don't sit at the MBP thinking "wow, this thing is fast", because for my tasks, it's not.

I know I am a bit late to the party here, but securely erasing a HDD is not really a common operation, and certainly not one to judge a computer's performance. Of course your M1 machine is not going to magically make your slow external HDD run faster or make your fridge consume less power or help you eat healthier — but these are things that are expected, aren't they?

As to you running out of memory, that's really unexpected and might indicate an issue with your machine. When you get this warning next time, could you have a look at the memory tab of the Activity Monitor? Maybe there is a hidden culprit.

 

[darngooddesign]

I have no technical background, but why is it all of a sudden lower RAM in the M1’s are supposed to negate years of higher RAM models....yes, yes, I’ve read the explanations of threaded RAM like capabilities of SSD HD’s.

If you've read all the reason then you know that the way the Intel computers use RAM is different form how the M#s use RAM. The gist is that people who only occasionally need more than 8 will be fine with 8, but if you doing enough heavy lifting then 16 is the way to go. But just because you needed 16Gb on your old computer does not mean you need 16GB on the new Macs.

I went with the 16GB RAM on the MacMini M1. Has it failed me, well no. But I still think I’ll be disappointed if the next generation of the AS offers way higher RAM options.

If 16GB handles everything you need then 24/32GB likely won't help and it just sounds like FOMO.

 

[leman]

But I still think I’ll be disappointed if the next generation of the AS offers way higher RAM options.

Please don’t tell me it is all about cost savings, as much as I love Apple products, I don’t think for a minute that is their raison d'être. Yes, I had to look it up

If you want a reason, it's mostly an engineering limitation. Apple puts the RAM on the same package as the SoC (the chip with all the processors), which looks like this:

Those two chips to the right are the RAM chips. Currently, maximal available capacity for the LPDDR4X RAM Apple is using is 8GB. As Apple is using two RAM chips, what they can maximally ship is 16GB.

If they wanted to ship 32GB, they would need to use four RAM chips. This means that the package itself would need to be larger (and more expensive), the SoC would need to be more complex and more expensive (twice as many memory controllers and a wider bus), it would occupy more space on the logic board, require a different cooling system etc. etc. Remember, with chips you want to achieve the economy of the scale, so making two versions of M1 (one with two RAMs and one with four RAMs) is out of the question. These are entry-level Macs, so most people would get 8GB or 16GB RAM. Basically, doesn't make much sense.

Sticking with two RAM chips (and therefore 16GB RAM) is a pragmatic solution to simplify manufacture and logistics while still offering a very solid entry level machines. I have little doubt that M1X for example will come with twice as many RAM chips, for doubled memory bandwidth and up to 32GB of RAM.

A final note: offering large quantities of RAM is simpler in "traditional" laptops since the RAM chips are loaded on the mainboard. You can always find some extra space for additional chips there (if you look at mainboard pictures, these chips are usually placed on both sides of the mainboard, improving space efficiency), and the width of the memory bus always stays the same. So it's fairly trivial for, say, Dell, to offer a 13" XPS with 32GB of RAM. Apple instead uses a wide memory interface, connecting each RAM chip via a dedicated cluster of memory controllers. Two chips use a 128-bit bus, four chips would use a 256-bit bus etc. This is a much more complex (and costly!) solution, but performance, memory efficiency and latency are significantly improved.

 

[darngooddesign]

An additionally reason why people say M1 8GB is like Intel 16GB is due to how quickly and efficiently the M1 can use the drive for Swap memory. There just isn't a performance penalty to doing this like there would be in on Intel computers so most people don't perceive any difference in speed when doing the same tasks on an 8GB M1 system.

 

[jazz1]

An additionally reason why people say M1 8GB is like Intel 16GB is due to how quickly and efficiently the M1 can use the drive for Swap memory. There just isn't a performance penalty to doing this like there would be in on Intel computers so most people don't perceive any difference in speed when doing the same tasks on an 8GB M1 system.

Yes, with Apple you either swap memory to the SSD, or swap money for RAM I'm glad I got 16GB even though I just doing everyday stuff, though I am thinking about starting to use LightRoom again.

I thought the 16GB vs. 8GB would buy me a little more time with the M1.

 

[jdb8167]

OK, I had to come back and report on this remarkable event. I was watching Apple streaming a movie on Safari (“On The Rocks” by Sofia Coppola, with Bill Murray and Rashida Jones... very weak movie, fwiw).

I had nothing else running. NOTHING. I still have not installed any other apps, it’s still the stock configuration, like the day I bought it.

About 30 minutes in, a message appeared in Safari, above the frame of the movie: “This webpage is using significant memory. Closing it may improve the responsiveness of your mac.”

I was astounded. I was literally running nothing else. I was streaming Apples own service on their own browser. I’m on the latest OS, BS 11.1.

AND IT’S RUNNING OUT OF MEMORY???

It gets better. I ignored the message. About three quarters into the movie, it *suddenly stops streaming*! I had to go back and start again, and moved to the point where it had collapsed, and finally finished the movie.

My jaw is still on the floor where it fell. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON???

This is beyond pathetic. A new M1 MBP with 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD, with nothing else installed cannot stream a movie from Apple’s own service on the stock Apple browser, on the latest up to date OS, BS 11.1., because it runs out of memory doing this one single task.

I am beyond astounded. There’s gotta be something wrong with my computer, no? This cannot be normal, can it? Can it???

Why wouldn't you just use the tv app? I didn't even know you could use Safari for streaming from the tv site. Hell, I didn't even know there was an tv site.

 

[OldCorpse]

I guess I could use the tv app, but that’s rather not the point. The point is, that it shouldn’t be that streaming from Apple’s own browser AND DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE should so strain the new up to date and stock configuration M1 MBP that it conks out from lack of memory. I don’t know, but that seems preposterous /shrug/, no?

 

[Quackers]

I guess I could use the tv app, but that’s rather not the point. The point is, that it shouldn’t be that streaming from Apple’s own browser AND DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE should so strain the new up to date and stock configuration M1 MBP that it conks out from lack of memory. I don’t know, but that seems preposterous /shrug/, no?

Yes. So something else is happening. That's not normal, as you say.
If you don't know how to investigate that you should speak to Apple Support.
All we can do is guess and the information you have given is not enough to make a guess.

 

[Kung gu]

8GB is plenty for simple safari browsing and watching Netflix. I would ignore that message that pops up on safari I get that on Reddit and Apple's own website and YouTube and I have a 16" 2019 with 16GB of RAM. It's just a warning to tell you that "hey this website is consuming more RAM than usual".

As long the memory pressure in Activity Monitor isn't RED or YELLOW, you should be fine.