PC user's early impressions of the M1 MBP Pro

[DarthVader!]

I've spent yesterday and today setting up and playing with the 16" MBP. Here's some of my early thoughts.

• Build quality, the MBP feels amazingly solid, and well built.
• Keyboard – I’ve used many keyboards in my travels, this is pretty good.
• Backlighting – From not getting any backlighting on that trash dell that I hate, to barely manageable backlighting on the thinkpad, to per key rgb on gaming laptops. I’d say the MBP's keyboard back lighting is very good. It does what its intended and doesn’t require the bloated software that those gaming laptops require to use the rgb
• Display. Absolutely the best, its gorgeous. Apple has out done itself.
• Trackpad. What can i say, its monster sized. I've yet to learn any gestures, but it works well for what I use it for.
• Performance. I’ve barely put it through its paces but so far, its on par or even faster then i7-11700k desktop and almost 3x faster then my Thinkpad.
• Battery life Unlike nearly every windows laptop, performance is exactly the same when running off the battery. Also while I’m still breaking this in, the battery life is impressive.
• Temps/Fan noise. This is whisper quiet and the temps are low 40s and I've not seen anything above 50 even running benchmarks.

When I unwrapped it, and started it up. I'll be honest - it was a struggle. The UI/UX is quite different then Windows. I'm still hitting Ctl-C instead of cmd-c. One complaint that I do have is the placement of the cmd key, as its so close to the space bar. Finger placement makes it a bit harder to hit then a ctl-c combination.

I'm also very used to the windows file explorer so its a work in progress in using the Finder. Its not bad, just different.

Program installs - This is one area that macOS just excels at, copying applications into the application folder is amazing.

Installing parallels and Arm version of windows 11 was a breeze, but sadly that's where my good luck ran out. At the moment, some of the windows apps I was hoping to use are not functioning. I have to do more digging and spend more time determining if its worth spending the money for Parallels. I'm not seeing much benefit, especially since I have my desktop and that's not going away.

 

[eddie_ducking]

Sounds like there might be the start of a love affair happening

As I'm sure you realise, you're starting a new learning curve but having the scope to run Parallels and/or a second Windows device will help ease the frustration.

Couple of pointers from what you've posted.

1) it's been a while since I used a Windows keyboard in anger, but instead of "left little finger" CTRL, try "left thumb" cmd, it soon becomes second nature and the key placement more instinctive

2) Finder has 4 views. Personally I hate the default "Icon" but the "List" whilst taking some adjustment to having files and folders in the same panel is so flexible and productive. If I was to pick a single reason never to go back to Windows, it'd be Finder in List view simply cause it just works. Windows Explorer just now feels like it hampers file management in comparison

If my experiences too many years ago to mention are a gauge (though it was Intel Macs not prior), you've got 1 month of lessening frustration as the familiarity grows, 2-3 months of working through alternative ways of accomplishing tasks you took for granted and then seamless productivity wondering why you didn't make the switch before.

Re: Parallels/Windows... feel free to post problems, someone will know the answer (though not necessarily in the affirmative)

 

[glenthompson]

Welcome to the Mac. It does take a little while to get used to the differences in the UI. If you're a heavy keyboard user learning a lot of the keyboard shortcuts can be very helpful.

When I switched to the Mac 12 years ago I ran Parallels for a few Windows apps. Due to cost of updates I found it cheaper and easier to just get a cheap Lenovo laptop and use it. Haven't had to use it for a few years now.

Don't forget to get an external drive for backup. Hardware and software can fail. You can use Time Machine for backup or another program. I prefer Carbon Copy Cloner but Super Duper and Are are also good options.

 

[planteater]

There are some good Finder alternatives to take a look at if you would like some additional data viewing options and features. I've tried a number and have remained with Forklift now for a couple of years. It adds multi-window access to your data views within the same application, in addition to the typical Finder views. It also has the ability to connect to remote file systems, such as SFTP, S3, B2, etc.

Carbon Copy Cloner, mentioned above is a very good backup solution to connect to backup media on your own network or attached locally to your machine, reasonably priced with frequent updates. Highly recommended by many Mac users.

If you are wanting to backup to a remote file system, Arc will connect to a long list of them, encrypt your files locally with your own key prior to uploading them. It's created by a long time developer and is very reliable.

Welcome to the macOS.

 

[jav6454]

Some things are the same, but different keys or method as you stated. It's also impressive that Apple's MacBooks are so well built and feature packed that PC manufacturers have often copied Macs (trackpad size, keyboard and form factor).