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Reviews are in, Intel out? Poll!
- Thread starter Henk van Ess
- Start date
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I honestly can't answer this poll until 1 month later, after I've lived with an M1 Mac for long enough. Jury is still out:
1. 16" still has bigger screen, better speakers, bigger battery, faster graphics, x86 compatibility, Docker, Windows, VMs, etc...
2. M1 is fast and can be competitive against the 16" but it's clear framework compatibility is a major hurdle for my coding work. Not that it matters since I also have Windows machines to develop on, plus I have my clouds, but I prefer Mac OS as a desktop environment, and it would be great if I can work without having to be on a different computer... or connected to the internet.
3. Some of my regularly used apps (Fusion 360, Capture One Pro) will likely be stuck with Rosetta 2 for at least half a year. Potentially more. It'll be great if I can run them without issues, but Fusion 360 even on the 16" has some weird graphics bugs under Big Sur that need to be addressed. I can only imagine how Rosetta 2 will work... If M1 doesn't work with these, then that's the deal breaker that will force me to stick to the 16".
4. All things considered, the 16" is still not a bad computer. Under light use, the battery can still last up to 8 hours. Typically between 5-6 for my use case. CPU will probably be behind M1 in with native apps, but with Rosetta 2? I guess it's on a per-case basis. GPU is much faster on the 16", which will be useful for photo editing, video editing, and 3D graphics work. I mentioned Fusion 360, right?
5. I'm stuck at home so battery life with M1 will be icing on the cake, but not strictly a necessity.
So while I'm very excited to try out my M1 MacBook Pro, I'm also keeping a "neutral" stance so as to not get swept up by the "new toy" syndrome. At least I'm excited enough by the performance and the "promise" to not just disregard it altogether.
1. 16" still has bigger screen, better speakers, bigger battery, faster graphics, x86 compatibility, Docker, Windows, VMs, etc...
2. M1 is fast and can be competitive against the 16" but it's clear framework compatibility is a major hurdle for my coding work. Not that it matters since I also have Windows machines to develop on, plus I have my clouds, but I prefer Mac OS as a desktop environment, and it would be great if I can work without having to be on a different computer... or connected to the internet.
3. Some of my regularly used apps (Fusion 360, Capture One Pro) will likely be stuck with Rosetta 2 for at least half a year. Potentially more. It'll be great if I can run them without issues, but Fusion 360 even on the 16" has some weird graphics bugs under Big Sur that need to be addressed. I can only imagine how Rosetta 2 will work... If M1 doesn't work with these, then that's the deal breaker that will force me to stick to the 16".
4. All things considered, the 16" is still not a bad computer. Under light use, the battery can still last up to 8 hours. Typically between 5-6 for my use case. CPU will probably be behind M1 in with native apps, but with Rosetta 2? I guess it's on a per-case basis. GPU is much faster on the 16", which will be useful for photo editing, video editing, and 3D graphics work. I mentioned Fusion 360, right?
5. I'm stuck at home so battery life with M1 will be icing on the cake, but not strictly a necessity.
So while I'm very excited to try out my M1 MacBook Pro, I'm also keeping a "neutral" stance so as to not get swept up by the "new toy" syndrome. At least I'm excited enough by the performance and the "promise" to not just disregard it altogether.
Seriously. I use about 5-6 Macs throughout my day starting from a 2008 iMac 24" and now going through a 2020 M1 MBA. This includes about 6 iMacs of various vintage from 2013 to 2019 in my research lab. (I run a research lab with 2 PDRAs and about 8 PhDs and maybe 10-15 Masters students).
Nothing is anywhere close in speed to the M1 for standard usage.
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
I won't even consider purchasing a non-M1 for my research group or home (which has a stack of about 6-8 MacBooks).
Serious gamechanger.
Nothing is anywhere close in speed to the M1 for standard usage.
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
I won't even consider purchasing a non-M1 for my research group or home (which has a stack of about 6-8 MacBooks).
Serious gamechanger.
I'm on a DTK for as long as I can, then buying a M1 or M2 if any are out by whenever they ask for the DTK back. (Although still hoping Apple will at least give us dev's a part exchange)
If you are an enterprise developer, then I completely agree. Docker is coming but there is no time frame yet. There is a patched version of the Java JDK but I have no idea how stable it is. I'll be checking on that sometime this week. The lack of any working VM is also a problem. These will be solved in time but right now, it is going to pretty painful. Luckily my MacPro still works
It doesn't look like that is happening. It's to bad because I think Apple's presentation of the DTK was a bit misleading. I signed up specifically to investigate enterprise software development and that was pretty much impossible with the DTK. It is missing too much hardware to be useful.
If you are an enterprise developer, then I completely agree. Docker is coming but there is no time frame yet. There is a patched version of the Java JDK but I have no idea how stable it is. I'll be checking on that sometime this week. The lack of any working VM is also a problem. These will be solved in time but right now, it is going to pretty painful. Luckily my MacPro still works
exactly the same here
If you are an enterprise developer, then I completely agree. Docker is coming but there is no time frame yet. There is a patched version of the Java JDK but I have no idea how stable it is. I'll be checking on that sometime this week. The lack of any working VM is also a problem. These will be solved in time but right now, it is going to pretty painful. Luckily my MacPro still works
let me know how the JDK turns out, this is my main use case right now.
looks like Azul offer JDK on macOS 11 for ARM: https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu-community/?os=macos&architecture=arm-64-bit&package=jdk
I wonder if we don’t see some type of differentiation between base models and upper models being ports and external display increases.
in other words, how much faster could an Mx chip perform over an M1 in real world challenges for Professional configurations?
I'm impressed by what I've seen so far (though I'll admit I've not been keeping that close an eye on them). The IO kills the current line up for me though. Could I get by with 2 screens - yes. Do I want to drop over $1000 AUD for privilege - no. Plus, it's not like the new machines make my current machine slower or obsolete. I will certainly be keeping an eye on the lineup as they transition over, but I don't think I'm gonna be upgrading til probably 2023 or so.
If the rumor of an "X" processor with a separate GPU chip/chiplet "Lifuka" is true, then we could guess that there will be double the silicon area available.
It looks like that could fit four times the GPU cores and 3 - 4 times the CPU cores on two different chips in one package.
Probably there would also be controllers for more TB ports and more memory capacity.
Im planning to as soon as finances allow my base model 1080p Imac with a dual core intel needs upgrading lol.
The laptops only can support dual displays with a big asterisk.
You can attach an external monitor, and you could use an iPad with SideCar, but that's the only way with the current I/O tech on M1.
Your old Core 2 Duo iMac gives me major nostalgia. We had those older models (the ones with the black backs) when I was in High School. They were the coolest thing ever man.
The JDK 16 here seems to work: openJDK 16 macOS+AArch64
I haven't tested it much yet but I can compile and run Hello World. Just copy the jdk-16+10/ folder the /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/ and create a softlink to latest.jdk. sudo ln -s jdk-16+10 latest.jdk
The one i have is the late 09 so its the 21.5in silver back. i do love it though great mechine for 32bit compatability
Ah, nice.
If I had the space I would buy some of these older models. It'd be a complete waste of space and a hobby my wife wouldn't like - but I think I'd enjoy it. I'm still using a 2009 4,1 Mac Pro and am debating selling it and my iPad Pro for a M1 machine but I don't want to let such a classic go. It's a great computer even today and would make a great server. And personally I think it's just a classic design.
I'm not really in the market for a laptop these days and will wait for the iMac with Apple silicon to be released. I built a Windows based PC two years ago as I could get more speed, storage and memory and certainly faster GPU than an iMac costing about twice as much. I figure I will be back with a Mac desktop in a years time, the advancements made are simply too good.
Yeah, when Apple launched the 10.5” iPad Pro and the A10X matched the 2017 MacBook Pro I7 in single core speed and beat the MacBook Air completely, I started to wonder where Apple was going with this.
Many early reports indicate that even under Rosetta2, performance is higher than maxed Intel Pros. I'm all Arturia and Universal Audio, the latter is the most critical. I really hope someone gives Rosetta2 a go on UA's installer soon!
But yeah, waiting on the 16" myself
performance is one thing; reliability and stability are another. I've red multiple report of problems with live on the new mac (tracks not playing; crashes; plugin not loading). There's also the problem of big sur compatibility. I remember the first mac intel I bought to use protools; I think under leopard; and I had to use it on boot camp windows for A YEAR because there was no version working with the new OS. And there was the switch to intel 64 bits; I think I waited two years to use the 64 bits version (with a wrapper)