was going to get an M2 air, can't find one for sale (with upgraded RAM), but found an M2 MBP touchbar with 24GB.
I think it was the right choice, I had a 14" pro for like a week I HATED not having the touchbar. There's a couple things I do very often on the touchbar, deleting stuff, using screenshot, and just using the arithmetic operations for calculator, they're all gone without the Touchbar, instead I have to do these finger/mental gymnastic shortcut keys like cmd+crl+3/4/5 and you just gotta memorize what each of these numbers do in terms of screenshot. And yes, I screenshot/delete more than I adjust volume/brightness, the function keys are utterly useless to me.
BTW another unpopular opinion of mine is I like the butterfly keyboard... This new keyboard has so much travel and just more mushy less crisp than butterfly. Yes I do use mechanical keyboard with huger travel, but it's a linear switch so it's never mushy like rubber film keyboards are, now that the butterfly switch is gone. Obviously nobody likes broken keyboard, my 2018 actually started having slight double press issues, that wasn't great. But I just hope Apple had continue to develop the keyboard rather than throwing in the towel.
I wanted to get the Air simply because it's a new good looking design, but after seeing it in-store, I have to say I'm not very impressed, it's not significantly thinner or lighter than the classic touchbar MBP. I was so caught up with the new design I didn't even think of the touchbar issue, that I could get the M2 with a touchbar.
Now I got a MBP that looks almost exactly the same as my previous 2018 with quad-core Intel, but now I have M2 maxed out 24GB, not the most exciting purchase but I'm sure it'll get things done extremely well. Although most of my work on the laptop will be web/spreadsheet, I do occasionally do pro photography stuff on it, when running Lightroom I think it's just as responsive as my desktop which is just perfect. Ran a quick export test with 130 50MP RAW export, well the desktop is still much faster with 16 cores and way stronger GPU. However the cooling on this thing is night and day compared to the old Intel, obviously, everyone with the M1 certainly already know that, but this being only 1 fan and slighter more power to the M2, I had a bit of a concern.
I modified my old 2018MBP with liquid metal interface and thermal pad to connect the back cover to aid cooling it was mostly totally silent but the fan will spin loudly in long Lightroom exports. Now it's still totally silent but the fan barely have to spin up in these long exports, I probably won't even have to modify the cooling, where as if I got the Air, most likely would've opened that up for thermal pads at least.
I think it was the right choice, I had a 14" pro for like a week I HATED not having the touchbar. There's a couple things I do very often on the touchbar, deleting stuff, using screenshot, and just using the arithmetic operations for calculator, they're all gone without the Touchbar, instead I have to do these finger/mental gymnastic shortcut keys like cmd+crl+3/4/5 and you just gotta memorize what each of these numbers do in terms of screenshot. And yes, I screenshot/delete more than I adjust volume/brightness, the function keys are utterly useless to me.
BTW another unpopular opinion of mine is I like the butterfly keyboard... This new keyboard has so much travel and just more mushy less crisp than butterfly. Yes I do use mechanical keyboard with huger travel, but it's a linear switch so it's never mushy like rubber film keyboards are, now that the butterfly switch is gone. Obviously nobody likes broken keyboard, my 2018 actually started having slight double press issues, that wasn't great. But I just hope Apple had continue to develop the keyboard rather than throwing in the towel.
I wanted to get the Air simply because it's a new good looking design, but after seeing it in-store, I have to say I'm not very impressed, it's not significantly thinner or lighter than the classic touchbar MBP. I was so caught up with the new design I didn't even think of the touchbar issue, that I could get the M2 with a touchbar.
Now I got a MBP that looks almost exactly the same as my previous 2018 with quad-core Intel, but now I have M2 maxed out 24GB, not the most exciting purchase but I'm sure it'll get things done extremely well. Although most of my work on the laptop will be web/spreadsheet, I do occasionally do pro photography stuff on it, when running Lightroom I think it's just as responsive as my desktop which is just perfect. Ran a quick export test with 130 50MP RAW export, well the desktop is still much faster with 16 cores and way stronger GPU. However the cooling on this thing is night and day compared to the old Intel, obviously, everyone with the M1 certainly already know that, but this being only 1 fan and slighter more power to the M2, I had a bit of a concern.
I modified my old 2018MBP with liquid metal interface and thermal pad to connect the back cover to aid cooling it was mostly totally silent but the fan will spin loudly in long Lightroom exports. Now it's still totally silent but the fan barely have to spin up in these long exports, I probably won't even have to modify the cooling, where as if I got the Air, most likely would've opened that up for thermal pads at least.
Last edited:
