The M1 Pro/Max MacBook Pro is the greatest laptop of all-time.

[ruka.snow]

I wonder what do you need the 4th thunderbolt port for when you already have 3 ports with 3 bus. The previous gen has 4 ports but only 2 bus thunderbolt.
Your pro-workflow will soon requires CF Express then better prepare the dongle . That sucks but one thunderbolt dongle will give you everything you need already.

I had 2 SSD's on one side and 2 CF Express B readers on the other side. Now I need to carry a hub or load the files onto the laptop first and then off load them to the external drives later. No dongles required, all my devices are TB3 or native USB-C at the worst.

 

[ruka.snow]

Absolutely agree on CF Express.
As for the 4th TB port though, I don't feel the loss. Before one TB port was taken up for charging anyway...and if you are at a desk where you can charge from the display, than you can just add a dock to your MBP if you need more physical port connections. Also, this MBP now has 3 dedicated TB lanes, whereas the 2019 MBP only had 2. So you are still getting way more capacity. All you need is a dongle/dock to add a 4th TB port.

I was using all four ports before while not plugged into the wall, now I need to load onto the laptop first and transfer to the backup drives later. Will need to see TB4 hub performance when dealing with devices that can transmit 2 and 4 GB/s(not Mbps). Hopefully the hubs come that are just hubs without adding nonsense like mic, SD, ethernet(unless 10 Gbps), etc.

 

[Jára Tyky]

It will but we will be on the M3 chip by then and new ones will be 20x faster than it. If you are ok with that then sure

Why do you need more performance than M1Max has? Last decade I had i7 versions of processor and I never need more than it has (if I do not speak about games).
So I do not think I will need more performance than M1Mx for next decade.

And on the other hand the performance is dependend on macOS, so as macOS will be supported there will no need for more raw power. I have M1 iPad Pro as well and I am waiting for new update of iPadOS to show us its potential. And this year were a lot of people disappointed that we got so powerful device that can not be unleashed.

 

[currocj]

Do u think base 16 M1 Pro with 1TB will last for 6-7 years? I do not want to buy new laptop earlier.

There was a post here on MR that said the bump up to 32GB is not really necessary unless you are moving around huge files. I got the base 512/16 16" and I see having at least a good 5 year run. As long as the OS updates put me on the compatibility list.

 

[JamieLannister]

I met this woman and she was the love of my life. In fact she knew me in and out and I loved her like a sister. Unfortunately for me I learned later on that as high as on a pedestal I put her kitty, it was all a mistake for this woman was so wretched later on I found out. End up almost dying for her..."almost".

My point is as soon as the next iteration comes along you're gonna sing a different tune and get rid of her as fast as you did buying her in the first place.

 

[tekmoe]

I haven't been this hyped for an Apple computer since the old PowerPC G4 days and I am super stoked because I am going to pick up my 16" M1 Max tonight! I've been using my 2019 16" i9 for the past couple of years but couldn't resist this latest round of updates. Looking forward to doing a comparison between the two.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I hate this advices “you will buy new macbook 2-3 years later”. I went for new Macbook Pro M1 Max because I do not want to change Macbook often.

In our country Macbook Pro 16” costs 3500 USD for the lowest config. Max is 4500 USD what I think is not such difference.

I really do not want to spend another 3500 USD three years later again!

But presumably, you could sell that $3500 laptop for around $1500-2000 3 years later, and upgrade to something better, so you're not spending another $3500.

I understand that frequent upgrades cost money, and it's not something I do myself (I try to get 4-5 years for a laptop and 7-10 years for a desktop), but that will depend on whether the advances made in 3 years are important to you or not.

In the past with Intel machines, the performance difference over 3 years was pretty underwhelming. I'm generally looking for at least 50% improvement to be really noticeable unless I have a very specific task that would benefit from a smaller increase. e.g. if you have a 1 hour job every day that can be reduced to 45 minutes, then over time that makes a big difference.

The problem with upgrading up-front for future use (I don't like the term "future proofing" because nothing is really going to prevent your machine become obsolete in time...) is that you can easily over-spend today by assuming your requirements in some unknown future. If you need 16GB today but upgrade to 32GB for a possible need in 5 years time, then you are paying for 32GB in advance until you need it. Maybe in 5 years time, 32GB becomes the base memory on new machines.

Ideally you calculate how much the machine costs per year over the time you plan to use it, and estimate how much it would cost to buy what you need now (just enough) and upgrade sooner, versus upgrading now and deferring an upgrade to much later. It might actually work out cheaper to upgrade sooner, and even if it costs a bit more, you get the benefit of the latest improvements.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Keep in mind that Apple laptops have great resale value.

What people actually do is to sell their current laptops to offset the cost of the new one.

You also don't take into account new features that you might want on the new laptops like FaceID.

Personally, I got burned by getting a maxed out 2019 16" MBP to keep for 5 years. Never again.

From now on, I will buy what I need in the moment and upgrade every 2-3 years.

You and me both buddy.... it's not a "bad" machine in an absolute sense, but it is clearly terrible value compared to the Apple Silicon laptops. I've used the RAM and SSD upgrades (32GB/1TB) but the GPU upgrades were a waste of money for me because I ended up doing most of video work on other computers (M1 Mini and a desktop). I had some glorified idea of editing travel videos....and then we all stopped traveling! And now even a lowly M1 MacBook will do the job better.

 

[DHagan4755]

Yeah the 2021 MacBook Pro is pretty great! I'm delighted with mine ?

 

[throAU]

I’d go as far as saying it is the best overall computer I have used in 25 years

This is a step like the voodoo card was for pc 3d gaming.

Not for gaming. But for working without being tethered to a wall or dealing with noise and reduced performance.

Even the m1 pro for anything other than gaming is a genuine desktop replacement contender. There are few compromises outside of games.

And I have a quest2 or consoles for that.

 

[Fomalhaut]

It will but we will be on the M3 chip by then and new ones will be 20x faster than it. If you are ok with that then sure

I presume your "20x faster" is hyberbole....but it will be interesting to see how fast Apple Silicion improves.

I think we've already seen the two "big jumps" that Apple can make:
1) The move from Intel to M1 in laptops, especially the 13" models. They are so much faster than the previous models that it a game-changer, and they match even the maxed-out 16" Intel models in almost every metric.

2) The upgrade from M1 to M1 Pro/Max - doubling the performance cores and quadrupling the possible GPU cores has been a huge leap that is rarely seen in year-on-year upgrades.

I don't think we will see anywhere near these jump in the next few generations, if ever.

M2 will have the latest core micro-archiecture (common to A15 or maybe A16) and might get another 10-15% (plus lower power uage). M2 Pro/Max will be the same, but scaled up to the same number of cores.

M3 might be on TSMC 3nm or 4nm process has see an increase in the number of CPU or GPU cores - maybe 12 performance cores & 4 efficiency? Maybe higher clock speeds? So we could see a 30-50% improvement.

I also suspect that the cycle with not be annual, so we might not see an M2 Pro/Max until 2023 and an M3 Pro/Max unitl 2025. There could be minor improvements every year though.

So I imagine we wouldn't see a doubling of current performance for 4-5 years.

They have made the big leaps already; the next steps will be smaller and progressive.

 

[theorist9]

For me it's not the money that's the issue. It's how disruptive it is when you run your life and business on a computer to have to transfer everything to a new machine and then deal with the inevitable problems that arise when you change the horse you're riding.

If I have to send my laptop in for repairs, I typically will just buy a new one instead and sell my old one when it comes back because if I've got to go through the hassle of migrating my things to live off of another machine for a week, I might as well reset my upgrade cycle forward so I won't have to do it again hopefully for at least 4 years.

Agreed that moving to a new machine takes a whole weekend if you do it right (with a clean install--start with a fresh OS, and then manually install each program). But temporarily switching to a backup machine can be done with the click of a mouse, if you keep your machine backed up to an external drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, using the bootable clone option. Just plug the external drive into the loaner machine, boot into the external drive, and clone that drive to the loaner.

 

[varunsanthanam]

I bought the first gen retina MacBook Pro in 2012. That was the first MacBook laptop that was full SSD + Retina display + fully non removable battery & storage. At the time, it was also a huge improvement in terms of portability from my previous 15" unibody MacBook Pro. I remember being stunned by its performance, display, and battery life. It was a huge leap forward. It also came with a huge price premium over the unibody MacBook Pro -- there was a brief period when Apple sold both models. But it was worth it.

A year after the TouchBar 15" came out, Marco Arment wrote this post, declaring the Retina MacBook Pro the best laptop ever made. I agreed

The best laptop ever made – Marco.org

marco.org

This new 16" feels like that again 2012 computer all over again. A huge, enormous leap forward. The display is incredible. No laptop speakers have any right sounding this good. The battery life is next level, and the performance still makes my jaw drop even after a week of near constant daily use.

The Touch Bar MacBook Pro had really soured me on Apple. They had serious quality control problems, and the performance just wasn't able to handle my workflow. Can't wait till my employer issues one of these for work. They really are as good as people are saying. The hype is real. If you're on the fence and you a workflow would benefit from this kind of performance, I can't recommend it enough.

 

[auwkeung]

These Macbook Pros are definitely one of the greatest ones if not THE greatest upgrade we have had.
Apple has finally ditched the form-over-function and let Pros get their wishes.
I think these laptops can easily survive and still run great after 5-6 years.

 

[Brien]

Do u think base 16 M1 Pro with 1TB will last for 6-7 years? I do not want to buy new laptop earlier.

Base? Probably not. I’d go up a notch or two.

FWIW, I maxxed out a 2008 BTO 15” and it was my primary computer until 2011, abd, I STILL use it, a bit slow and stuck on Sierra though.

 

[Hombre53]

IMHO, the best laptop of all time was the mid 2012 15” unibody. It has stood the test of time nearly 10 years after its original inception. Time will tell if the 2021 16” is being talked about in 5 years, let alone 10. Just a great laptop.

 

[richinaus]

IMHO, the best laptop of all time was the mid 2012 15” unibody. It has stood the test of time nearly 10 years after its original inception. Time will tell if the 2021 16” is being talked about in 5 years, let alone 10. Just a great laptop.

You see thats where we have different opinions. My 2012 lasted a couple of years before being replaced - it was never fast enough for my use.
The M1 Max is the first laptop I have ever bought that I know will meet my needs in terms of power for sometime, rather than me being underwhelmed from the get go.

 

[WilliamG]

There's no doubt these new Pros are the best laptops ever, as they're the complete package. I remember getting my 2019 MacBook Pro 16 inch i9 8-core, and within a week or so I was so frustrated with how hot it ran, and just how slow it was really doing it. This new system is just sensational, with thermals that defy belief.

 

[Shd0w4lkr40]

One of the things I keep seeing over and over again throughout these forums, through reddit, and in Audio Engineering/Production forums (relevant to me)...is the insanely high number of people who are getting the M1 Pro/Max as replacement for their 2012-2015 MBpro....and its the 2012 model that I have seen the most of mentioned. Think about that for a second, these people are replacing in a lot of cases a NINE YEAR OLD notebook!!! It is an undeniable fact that Macs not only hold their value longer, but in general they just tend to last longer (quirky issues aside, obviously). I peronsally got a 16" M1 Pro which replaced a late 2013 15" Pro that up until last week I was still using for fairly intensive Audio Production. I echo the OP's sentiment, and I think after 2 weeks I can state with no hesitation that this is absolutely my favorite product that Apple has ever released....I did try to tax the system last week and was unable to get it to really crawl...of course, it is still a computer and there's always going to be particular complex tasks that will do cause it hang...but with the apps and workflow I use, I haven't been able to. I freaking love this thing

 

[iPadified]

Except for a few workloads multithreaded workloads and gaming that always requires top specifications, a laptop will hold fine for a decade because the performance improvements outpaces peoples needs of performance improvements and yet it is slow.

Apple may have a YoY improvement of 20% but fewer and fewer peoples requirement for speed improvement will actually match that development. I expect the base 2021 MBP will fit my needs for >10 years and yet I do some odd case of video editing, 3D modelling and rendering.

 

[smirking]

But temporarily switching to a backup machine can be done with the click of a mouse, if you keep your machine backed up to an external drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, using the bootable clone option.

Ok, but when you move machines, it's never exactly the same. Here's what I'm getting at:

When you migrate, most of it just works, but some of your licenses stop working. Apple Music has to be authorized on your new computer, but then you realize you're out of authorizations so you have to deauthorize all of your other devices and now you have to reauth on all of those.

Some of your keychain items aren't recognized automatically by your programs anymore. They're still there, but for some reason your new machine won't access some passwords automatically so you have to manually fetch them. In doing so, you make a mistake and now you have competing passwords and you're not sure which one to use.

There's a program that you don't use very often, but when you do it's very time sensitive. It won't run because the license was bound to your other computer. You need to jump through hoops to get it authorized your new computer, but you bought this program 4 years ago and can't find the license. Now you spend 2 hours trying to find that license code somewhere.

Then once you get snared in loops like this, you then start getting confused and make stupid decisions like deleting the wrong ssh keys to your developer projects in progress and now you can't deploy for a client that needed something last week. You then have to re-authenticate with identity providers, some of whom are actual people who do it wrong on the first try or reply back a week later.

This is what I mean. The issues you encounter are minor on their own, but if you have a complex enough of a setup they will sometimes snowball and become bigger than a sum of their parts.

That's why I try to keep my upgrades to once every 4 years or more.

 

[throAU]

IMHO, the best laptop of all time was the mid 2012 15” unibody. It has stood the test of time nearly 10 years after its original inception. Time will tell if the 2021 16” is being talked about in 5 years, let alone 10. Just a great laptop.

Nah. I had (still have, actually) a 15" from that era (2011, but basically same, a friend had the 2012).

GPU would make it burn like a furnace, fan noise cranked up a heap.

Nothing like the new Apple Silicon machines at all.

 

[smirking]

Apple may have a YoY improvement of 20% but fewer and fewer peoples requirement for speed improvement will actually match that development. I expect the base 2021 MBP will fit my needs for >10 years and yet I do some odd case of video editing, 3D modelling and rendering.

I think a lot of people still have a 2009 mindset when frequent upgrades to maintain performance was a real thing. SSDs were a game changer. My 2010 MBP with 8GB of RAM became a perfectly usable computer again once I swapped in an SSD.

I worked on beefed up Mac workstations in 2009. In 2010, I "downgraded" to a MacBook Pro. Maybe in 4 years I'll be stepping down again to a MacBook Air.

I think of it like cars. The average person only needs so much. Once you reach a certain point, it no longer matters if a new model goes twice as fast.

 

[throAU]

The faster a cpu is in the same power the more it can sleep to save electricity.

We are WAY WAY off not needing faster or more efficient processors.

Decades off.

 

[SergueiTemp]

I'm happy to hear Apple is actively hiring to PR it's ****** designs at popular message boards