Trying to decide between M1 Pro and M1 Max for new daily driver

[doolar]

I would go with the base 14" or 16" if I were you. My usage is pretty similar, and I've been using a M1 Air for awhile.

The other day the urge to go for a Macbook Pro became to big even though I know that I would very rarely need anything more than the Air I already owned. But, I went to the Apple Store and traded it in for a base 14" Pro. It is a lovely machine.

Why did I do this rather unnecessary trade? Well, basically the new display did it, both size and quality (and the Air's got a amazing display to start with). Plus - I can afford it, but yea, it's more for the love of the tech than any real need. But I guess that's a reason as good as any other (why buy an expensive car when the cheapest one will do most of the same thing?).

I discarded the idea of a M1 Max immediately, that would almost be an insult to the SoC. The M1 Pro is way overpowered for my needs, and will run cooler especially in the smaller 14". 8 GB of RAM did not pose any issues on my two M1 Airs (I still use one for work), so 16 GB will be fine for my personal needs I'm sure.

 

[Mitchdoc]

I think the bigger question for you to decide on is which size computer you want.
I am still debating 16 and 14 having both in my home at present.
While I love the foot print of the 14 and the performance is about the same, ht battery life screen size and speakers are better on the 16.
Another thing which seems better is the brightness.
At max brightness I found the 16 about 1-2 ticks brighter than the matching 14 inch.
This might come in handy if using in a bright environment.

 

[clevins]

I disagree. He obviously keeps his equipment for a long, long time. It's not silly to spend more now and have a machine that will last him 10 or more years.

Yes it is. It's ALWAYS silly to buy for 10 years when Macs hold their resale value so well. You're better off, in both financial and technical terms, when you upgrade every 3-5 years. You can resell a mac for ~40-50% of its new price at 3 or 4 years and what you buy then will blow away what you can buy now. Look at OP - - they've been using a vastly underpowered machine for YEARS. If having reasonable power was important to them, they'd have upgraded in the 2015 timeframe and then be ready, perhaps a bit past ready, now.

OP could have been fine with an Air for their stated needs (screen size aside). But it's their money, so... ?‍♂️


PS: I'm not judging OP. I know folks who bought the base 16" Pro who had zero use for the power vs an Air but they wanted the screen size and that got it to them.

 

[Fomalhaut]

That is your opinion. You are welcome to it This is my opinion. I still stand by what I suggested, the OP keeps their computers for a long time, sure 16 GBs might be sufficient today, but will it be in 2 years, or even 3 years? It is not possible to know how much RAM you will need in the future. Since you can't upgrade it, you would have to purchase a whole new Mac to upgrade.

:-D

Accurately calculating future capacity requirements is a hard job, especially if the computer could be used for completely new things in the future.

In general, I would say that any given piece of software that uses <x> GB of RAM in 2021, is probably still going to run adequately well with the same memory allocation within 5 years, unless is it something that undergoes very rapid change and frequent updates. e.g. typical interactive web page size and memory usage has grown significantly over the years.

So you need to allow some headroom to allow for increased resource requirements, but don't want to over-provision unnecessarily.

Storage requirements are maybe easier to calculate. You know how much you currently have and can estimate how quickly you use this new apps and data. It generally comes down to whether you need to convenience of having everything to hand on an internal SSD or are happy to use external drives, NAS or cloud storage. Apple charges a premium for this, so you need to consider whether you really need this convenience or speed for everything. Probably your photo, video and music archives can be more economically (and securely) stored elsewhere.

Another consideration is that if you plan on reselling the machine, you will not recoup the cost of your upgrades, so best to choose these on the basis of what you really need, rather than think you might need, or what a future buyer might need. I've just been through this process with an upgraded MBP16 and got virtually nothing of back on the RAM, SSD and GPU upgrades that I paid up-front for. I did make good use of these upgrades, so I don't regret my choices, but they didn't help my resale value, at least not as much as I had hoped for.

It's a fine balance - and buyers should take long and realistic view at their likely future usage. If money is no object, then sure, max it out

 

[sb in ak]

Hard to say what will make a computer last 10 years. I up-spec'd my 2013 MBP and in the end it was some issue with either the discrete graphics or overheating that seems to have made this machine unusable for daily work due to random crashes. The specs otherwise were almost still fine for my work in 2021 (Lightroom just getting a little sluggish with big raw files). I guess my point is that it's hard to say what the limiting factor ultimately will be.

My needs are similar to the OPs execept I run Lightroom several times a week for personal photography projects. I went with the base 16 but 1TB upgrade. Things are smooth and run great. I can see getting 32GB because LR is pretty ram intensive, though, and it does hit the swap pretty hard with graphics acceleration on. I disabled that and the program is still pretty fast.

 

[profcutter]

Assuming that apple keeps to a fast upgrade schedule, it will be harder to keep a machine for 10 years. If they fall back to the intel schedule, then it will be more likely.

 

[SpitUK]

I got the M1 Max 16” purely because I like to play Warcraft and it runs perfectly. It’s a cheap upgrade for gaming as you are literally doubling the performance. If I didn’t play games then I would get the M1 Pro all day long.

 

[tdbrown75]

YOLO - get the Max!

 

[mielie]

Going from a 2009 MBP to a 2022 M1 Pro or Max is quite silly. An M1 will be many many many many times faster than your existing machine. If your 2009MBP was fast enough for you in 2021 to use, an M1 will easily be fast enough today, tomorrow and in the coming years.

For his stated uses an M1 MacBook Air would tick the boxes nicely, and no doubt be future proof for almost as long as the current M1 Pro. Its also going to absolutely obliterate his previous machine. My current daily driver is also M1 and if I was to just do a bit of internet, spreadsheets, etc, then I could easily run it two days without charging.

However, there is also the screen size to consider. You cannot get an M1 laptop with a 16 inch display. There is a lot to be said for having a larger screen, especially if this is the only machine you use. And its XDR!

 

[tekmoe]

I went for the Max because I do plan to keep this machine for a long time, just like I did with my 2010 17” Core 2 Duo that I used for nearly a decade. Apple makes some of the best notebooks money can buy ?

 

[GoldPunch]

M1 Max!