What MacBook Pro to buy

[dcmaccam]

I am in the UK and looking to upgrade my my MacBook Air base spec M1 to a MacBook Pro. I also have an Intel based 27" 3.0 MHz iMac. base spec with 32GB 1TB Fusion Drive

The MacBook will be used for Adobe Lightroom and Final Cut Pro with a little Photoshop

I have about £2500 to spend and have the following options and prices:-

16" M1 Pro Max 32GB plus 1Tb storage £2499

16" M3 Pro 18GB plus 512Gb storage £2049

14" M3 Pro 18GB plus 1Tb storage £2239

Sadly I just missed (by minutes) getting a 14" M1 Max with 64GB plus 2Tb storage for about £2399 from Costco.

So I was thinking the 16" MI Max might have been the best option! Anybody think any of the above are good prices considering its the UK.

When I get rid of my iMac I will be buying a Studio Display or similar.

Any advice appreciated.

 

[Fishrrman]

Your first choice is probably best for your applications.

You want "extra memory" for FCP, particularly if you're going to edit 4k video.

The larger display will help, too.

 

[ascender]

If it was me I'd start by asking two questions...

1. Do I want/need a 14" or 16" machine?
2. Do I want/need a Max CPU

Then look at how much RAM you need and storage which should start to narrow things down to a couple of models, be they new or used.

 

[Apple_Robert]

In my opinion, the Max would be overkill. I would get either the 14 or 16" M3.

 

[dcmaccam]

Thank for all the replies. I would really like 1Tb of storage so the 14 M3 may be the most suitable. I don’t mind if its a 16 or 14. Really looking for the best value for money.

So thats why I included the M1.

So I wonder how the 14" M3 Pro 18GB plus 1Tb storage would compare performance wise with the M1 option?

 

[dcmaccam]

Just an update, I decided not to go with any of the above. I have just purchased this due to the price:-

16" M1 Pro 16GB plus 1Tb storage £1599

I am sure that this will fulfil my needs for now.

 

[jav6454]

I am in the UK and looking to upgrade my my MacBook Air base spec M1 to a MacBook Pro. I also have an Intel based 27" 3.0 MHz iMac. base spec with 32GB 1TB Fusion Drive

The MacBook will be used for Adobe Lightroom and Final Cut Pro with a little Photoshop

I have about £2500 to spend and have the following options and prices:-

16" M1 Pro Max 32GB plus 1Tb storage £2499

16" M3 Pro 18GB plus 512Gb storage £2049

14" M3 Pro 18GB plus 1Tb storage £2239

Sadly I just missed (by minutes) getting a 14" M1 Max with 64GB plus 2Tb storage for about £2399 from Costco.

So I was thinking the 16" MI Max might have been the best option! Anybody think any of the above are good prices considering its the UK.

When I get rid of my iMac I will be buying a Studio Display or similar.

Any advice appreciated.

What is your budget?

 

[dcmaccam]

What is your budget?

All sorted now.

 

[dcmaccam]

Further update. After placing and paying for the MacBook (16" M1 Pro 16GB plus 1Tb storage £1599) Costco cancelled my order 2 days later, saying no stock. Might be more after Xmas I was told. Prior to that I got a new Studio Display For £1149 so I wiped and reloaded my MacBook Air and I reinstalled everything as it was on my iMac. Surprisingly it runs not too bad. Still on the hunt for a new Macbook.

 

[MacDevil7334]

OP I think your instinct to look for an M1 model is a good one. If you are constrained on budget, you are better off getting an older processor and putting more money into storage and RAM. All of the M-series chips are impressive and will meet the needs you stated in your first post. Upgrading the RAM and storage will be a better use of money in the long term.

 

[jlc1978]

Further update. After placing and paying for the MacBook (16" M1 Pro 16GB plus 1Tb storage £1599) Costco cancelled my order 2 days later, saying no stock. Might be more after Xmas I was told. Prior to that I got a new Studio Display For £1149 so I wiped and reloaded my MacBook Air and I reinstalled everything as it was on my iMac. Surprisingly it runs not too bad. Still on the hunt for a new Macbook.

Having you considered wording one from a US reseller, such as B&H Photo? The M1 Pro Max/32/1TB is $2100 today. If you future say 30% for import/shipping on top, you're at $2730 or about 2150 UK Pounds. If you can live with the US keyboard you'd have quite the device at less than UK prices.

 

[dcmaccam]

Hi, Thanks for the info,however there is a shipping restriction to the UK.

 

[calderini]

Hi, Thanks for the info,however there is a shipping restriction to the UK.

Have you checked out B&H Photo? I was able to get a new in box M1 MAX 64/4TB on a Black Friday deal for about $2800 US. (That was a $200 Black Friday Savings), But they DO have a TON of similar deals with Actual Apple Store levels of configurations. Shipments in the States was 2 days and FREE. What astounded me the most was that their New In Box pricing was beating the Apple Refurb stores price by about a $1000 (In the case of my particular model) Anyway. My 2 cents. Happy Hunting. Happy Holidays.
WRC 12/24/23

(Edit)
Well. Crap Bill. Read ALL THE COMMENTS before posting LOL

 

[dcmaccam]

I am in the UK and B&H Photo wont't ship to UK.

 

[MyMacintosh]

I just bought a 16 inch M2 Max 64 Gb, 1TB 38core (whatever that even means), coming from a 15inch i7 16 Gb Touch Bar MBP and omg I'm so impressed with this thing. I can have like 15 tabs in safari open, 5 in Chrome, 20 different apps, and three 4k videos playin on YouTube, all connected to a 28in 4k monitor and 27in 2k monitor, and haven't heard a single fan turn on yet! No more jet engine sounding like it's about to take off. Hasn't even gotten hot either.

I was going to go with a 2TB 32 Gb but I figured future proofing with more RAM would be more important to me than more SSD space. I'm honestly so happy about this thing. It's super fast as well. It's probably overkill for what I use it for but given in the past I've been told 16gb would be enough and it wasn't, I didn't trust going to 32gb for my needs. Definitely opt for more RAM.

Your 1st option seems best.

 

[Alameda]

I am in the UK and B&H Photo wont't ship to UK.

Have you considered flying to New York for a weekend? It can be quite fun.

 

[Username-already-in-use]

What about: 14” M3 Pro 36GB RAM + 512GB for £2499?

 

[stu.h]

Just an update, I decided not to go with any of the above. I have just purchased this due to the price:-

16" M1 Pro 16GB plus 1Tb storage £1599

I am sure that this will fulfil my needs for now.

Hi
Where in the UK did you purchase this from?
I'm looking at some models on CEX as they will offer me just under £1.1k for my old MacBook Pro (as trade-in value).
Like you I am undecided on what to go for. I did think about a MacBook Air M2 but even though I only do minimalistic things on it, I may want the option in the future for virtual machines running on Parallels etc, plus I would like 120Hz refresh rate.
Thinking at the moment on a 16" M1 Pro or M1 Max, 32GB RAM and either 512GB or 1TB SSD (negligible difference in price).

 

[dcmaccam]

Hi
Where in the UK did you purchase this from?
I'm looking at some models on CEX as they will offer me just under £1.1k for my old MacBook Pro (as trade-in value).
Like you I am undecided on what to go for. I did think about a MacBook Air M2 but even though I only do minimalistic things on it, I may want the option in the future for virtual machines running on Parallels etc, plus I would like 120Hz refresh rate.
Thinking at the moment on a 16" M1 Pro or M1 Max, 32GB RAM and either 512GB or 1TB SSD (negligible difference in price).

Well, I purchased this from Costco but they cancelled 2 days after because of no stock. So I was still looking and found a 32GB version (new) in Cash Converters so I purchase that. Unfortunately when it arrived it had already been setup with a Admin account and no password so that got sent back. Now waiting on a refund. Will continue looking when the refund comes through.

 

[MacMandy]

14” MBP M3 Pro 18/1TB £199 off at John Lewis . . .

2023 Apple MacBook Pro 14", M3 Pro Processor, 18GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Space Black

Buy 2023 Apple MacBook Pro 14", M3 Pro Processor, 18GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Space Black from our View All Laptops & MacBooks range at John Lewis & Partners. Free Delivery on orders over £50.

www.johnlewis.com

 

[dcmaccam]

Now have another MacBook Pro. I purchased an M2 16 inch MacBook Pro 16GB 512SSD from John Lewis for £1970. It was a new sealed unit. All looked good until I did a check on the SSD speed. 4600MB/s write and 2800MB/s read. My M1 MacBook Air 8GB 256SSD (2x128GB chips) does 2300MB/s write and 2800MB/s read. I believe the M2 MacBook Pro with 512GB uses (2x256GB chips) where the likes of the M1 MacBook Pro with 512GB uses (4x128GB chips).
Anyone know if the M3 MacBook Pro with 512GB uses (4x128GB chips)
So I feel a little short changed with the read/write speed. Maybe it's just me, and not sure it will matter much. Still I can take it back for a refund if I want and just use my MacBook Air for now.

 

[jlc1978]

So I feel a little short changed with the read/write speed. Maybe it's just me, and not sure it will matter much. Still I can take it back for a refund if I want and just use my MacBook Air for now.

So here's my thoughts:

Does you Air have issues /slowdowns caused by read / write speeds? If the answer is:

No - the M2 certainly won't
Yes - test the M2 and see if the issue persists. If the result is:

No - keep the M2​

Yes - return M2 and get one within your budget with faster r/w speeds​

 

[okkibs]

I understand the previous return as the item was not as described, and I do find the business practice of silently downgrading some components in a newer model to be pretty bad. However, in practice there won't be a noticeable difference. I will list the downsides of the 500GB M2 SSD for you so you can make an informed decision, though personally I'd keep the device as the price is decent for a 16", it's most definitely quite the upgrade over your Air despite the slower SSD and if you were to get a M3 model just for the SSD then you'd still pay a premium for a storage difference that is unlikely to ever affect your workload. The M3 models have better battery life and somewhat better performance all around and that might be worth paying extra but if you are happy with yours there is no need to go through the return hassle again and paying more.

The downsides of 2 fewer NAND chips are

- slightly lower endurance, meaning the total amount of writes the chips can handle over their entire lifetime. I posted the numbers somewhere here months ago and don't remember them now, but all 500GB SSDs were above 1 Petabyte of total writes and that's just the specs, usually SSDs can do more than that before they'll actually fail. Halving the chips does not half the endurance because larger capacity chips have higher endurance than smaller capacity chips. I can only speculate whether the total endurance of 2x256 ends up at 90% or 80% vs 4x128 but at around 1PB that's very good regardless. Put differently, if your Mac has any defect in the next 10 years it's not going to be the endurance rating that caused it;

- lower random r/w performance. The sequential high numbers in the Gigabytes don't matter as these can only be reached with higher queue depths, meaning multiple parallel processes accessing the SSD at the same time. For example, a single large file copy process will top out at 850MB/s-1GB/s. You'd have to connect multiple SSDs to your Mac and copy from the internal SSD to them (or vice versa) simultaneously to even reach the sequential speed limits of the internal SSD. The random performance is more noticeable as that is what most daily use will need. Unless you do anything that is sensitive to that like running a local database on the Mac's internal SSD there is no perceived difference. The speed of the M2/M3 SoC will make more of an impact on perceived speeds.

Anyone know if the M3 MacBook Pro with 512GB uses (4x128GB chips)

According to reviews the M3 Pro and M3 Max versions of both 14" and 16" MBPs do use 4x128GB again. Usually Apple doesn't quietly change that at a later point in time so in my opinion it's safe to say all of these will have the 4 chips. But as Apple doesn't make any claims/promises I cannot guarantee it.

 

[dcmaccam]

Well I finally got my MacBook Pro. Before this I got another brand new base M1 MacBook Pro. unfortunately this machine was tied to Google, so that went back. I was going to get a M3 MacBook Pro Max 14 core CPU, 30 core GPU with 36GB ram and 1TB ssd from Costco UK for £3199. Instead they had an M2 MacBook Pro Max with 12 core CPU, 38 core GPU with 64GB ram and 2TB SSD for £200 more. I thought this was better value for money. It arrived today and migrated everything seamlessly from my MacBook Air.