I am tempted to upgrade but I only do web development mainly, no video editing etc. Would I see a significant difference? Please talk me out of it 
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Who has upgraded from M1 to M1 Pro/Max? Where have you seen the biggest improvements?
- Thread starter VitoBotta
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I went to Pro.
The display is a big upgrade as is the webcam. The keyboard is also nicer with more travel.
Performance wise the doubling of GPU cores is yielding a noticeable bump in how websites behave and also how some games run. Doubling the P cores plus the MUCH faster SSD and RAM are making I/O work go smoothly and quickly.
The display is a big upgrade as is the webcam. The keyboard is also nicer with more travel.
Performance wise the doubling of GPU cores is yielding a noticeable bump in how websites behave and also how some games run. Doubling the P cores plus the MUCH faster SSD and RAM are making I/O work go smoothly and quickly.
Thanks. I don't do games really, mostly development. Maybe it's not worth for me now 🤔
Check this channel. Performance tests upcoming for the new machines (programming)
Compared to my M1 MBA, my 16” M1 Max:
1. Is less buggy (especially Bluetooth and Safari); I have no idea why.
2. Has useable screen space; the MBA seemed more cramped than my 11” iPad Pro for some reason.
3. Doesn’t run out of ports.
4. Can actually be used for PVP in Eve Online; the MBA could provide good graphics or a decent resolution, but not both at the same time – the Max does both without breaking a sweat.
1. Is less buggy (especially Bluetooth and Safari); I have no idea why.
2. Has useable screen space; the MBA seemed more cramped than my 11” iPad Pro for some reason.
3. Doesn’t run out of ports.
4. Can actually be used for PVP in Eve Online; the MBA could provide good graphics or a decent resolution, but not both at the same time – the Max does both without breaking a sweat.
If you think anyone who just bought a Pro model is going to tell you your M1 is good enough, think again. As great as the M1 is, every time a new product comes out, no matter the product, this forum will make you think your “old” device was a piece of crap from the start.
Let rational thoughts in. Your M1 is still as amazing now as it was less than a year ago. If it does everything you need it to do, then keep it. It’s still the absolute best value on the market.
Let rational thoughts in. Your M1 is still as amazing now as it was less than a year ago. If it does everything you need it to do, then keep it. It’s still the absolute best value on the market.
just upgraded from an M1 Air to the 14 Pro base model and its great. from reading all the complaints about it being bulky, heavy, poor display, etc, and at least for me, its a heck of an upgrade. keyboard is better, display is fantastic and its just more comfortable on my lap. great machine. I think the ones complaining about it didn't or couldn't buy it.
I don't see where my information would lead to that conclusion. I said I/O is smooth and quick and that is the type of compute development work lives on. It has double the P cores on a ridiculously fast memory subsystem and likewise crazy fast SSDs.
In the very same situation, Im a web dev, graphic designer, mild video editor but only for social, no 4k. Im rocking a 13" macbook pro from 2015 after my 2019 15" completely died. Was waiting to see what the new pros were like...they are NICE but im thinking of just getting the air, sad I dont get the new fancy bits though :-(
Comparing to my 2019 16" i9 MBP / 64GB ...
The #1 thing, workloads that would make the fans sound like a jet engine on my intel mbp don't make the fans go any faster than idle on my M1 MAX. Hoenstly, most of my workload shouldn't be that hard anyway ... It's just thinkorswim (the TD Ameritrade active trader app), a bunch of safari tabs, slack, zoom, maybe a second browser like chrome, Mail.app, Messages...
The main reason I have such a maxed out machine is that having just a single crash at an inopportune time could cost me the value of the machine, and likewise, being able to have thinkorswim running while the laptop is sitting on my lap, or on a soft surface like a sofa or a bed versus NEEDING to have it on a desk, is again very valuable ...
Memory usage seems to be much more efficient, though I haven't looked into why. I would frequently swap out with my previous 32GB intel MBP, and would occasionally swap out my 64GB intel MBP ... memory pressure has been very very low on the M1 Max.
I'm not really a developer anymore at this stage of my career/life, but I was in the past ... Compiles are about 2-3X faster on this machine also (and don't make the fans spin).
The #1 thing, workloads that would make the fans sound like a jet engine on my intel mbp don't make the fans go any faster than idle on my M1 MAX. Hoenstly, most of my workload shouldn't be that hard anyway ... It's just thinkorswim (the TD Ameritrade active trader app), a bunch of safari tabs, slack, zoom, maybe a second browser like chrome, Mail.app, Messages...
The main reason I have such a maxed out machine is that having just a single crash at an inopportune time could cost me the value of the machine, and likewise, being able to have thinkorswim running while the laptop is sitting on my lap, or on a soft surface like a sofa or a bed versus NEEDING to have it on a desk, is again very valuable ...
Memory usage seems to be much more efficient, though I haven't looked into why. I would frequently swap out with my previous 32GB intel MBP, and would occasionally swap out my 64GB intel MBP ... memory pressure has been very very low on the M1 Max.
I'm not really a developer anymore at this stage of my career/life, but I was in the past ... Compiles are about 2-3X faster on this machine also (and don't make the fans spin).
Non-Pro here.
I have the M1 MBP and I've been testing the 14 and 16. Here are my thoughts.
Advantages
I have the M1 MBP and I've been testing the 14 and 16. Here are my thoughts.
Advantages
- fantastic display despite the notch - the 16 provides a more immersive viewing experience with the extra few inches, the 14's 1 inch improvement in screen size is not that much of an upgrade over my M1 MBP and I actually prefer the aspect ratio of the M1 MBP
- really great speakers, much better, however, I use headphones/Air Pods a lot
- extra TB ports is useful (HDMI is useless for me) and if I keep one of these, I look forward to using the SD card slot for additional storage, MagSafe is cool but I connect my M1 MBP to my ultra-wide monitor, still nice to have when I use the MBP in my bedroom or somewhere other than my home office.
- no touch-bar - the touch-bar is useless for me and it's nice that the replacement hard keys are the same size as the rest of the keys
- extra GPU allows me to finally (!!) enable HiDPI and more scaling options on my LG 34 5K2K monitor - I can now scale things down while maintaining 4K which provides more real estate on my monitor
- additional monitor connectivity - I will probably buy another 4K monitor (27 inch)
- battery life compared to the M1 MBP - the 14 is just not adequate however the 16 is pretty close
- size and Weight - no one will dispute these two new MBPs are chunkier and heavier, but the 16 is on a different level, I don't think I'll be traveling anywhere with that
- brightness - a real shame that the 14/16's SDR brightness is limited to the same 500 nits that the M1 MBP has
- price - you're likely to pay at least double the price of the M1 MBP
- out-dated ports - after all these years, Apple sticks in HDMI 2.0 and last gen's SD card reader???? wow, the thing that irks me most about this is that in one or two years, those ports will be updated or even removed!
- notch - it's annoying for me and for what? a 1080p webcam? seriously? I don't care that the webcam is better. again, just like the port situation, we'll probably get Face ID next year or in 2023
For those who find general application and safari performance smoother, if you went from 8GB MBA to 16GB MBP14,
the memory bump alone will account for quite a difference.
Xcode builds will obviously run faster. As far as general web development, the level of improvement will depend on whether your tools take full advantage of multi-core and the size of your projects (as SSD speed and memory bandwidth may have a noticable effect as well). Also, more tools can run loads concurrently, but for light web development, you might not notice that effect much.
But for that there is a weight/size/price tradeoff and some report battery life as well (though some of that might be just one-time re-indexing and new machine setup background processes.).
the memory bump alone will account for quite a difference.
Xcode builds will obviously run faster. As far as general web development, the level of improvement will depend on whether your tools take full advantage of multi-core and the size of your projects (as SSD speed and memory bandwidth may have a noticable effect as well). Also, more tools can run loads concurrently, but for light web development, you might not notice that effect much.
But for that there is a weight/size/price tradeoff and some report battery life as well (though some of that might be just one-time re-indexing and new machine setup background processes.).
For your use case, try a short micro to full SD adapter. Does seem like they want you to pay the internal storage tax while discouraging use of SD as expandable storage.
https://www.amazon.com/Adafruit-Shortening-microSD-Raspberry-Macbooks/dp/B00OKJFTNA/
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It seems smoother because it’s a Promotion display. The RAM has nothing to do with it. The 8gb M1 Air has no issues opening applications or running Safari, nor did the 16gb Air seem faster or smoother in those tasks.
I’ve been wondering the same as Apple will give me $740 trade in for my M1 MBP. Best Buy offering only $500.
Thoughts?
Yes, I know selling privately is better, but it’s such a pain that it’s almost worth taking the loss.
Thoughts?
Yes, I know selling privately is better, but it’s such a pain that it’s almost worth taking the loss.
I’m not sure I would consider it a pain. If taking 20 minutes out of your day to take pictures and make a listing isn’t worth the extra return, then by all means take less $ with a trade in.
Went from M1 mini 16gb to 16” MAX 32/32 and it’s so much faster lol. The M1 mini was already the fastest computer in my house for non gaming, and this feels so much faster. Hard to explain, but it’s not Monterey since I was on every beta of that on the mini. I think the memory bandwidth has something to do with how just amazing everything feels. I can’t even describe what I feel is faster about it, but I’m using some external monitors so it’s not the new 120hz I’m feeling, it’s just like the chip has room to breath now. I’m taking nonsense 😂
You'll see an improvement in speed. I'm noticing it.
I traded in my MBA M1 for the 14-inch base model and am loving it. The Air was already fast and handled most of what I threw at it for my photography but mine would get hot after editing on it for a bit and the dongles were pretty annoying to use for my SD cards. They would randomly disconnect at times which proved quite frustrating. Also, 13 inches was a bit too small for me so this extra screen size was helpful. The additional ports are very nice to have too.
So I am noticing faster speeds. Temps are very well controlled. And I have yet to hear any fans kick on so far. The keyboard is also nicer to use but that's subjective. If it makes sense economically, go for it. I'm glad I took the step up. Really great laptop.
I traded in my MBA M1 for the 14-inch base model and am loving it. The Air was already fast and handled most of what I threw at it for my photography but mine would get hot after editing on it for a bit and the dongles were pretty annoying to use for my SD cards. They would randomly disconnect at times which proved quite frustrating. Also, 13 inches was a bit too small for me so this extra screen size was helpful. The additional ports are very nice to have too.
So I am noticing faster speeds. Temps are very well controlled. And I have yet to hear any fans kick on so far. The keyboard is also nicer to use but that's subjective. If it makes sense economically, go for it. I'm glad I took the step up. Really great laptop.
Can I ask why you didn't opt for the 16? The 16 screen is immersive and amazing.
not tempted . i don't do weird kubernate / docker (one time demo sql server with asp.net core 5 ) . i still code in old imac 2017 . These m1 is pretty fast but i bought the baseline only so it's better i code in imac which got 512 GB .I am tempted to upgrade but I only do web development mainly, no video editing etc. Would I see a significant difference? Please talk me out of it
Would be any diff intel and m1 , don't see much unless launch xcode much faster but still simulator inside xcode also hang and not much good.
It's all depend on your development. Don't push all sort of thing to laptop , some critical put in linux server instead
I loved my M1 MBA, it was a huge leap in performance from my 15” 2016 MBP. This was the first time since I started using Macs in 2002 that I had bought a 13” screen notebook I had always gone for the 15” Pro models. I was not sure if I would adjust to the smaller screen, but on the whole I did and have been very happy with my MBA. While I do some video editing and photo editing my work involves some large and complex Excel spreadsheets. This is not fun on a smaller display.
After the keynote I decided to upgrade to a 16” M1 Pro 16GB MBP, partly because my daughter needed a better laptop, so she is going to get my MBA, but the new 16” improves in so many different areas - it’s about 70% faster than my M1 MBA, the display is stunning, more screen real estate and higher contrast, Promotion. The speaker system is a huge improvement, better webcam for WFH Teams meetings. Some complain about the HMDI port only being 2.0, but they re missing the point, it is there primarily to use to connect to projectors and conference room screens, which I do a lot and will be really useful. Microphones in the new MBP’s are also much better than the MBA.
The only real negative is the 16” MBP is a beast to lug about compared to the MBA, and I will miss the portability that the Air gave me.
After the keynote I decided to upgrade to a 16” M1 Pro 16GB MBP, partly because my daughter needed a better laptop, so she is going to get my MBA, but the new 16” improves in so many different areas - it’s about 70% faster than my M1 MBA, the display is stunning, more screen real estate and higher contrast, Promotion. The speaker system is a huge improvement, better webcam for WFH Teams meetings. Some complain about the HMDI port only being 2.0, but they re missing the point, it is there primarily to use to connect to projectors and conference room screens, which I do a lot and will be really useful. Microphones in the new MBP’s are also much better than the MBA.
The only real negative is the 16” MBP is a beast to lug about compared to the MBA, and I will miss the portability that the Air gave me.
It is kinda sad to acknowledge that my 17 inch Lenovo Legion had superior video quality - everybody was happy in the zoom meetings, while i see 1080P from new Macs and yet they are not on par with Lenovo.
I fell you. I am also thinking if i had air with 16gb of ram then i would never look towards new Macs. However 8gb feels very limiting because i am in yellow zone hitting red sometimes, if only i had 16 GB then i wouldn't feel like upgrading to any of the new Macs.