Why I returned a 13” M1 MBP Turd

[mangoman]

Well to be honest about it, nobody really knows it's a "turd". From what I've read the OP appeared to have to dumped all his previous files onto it and it sounded like his M1 Mac was attempting to index the system. That generally leads to beachballs and laggy performance. Might have been to his advantage to fully erase the drive and reinstall Big Sur, then run it without installing extra apps. Then he would know for sure if he got a "turd".

Good points. I was doing a clean install. Not an erased drive, as you mention, but updating the OS (per Apple), then starting clean from there. Whatever that's worth.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

It’s been YEARS since I started a thread on this forum. So for what it’s worth, I’m rarely so fired up. Here’s why:

I rarely ‘early adopt’ but decided to break my rule and buy a 13” MPB, M1 laptop (16GB RAM, 2TB drive).

In the last three days, it’s been a Beach Ball Hell. I thought it was just Adobe apps (as usual, Adobe’s apps appear to be developed in silos and currently not written for the M1 architecture), so I deleted ‘em, reinstalled ‘em. Still lots of lag and beach balls. Especially Illustrator (and the files were simple/small).

What was more troubling was the general lag, beach balls and “Application not responding” issues with Apple native apps: Mail, Safari, Notes, etc.—even the Finder kept hanging. After three Apple Support calls, reinstalling Big Sur, more troubleshooting, I boxed this turd and sent it back.

I wish Apple would spend less on glitzy marketing presentations and more on real world testing before shipping product. I hope your experience has been better than mine. But at this point, I’m buying the latest 16” MBP, spending nearly twice as much, and hoping it’s not another beach ball-inducing, overhyped handwarmer.

EDIT: To confirm, the turd shipped, but I’m willing to try the M1 again. Cancelled the 16” order and opted for Round 2 of a 13” M1 MBP.

interesting.

perhaps you received a lemon.

my personal experience with the machine has been brilliant.

I will not that non-Apple stuff has been clunky to install. Most notably MS Office 365. Very slow actually. Painfully, slow.

Other than that by day-to-day usage has been brilliant with the exception that the machine wants to run forever and I, do not.

 

[Maconplasma]

Good points. I was doing a clean install. Not an erased drive, as you mention, but updating the OS (per Apple), then starting clean from there. Whatever that's worth.

A true "clean install" involves erasing your drive which is removing all files that may be causing system issues. Simply reinstalling the OS and keeping all files in place is not a clean install. I would really recommend you doing a full erase of the drive. It's really the only way to truly dissect your issue.

 

[mangoman]

A true "clean install" involves erasing your drive which is removing all files that may be causing system issues. Simply reinstalling the OS and keeping all files in place is not a clean install. I would really recommend you doing a full erase of the drive. It's really the only way to truly dissect your issue.

Thanks for sharing that. Will definitely do it that way next time around. Cheers!

 

[lxmeta]

Thanks for sharing that. Will definitely do it that way next time around. Cheers!

I had my MBP M1 for a week now, and restored it from an Intel MB 12. Office, Adobe and some other stuff. Completely flawless and much faster than I thought... with one epic fail thanks to Google! Google Drive Streams does not work as it’s still using an old kernel extension 🤦‍♂️.
OneDrive works, Dropbox works, zoom works, everything super smooth. Only ignorant Google managed to spoil their payed service

 

[mangoman]

I had my MBP M1 for a week now, and restored it from an Intel MB 12. Office, Adobe and some other stuff. Completely flawless and much faster than I thought... with one epic fail thanks to Google! Google Drive Streams does not work as it’s still using an old kernel extension 🤦‍♂️.
OneDrive works, Dropbox works, zoom works, everything super smooth. Only ignorant Google managed to spoil their payed service

Great to hear! Thanks for sharing that.

 

[Ethosik]

It seems not too many people have seen this, but I have personally experienced the same thing as you.

The OS that my M1 MacBook Pro shipped with (11.0.0) was atrocious. It encountered a kernel panic the moment it got past the usual welcome dialogs. Yes, it's that bad.

11.0.1 was marginally better, but any non-native Rosetta 2 app caused the system to crash a lot.

I'm on 11.1 beta now and it's much better. Some apps still freeze up from time to time, but they don't cause the whole system to restart anymore.

Guys, just because you have not seen it does not mean this is not regular occurrence. It is known that 11.0.1 has issues with Rosetta 2, and if the OP is using Adobe suite, there's a chance Rosetta 2 is messing up his computer.

Not everything is rosy.

This isn't the M1 to blame though. My 2019 i9 iMac gets kernel panics. I dealt with the same thing with Catalina until update 5. Apple confirmed it was a GPU driver issue and not a problem with my system.

 

[lxmeta]

It seems not too many people have seen this, but I have personally experienced the same thing as you.

The OS that my M1 MacBook Pro shipped with (11.0.0) was atrocious. It encountered a kernel panic the moment it got past the usual welcome dialogs. Yes, it's that bad.

11.0.1 was marginally better, but any non-native Rosetta 2 app caused the system to crash a lot.

I'm on 11.1 beta now and it's much better. Some apps still freeze up from time to time, but they don't cause the whole system to restart anymore.

Guys, just because you have not seen it does not mean this is not regular occurrence. It is known that 11.0.1 has issues with Rosetta 2, and if the OP is using Adobe suite, there's a chance Rosetta 2 is messing up his computer.

Not everything is rosy.

Not everything rosy, but Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Acrobat works flawless and fast here. Restored from a previous Intel MB. Can you elaborate a bit more what the known issues are I should have?

 

[MacManTexas56]

Good points. I was doing a clean install. Not an erased drive, as you mention, but updating the OS (per Apple), then starting clean from there. Whatever that's worth.

so you wiped it and tried a brand new install of the OS?

 

[mangoman]

so you wiped it and tried a brand new install of the OS?

Originally, no. But planning to do that on the new one (now due to arrive Dec. 21st).