I’ve had two weeks now using the new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro processor, and I’ve gotten to spend a little bit of time with a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Max processor. These machines continue to be very impressive.
Color
This is a minor thing to bring up, but these machines look really good in Space Gray. I had considered requesting a silver one, but I’m glad I got the Space Gray one instead. Interestingly, Apple doesn’t provide a Space Gray MagSafe connector with the Space Gray MacBook Pro. MagSafe is silver-tipped regardless of which color machine you buy. I don’t really care about that, but it bothers some people.
Display
The new MacBook Pro has by far the best display I’ve ever seen on a laptop. In fact, when I take it home from work the MacBook Pro’s display becomes the best display in my house. Certainly not the biggest, but the best display for deep blacks, color representation, and HDR performance. Unless you have a high-end OLED TV, the new MacBook Pro is going to suddenly make your home television look not as good. I’m mighty tempted to go back and watch some of my HDR movies on this display just to get a better HDR brightness and color space experience. I’ve never wanted an Apple-designed television set more than I do after seeing what they’ve done with the MacBook Pro’s Liquid Retina XDR Display. If you’re watching movie or TV content, you will see some blooming around white text onscreen. That’s a problem common to all LED displays and won’t go away entirely unless Apple eventually puts an OLED display in the MacBook Pro. But it’s a very minor and tolerable tradeoff here.
The Notch
Much ink has been spilled about the “notch” at the top of the new MacBook Pro’s display. In practice it’s not a big deal at all. As with your iPhone, you quickly stop noticing it. I’ve seen some videos where people who are using apps with a lot of menus run into issues working around the notch. I suspect Apple will greatly improve that in the near future via software update.
Full Screen Mode
When you’re using an app in full screen mode, it only uses the 16:10 area beneath the notch. If you move your mouse to the top of the screen, the menus appear above your window. I wish there was an option to have the menus stay up there all the time in full screen mode. I guess you could consider them distracting (especially if you’re playing a video), but I’d personally prefer to not have them disappear when I move my mouse pointer away from the top of the screen.
MagSafe
It’s good to have the utility (and safety) of MagSafe back on the Mac, but in practice I haven’t used it at all since the day I unboxed and set up my new MacBook Pro. When I’m at my desk at work I’m plugged into two large LG displays connected to the Mac via a single Thunderbolt cable that provides 85-watts of power to the MacBook Pro. (More than it needs.) I’m sure I’ll use the MacSafe adapter eventually, but in my day-to-day it’s not necessary.
Ports
I did use the HDMI port twice so far to test something, but in practice I won’t be using it much. At my office we typically use AirPlay to an Apple TV for screen sharing in conference rooms, and as I mentioned above I’m connecting to my external displays via Thunderbolt. But HDMI will definitely come in handy for lots of people in office environments who need to plug in to screen share or who have an HDMI-based external display. I’ll likely never use the SDXC port, nor will the overwhelming majority of MacBook Pro users. There are people who use SDXC cards, but they’re a small minority these days. However, the inclusion of this port helps pacify the small but loud contingent of MacBook Pro users who haven’t thought that recent MacBook Pros have been “pro” enough.
Battery
I haven’t done a strenuous battery test yet, but I expect it to be excellent. I worked an entire day on battery with last year’s M1 13-inch MacBook Pro this summer and still had 40% left after a typical 8-hour day. Over the weekend I did watch a football game from start to finish on my new 14-inch MacBook Pro while also switching over to Twitter and email throughout the game. In that usage it was sipping power at a rate of about 7%-8% per hour. Extrapolated out further, that would be good for 12-14 hours of battery life. I’ve been using the MacBook Pro while I’ve been writing this piece over the last half hour and it’s still on 100%. It hasn’t even dropped a single percentage point! And that’s with multiple apps open in the background.
Design
I talked a fair bit about the new design in my “first impressions” piece, but a couple of things to add: The new MacBook Pro is a little more difficult to pick up off of a desk surface. The previous model, with its tapered case design, allowed you to get your fingers under it more easily. With these new units being much more slab-designed, it takes a bit more effort to get good purchase on them. I also find myself being a little more delicate with lifting the display lid since the bezels are so much smaller. A worthwhile trade off, to be sure, but worth noting.
16-inch MacBook Pro
I’ve spent far less time with the 16-inch MacBook Pro, but I’m certain I made the right choice in opting for a 14-inch model. I’m mostly connected to external displays during the workday, and when I’m not I really value the portability and “lapability” of this smaller unit. If you’re working in a creative field or otherwise could really use the extra screen real estate, go for the 16-inch model. But I do think the 14-inch model will be the ideal Mac laptop for most typical home and office users.
If you haven’t read it already, check out my piece “First impressions - the new 14-inch MacBook Pro.” I cover a lot of other things about the new MacBook Pro that I didn’t mention here.