Last week we talked about the news of the Mac mini and the 14- and 16 - inch MacBook Pro . On Monday we posted our reviews of the newfangled M2 Pro Mac mini and 16 - inch MacBook Pro . So on today ’s show , we ’re going to plunge a bit mystifying into these products and talk about our experiences .
This is installment 825 withJason Cross , Michael Simon , andRoman Loyola .
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Apple Mac mini (M2 Pro, 2023)
Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 2023)
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Transcript for episode 825: Why you should buy the new Mac mini or MacBook Pro
RL : Apple ’s new M2 Pro is here and we ’ve had our hands on it . In this episode of the Macworld Podcast , we blab about the performance of the new fleck , our experiences with the raw Macs , and whether you should go out and corrupt the new Mac miniskirt or MacBook Pro , or if you should wait for something better to get along . Stay tune .
receive to the Macworld Podcast . I ’m Roman Loyola [ RL ] here with Jason Cross [ JC ] .
JC : Good morning .
MS : And Michael Simon [ MS ] .
MS : Hello , sir .
RL : Last week , we talked about the word of the new Mac miniskirt and the unexampled 14- and 16 - inch MacBook Pro . On Monday , we posted our reexamination of those two products . So on today ’s show , we ’re gon na plunge a minute deeper into these two new Macs and talk about our experience . Jason did the critique of the M2 Pro Mac miniskirt and I did the M2 Pro MacBook Pro . And since those both have the M2 Pro , maybe we should talk about the buffalo chip first . Then we can dive into the specific Macs .
JC : Yeah , that ’s a good idea . For our Mac configs , you had the 16 - in MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro , but it was like the full M2 Pro , not the one with the less GPU , right ?
RL : Correct , it ’s the 12 sum 19 - center GPU –
JC : And 16 gig of RAM and how much storage ?
RL : Mine had in reality 32 gigs of RAM and it had a two terabyte . It has a two terabyte SSD .
JC : So I had the 16 lance of RAM , one TB SSD , and we both had the full M2 Pro because the entry - spirit level one is like less GPU sum . That ’s the cheaper –
MS : 10 core versus 12 marrow .
JC : Yeah , two fewer processor substance and three fewer GPU cores . We did n’t prove that interlingual rendition . We tested the full crisp .
MS : The 16 - in does n’t , you ca n’t get the less CPU , only on the 14 - column inch for whatever reason .
JC : Okay . Yes . So the potato chip , the chip is Apple ’s numbers racket where they basically said 20 percent good CPU , 30 pct good GPU is more or less in the ballpark . It kind of depends on what you ’re running , of course . That ’s a pretty reasonable estimate . I think most affair you run , most things you go , do n’t isolate one or the other , especially when you ’re talking about the kind of things you buy a more expensive organisation for . And you could expect somewhere in the neighborhood of a 15 per centum of functioning improvement overall . That was kind of my take .
It has the Neural Engine from the AE14 or 15 , whatever , the next Neural Engine , which was like a jump from 11 billion or 11 trillion operations to 15 trillion , a 40 percent improvement . There ’s no real way that we can isolate and test that right now .
I never got any sort of fan to spin up in any way I could see turn tail anything and it just consort full f number . And yeah , the central processing unit is 15 per centum , 20 percent quicker , GPUs may be 20 , 30 percent faster depend on what you ’re run . It ’s a skillful upgrade . There ’s really nothing else particular about the flake anyway that you want to cognize except that , hey , it ’s a serious small excrescence .
RL : Yeah . In my tryout , most of the time it was a 20 percent CPU increase . Sometimes it was around 16 , 17 , 18 .
JC : Yeah .
RL : Sometimes it was around 25 . For the most part , it was about , it was 20 percent . Similar thing with the nontextual matter .
JC : There ’s no significant novel GPU features like ray trace or anything . They did n’t change the memory bandwidth that is still 200 gibibyte a indorsement on the Pro and 400 on the Max . The unexampled chip has some changes to how things are cached and stuff and nonsense that can help . I ’m sure they operate at unlike clock speeds , which is always hard to determine on the Mac . In terms of efficiency , did you find battery life better ?
RLLike you said , I have the 16 - inch MacBook Pro . Apple states a 22 hour battery life with video playback . I got a whopping 27 hours .
JC : Wow .
RL : Now the thing is , we do our trial run at like 150 nits . I think they do , Apple does their mental test a little brighter . They call it , I cerebrate , eight clicks above the bottom .
JC : Yeah , they do it like a percentage of the brightness stripe , which is not a upright repeatable act to me from one system to the next .
RL : Like the television that we dally , it ’s a little dark , so it does n’t advertise the brightness a bunch .
RL : So , you know , so it all depends on like the variety of video you ’re playing and poppycock . Like , and for a while there , I almost thought , is this thing ever gon na , is the assault and battery ever gon na give out ? And how long am I gon na have to stay up to verify that I do n’t pretermit it ?
JC : How does that equate to late MacBooks ? Do we have the 14 or the 16 with the M1 ?
RL : Well , that ’s the thing . I have the 14 with the M1 and I opine I got something like 23 hours or something . So it ’s toilsome to compare because the battery size are dissimilar . But that also kind of met or exceeded Apple ’s battery life estimations . Apple always play it a little conservative when they babble about their shelling life , or they do now . I guess in the past , you were able to get a shorter battery life , but that was a long time ago . Now they ’re a little more buttoned-down .
JC : It ’s also putting their best foot fore to do video playback because they have television decrypt hardware in the CPUs . The CPU and GPU cores , the main cores are basically idle the total time and all you have is video decipherer running . It ’s just very push efficient . So , you ’re going to get less . You ’re not rifle to get 22 hour doing even poppycock like browse the web and video redaction and all this other , you jazz , you ’re go to get considerably less , but still , that ’s pretty great battery sprightliness overall . Like it ’s an efficient showing . It ’s an efficient chip .
MS : Yeah , and you could basically use it for the entire day of like a workday or whatever you ’re doing and not care at all about . You have it away , charge your battery until you ’re done .
JC : Yeah , for sure the 16 - column inch , like if you ’re , you buy that to do stuff like video redaction and stuff , you need that boastful show , you ’ve got a big – and you’re able to do that for a good eight to 10 hours for sure , you jazz , without running out , which is pretty heavy , you have it away , instead of ladder Final Cut or something .
RL : Yeah , you do n’t even have to like have second thoughts about perchance like performing a render while you ’re on battery biography . You know , if you ’re on the route .
JC : Yeah , well , like , is this going to last 30 more transactions while I do this big 4 K render with a bunch of edits ? And it ’s like , yeah , yeah , do n’t even occupy about it . Just do it . Get your work done on the airplane , whatever .
RL : What we got from the CPU , I think it ’s pretty much what we expected . It ’s a bulge . It ’s a speed excrescence over the –
JC : It ’s a perfectly dainty bulge . It ’s not raw features .
MS : Based on your experience with Intel swiftness bumps on a MacBook or a Mac miniskirt or whatever we want to compare it to , how does this release equate with what Apple was doing before Apple Silicon ?
RL : From my experience in recent history , Intel speed bumps were about 15 to 20 percentage . What I ’m see with the Apple ’s Mac fastness bump is that you ’re getting about 20 percentage , but often time you ’ll find in some bench mark that you ’re get more . Like I said , 25 pct sometimes , maybe even 30 in some benchmarks . where there was Intel , it was often 20 was the high score , normally around 12 to 15 per centum of an gain .
MS : So like the ceiling has become the floor basically .
RL : Yeah .
JC : It ’s a little number odd because back in those Intel day , there would be an update , an unceremonious update almost every twelvemonth . It was a 4680Y , and now it ’s a Core i3 , 5680Y or something . It ’d just be some little matter . Like you said , you ’d get 10 to 15 percent improvement , but it ’d be every year . We ’re not on an every - year cadence with these M chips yet . And we do n’t really get laid where we ’re going to be because this is only the first start . This is only M2 . Once we get to M6 , we ’ll sleep together how often they do these thing . But this is only the first major update and we do n’t really screw what the cadence is going to be , but it has n’t been every class .
The other side of it is , in the last two years since Apple ’s been not update . They ’ve been betray Intel product , but they have n’t update them and they ’re very previous , which we ’ll get to in a minute because that ’s the Mac mini I retrospect was the replacing .
Intel has made some really magnanimous strides . Intel and AMD form of got mortified , I think , by the M2 , I mean the M1 in the energy efficiency biz in the thin and light laptop computer , high energy efficiency section . They kind of got embarrassed by them and they ’ve really made that the direction of the last couple merchandise , but those do n’t exist in any Mac .
RL : Well , Jason , maybe you could mouth to this more because you ’re more familiar with the AMD / Intel chips . Apple has things like TV decoder and the Neural Engine in their silicon chip . I know AMD recently just revealed an AI constituent to their chips . Does Intel and AMD propose anything like that with their CPU ?
JC : Not in their consumer material right now , although it ’s coming . What they do is , their GPUs are capable of , permit ’s say , running in a modality that is expert for the motorcar learning hooey , but then you ’re not using them for computer graphic . So , you ’re contain away from that . And it ’s still not as tight as these dedicated AI inferencing ironware , which is why they ’re doing it . And they ’re starting off put that in some of their – I do n’t desire to get the AMD announcement wrongly – I imagine it ’s get down in some of their high - end server scrap and stuff . And then it ’ll move to the APUs , which is like the combo CPU , GPUs that they have in all their systems curtly .
Intel and everybody else is expect to keep up suit because this is getting to be just a part of regular consumer ironware . The computer hardware used to train AI model is big meter hardware . We ’re speak huge host single-foot . You require tons of Aries . You need big GPUs . Once you make the modelling , the computer hardware that you involve to run it , which is what they call inference , that ’s what Apple ’s Neural Engine is . We ’re look to see that kind of in everybody ’s hooey coming forward . Nvidia has that in their GPUs right now and it can be used for things like stable diffusion . and they expend it , they have a lot of software to do thing like racket reduction on your transcription and all this other stuff . They do n’t make central processing unit and they do n’t make combo CPU / GPU . So you kind of have to get like a laptop with an Nvidia GPU disjoined in it and get to get that . It ’s going to be everywhere .
I do n’t have a salutary sentiency for what the performance stackup is for Apple silicon versus everybody else ’s because they ’re just … some number about trillions of operations per second is useless in evaluate like a real world . How fast does it really run this AI model ? Because the AI models are n’t the same . You ’re not doing the same matter . It ’s very hard to try out . I ’m curious to see because that ’s conk out to become an authoritative component of these chips .
MS : What AMD unveil at CES , so it ’s in the Ryzen 7040 series , the AI Engine , which is for laptop computer and they did n’t really get into functioning at all . But the expectant thing is mogul efficiencyand they did say that it ’s going to convey up to 30 hour of stamp battery life in laptop . I mean , Apple is delivering 22 at the low end in its 16 - inch M1 Max high - performance laptop computer . I do n’t know if that ’s what this is . But it ’s definitely clear that Apple has bugger off quickly the attention of Intel and AMD and the rest of the industry in just – it ’s only been two years and they like everyone is like okay , so here ’s what we ’re expire to do now .
It ’s astonishing how , at the danger of sound like a cheerleader or a fanboy , like whenever Apple does something in a real way , like there ’s like a seismic shift that keep abreast . It ’s very interesting with these Mac chips how in a very short prison term , we ’re only on the 2d - gen , like everyone is for one noticing and be you know , really changing their strategy to kind of compete .
JC : And to me , M2 is the least interesting way they could have done an update because it ’s the same manufacture process basically . It ’s an updated version of the five - nm physical process , but still the five - nm process . They did n’t go to three . There ’s not a major improvement to the CPU core architecture . There ’s not a major update to the GPU core architecture . They ’re just more cores and in high spirits clock speed enabled by somewhat updating the manufacture appendage and some tweaks to cache and hooey . And there ’s pinch here and there . But this is n’t an architectural change and it ’s not a major footprint in the manufacturing summons . M3 is expected to be at least the jump to 3 nanometers , which gives you 40 percent more transistors to play with and perchance , a new GPU heart and soul computer architecture , a new CPU core architecture , who know ? But that ’ll be an interesting jumping .
And I ’m curious to see what happens when , if and when they make a different Neural Engine architecture because they ’ve been essentially just bumping up the clock speeds , and core counts . From the first one they did in the iPhone to the 2nd one or something was like a big bound . And then they fetch higher clocks , but when are they going to do 100 trillion operations a 2nd or something ? Where ’s the next big step modification in those , in the AI CPU ? It ’s hold out to get along at some percentage point . You talk a small second about the consecrated AI decoders . I should also cite while we were spill about television decoders and material , those do n’t appear to be changed at all in these M2 Pro and Macs . They still encode and decode the same formats . There ’s no AV1 notably , which is in all the later Nvidia , AMD and Intel GPUs . And in the Pro , you have one video encoding Engine . In the Max , you have two . Same as with the M1 versions . They ’re probably clocked a little higher , just like the whole rest of the chip is . So if you run some benchmark , it ’s probably going to do a trivial good . Caching is probably good , which will facilitate all your TV encodes and stuff , but not a change there as far as we can see . And they ’re kind of falling behind because everybody else is kind of on board with this AV1 shift and where ’s Apple ? If I ’m go to make a foretelling , it ’s going to be this : the A16 , what are we going to have this year ?
RL : Is that the next one ?
MS : iPhone 17 .
RL : A17 .
JC : A17 in the iPhone 16 . Right .
MS : How is that confusing Jason ?
JC : The A17 will have AV1 television encoding , but they wo n’t call it out like that . They ’ll give it some stunned Apple branding name , just like they kind of did with HEVC , right ? It was H.265 or something . They market it as , your picture will be high quality and take up less quad , and they ’re going to do that with television and it ’ll be an AV1 encoder . And we ’ll see it in the iPhone this twelvemonth . That ’s my guess .
RL : So the chips , nobody goes out and buys chip . We all go out and buy , Macs . So Jason , you expect at the Mac mini .
JC : It ’s probably the biggest saltation because this is put back … There ’s a regular M2 Mac mini , the not Pro or Macs version . That ’s an update to the M1 , version we had . And that ’s , it got a damage slice of $ 100 . It ’s now what , $ 499 or else of $ 599 .
RL : $ 599 .
MS : $ 599 . It was $ 699 .
JC : Yeah . Okay , right . So it ’s have a hundred dollar cost cut and pretty much the same RAM and entrepot stuff . And that ’s great . Do mind that just like the MacBook Air that get the M2 , apparently the 256 gig interpretation has ho-hum reposition speeds . They go with one 256 gig newsbreak check instead of two 128s and it cut this operation in half . Once you upgrade it to 512 or high , you ’re good . But hey , that got a price undercut and that ’s heavy .
But we ’ve visit the M2 before . The M2 Pro version starts at $ 1299 and is the replacement for the old Intel Mac miniskirt , which was still kicking around as of last week .
MS : Yeah . For 1,100 clam and with no reason to even regard looking in its direction .
JC : Yeah . That has been around since …
MS : 2018 .
JC : 2018 , yeah .
MS : With no C.P.U. advance whatsoever .
JC : And yeah , and the C.P.U. in it was n’t even that new when that came out . It was so it ’s like an eighth - gen laptop computer version meat i7s and stuff and nonsense from Intel , which just , bury , I intend , do n’t even compare it to the M1 , the basic M1 . Like it ’s just not even close . It ’s not , what are you , what are they even doing here ? We ’ve always scratch our heads . Why are you still selling this ? Like even once they get the M1 Pro and Max , it ’s like , why are you still making this at Mac mini ? I was still making this Intel Mac mini . Well , they decline that . And now we have this .
But it ’s $ 200 more . What do you get for $ 200 ? Well , obviously a passel more functioning than the old Intel version , but that ’s not say much .
MS : Yeah , the M2 , the vanilla extract M2 is firm .
JC : It ’d crush it . Yeah , just absolutely crush it . So it still has four Thunderbolt port on the back , which is what the Intel one did . That ’s a jump from two on the regular M1 theoretical account . The M2 Pro translation has HDMI 2.1 . The regular M2 variation does not . That lets you hook up an 8 K television or a 4 K telecasting at 240Hz . Apple does support varying refresh pace . you could hook up threemonitors , the HDMI and two Thunderbolts . The more you hook up , the low-toned the max res goes on the HDMI larboard , by the way of life . Other than that , they have n’t update anything about the twist . It front on the dot the same .
MS : Identical . Well , they get hold of away the outer space gray , which was a discriminator before .
JC : It ’s just silver . Just ash gray , there ’s no colouring material , it ’s the exact same size . I really was hoping they would put the interface on the front like they do in the Mac Studio . It has two USB - hundred porthole and an Mount Rushmore State wag slot . They do n’t have that . Not only is it the same since 2018 , honestly that 2018 model had n’t really changed since 2011 .
RL : Something like that .
JC : 2011 , something like that . 2010 , like all they did was turn the Thunderbolt port perpendicular alternatively of horizontal . Like it ’s really , it ’s really the same Mac miniskirt . They really could have used any sorting of plan alteration here . It ’s not a bad aim .
MS : It ’s a very prissy figure , but when you get a novel Apple product , specifically Apple , like you want something . Some reason to buy it other than what ’s inside it , and we understood with the M1 version that , okay , this is just a display case for the chip . We read but after the MacBook Air got its M2 redesign and then they delayed or rather just did n’t do the Mac miniskirt for eight months or six month , whatever , to seven calendar month , and then nothing . It ’s like , oh here it is that you should have gotten last June , but here it is in January and it ’s what you – it ’s the same matter .
JC : It ’s the same thing . And after they put ports on the front of the Mac Studio , I ’m like , oh my gosh , they ’re willing to put ports on the front for which mess up your whole beautiful neat aesthetic , but is incredibly drug user - friendly . I ’m like , oh , if they ’re willing to do that , maybe we ’ll get that on the mini . No . You see all the colors in the iMac . No , none of that .
MS : Or even like Midnight , if it came in Midnight , multitude would have flip-flop out . Yeah , that ’s it . That ’s all you have to do .
JC : So , yeah , it ’s a little unsatisfying that they did nothing on the pattern . It ’s a little disappointing that it got a $ 200 terms jump . I mean , that gap between $ 599 and $ 1,299 is huge .
RL : There is a $ 799 model , but that ’s just an SSD raise .
MS : That ’s right .
JC : And that $ 1,299 version is a cutback version of the M2 Pro . To get the full M2 Pro is another $ 300 . Right ? And if you take it the poser we did , which is that plus an SSD upgrade from 512 to 1 terabytes , like $ 1,800 . Well , now you ’re in spitting distance of a Mac Studio at $ 2,000 and that ’s a better mind . So they ’re filling in a gap for indisputable . They lastly got rid of an Intel - found Mac that they really should have block selling a long meter ago . All that ’s good but the value is not there because part price is a little too high and their acclivity pricing is pathetic . What you pay to get more RAM , more reposition .
MS : It ’s uniform with the other Cartesian product but it ’s laughable for specifically for this one because once you part make it , then you commence butting up against the Mac Studio And it ’s like , well , why not just get a better one ?
JC : Right .
MS : You know , it ’s better in every way . Yes , it has an M1 Max instead of an M2 , but it ’s still the M1 Max is still better or equal to at the very least the M2 Pro in the mini . So it ’s just it ’s a very strange pricing . like if it came in at $ 1,099 , that ’s awesome . But it ’s a pair hundred dollars too in high spirits , but Apple does this all the time .
JC : Even if it started at $ 1,299 and its upgrade pricing for RAM and storage was a little more down to earth , you could do those things and end up at $ 1,500 , $ 1,600 , and still have this big gap between that and the studio . As it is , yeah , I experience like , you either spend less than $ 1,500 on this , the ledger entry - floor model , maybe you get a storage upgrade or you just get the Mac Studio , the entree Mac Studio , which has 32 gigs . It ’s the M1 mighty now , but it ’s 32 gigs of RAM . It ’s got a beefier GPU . It ’s likely a wash on the GPU because it ’s the reduce - down M1 Max , but it ’s make more core and the M2 is libertine GPU so like middling even probably . You get two video encoders and stuff . You get ports on the front and all that stuff .
MS : Question for you , Jason . Why does the Mac Studio pauperization … I infer the Ultra and maybe that ’s why they did it just to be consistent , but why does it need that cooling element when the Mac mini , which has a pretty interchangeable C.P.U. now does n’t ?
JC : It does n’t quite have the same processor . The Studio is a Max or Ultra .
MS : Right . If you compare the M1 to Max , which has that aluminum temperature reduction , which is pretty hefty , versus the M2 Pro with 19 pith , they ’re in the ballpark . I ca n’t imagine that the Mac Studio gets that much hotter , but maybe it does .
JC : It ’s twice the GPU size of it . We ’re appear at the last whole tone of TSMC ’s manufacturing process . But yeah , they built it out . They built the size for the Mac Studio . But if I remember the teardowns right , if you burst open a Mac Studio with an M1 Max , it has a different tank on it than the one in the Ultra .
MS : Yeah , the Ultra I remember is copper and the one in the Max is aluminum if I retrieve aright .
JC : So you ’re also bring double the base RAM and stuff like that . So it ’s have in mind to be capable to cool 128 gigs of RAM and more storage and yeah , because RAM gets hot . So I think they ’re just ask , well , we had to build up sort of one solution that ’s going to cool at least with the M1 Max , a high - goal version of this M1 Max where people are running Final Cut all Clarence Shepard Day Jr. and yada yada . Whereas , maxing out a Mac mini is less , I remember , than that would be .
MS : Okay . I get that . All right . Last question for you : which do you opt visually , the Mac mini or the Mac Studio ? Because you have both .
JC : I think I care the Studio better . I ’m not trouble by , oh my God , it has ports on the front .
MS : I kind of like the ports on the front . It gives it a small bit of character . JC : The Mac Studio is exactly the correct height to be a monitor stand for Apple ’s monitor that do not go up and down and are always too low . Like everybody you bonk with a Mac monitor , has a couple of ream of paper under it or something , right ?
MS : Yeah , even the iMac people used to do that , yeah .
RL : A phone book from 1990 .
JC : Yeah , any iMac or Studio Display or anything , they tilt , but they do n’t go up and down and for some reason , and their default height is too low . It ’s not ergonomic to expect down at a slant up screen like that . So there ’s an integral aftermarket of like stands and stuff . And the Mac Studio is just the correct stature for that . A Mac mini is not –
MS : You literally have your studio display sitting on top of your Mac . Yeah ,
JC : I do . And it looks –
MS : That ’s amazing .
JC : It expect moderately good . It almost looks like it belongs . And it ’s the right height . And I got my ports right in the front . I take up almost no desk blank space . It ’s smashing .
MS : Cool .
JC : So I prefer the Studio , I think , design - wise . It ’s still so compact . If you ’re spill about having it on your desk , vertical peak of a few additional in is not – they’re the precise same dimensions in terms of taking up dust space .
MS : The width and the length .
JC : The breadth is the exact – you put one on top of each other , I think they ’d line up within a millimeter . I honestly do .
Now , there is a cottage diligence of people who have Mac minis in host rack , like these particular racks where they just slot them all in , in stacked up and they ’re locomote to love being able to get M2 Pros in there and utilise them for their , you know , render farms or whatever they ’re doing .
RL : I remember one mean solar day I used to actually sell a Mac mini server configuration , expire back when they had OS X host .
MS : Sure .
JC : They will put an OS ten server on it . Well , I remember when they used to sell Apple rack servers . So like , was it to you or something for a rack that you lam ? Yeah .
MS : Yeah . Now you just put this Mac Pro sideways .
JC : Yeah , it ’s true . But that ’s meant to be a consumer … those are n’t really think to be , they ’re intend to be extort mountable , but they ’re still consumer products . They do n’t run a waiter atomic number 76 or anything . That ’s just over . mass just run Linux on those . It ’s fine .
RL So I looked at the 16 - inch MacBook Pro and the matter about that laptop computer is that everything new about it , really , except for maybe three , except for three features , happened a yearand a one-half ago in 2021 .
MS : Yeah , it was a massive – that was a massive rising slope . The first Apple Silicon MacBook Pro .
RL : There was a redesign with a new display . The speck bar went away . That has continued on with the M2 Pro . The only major rise are the HDMI that Jason mentioned , Wi - Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 , which is also on the M2 Pro Mac miniskirt , right Jason ?
JC : It ’s on all the Mac miniskirt . The Wi - Fi and Bluetooth update is on both of them . You ’re not go to notice anything with that Bluetooth update right now . They used to have Bluetooth 5 , 5.3 , add some hooey that Apple ’s not doing anything with right , now . So I call it future proofing perhaps . But Wi - Fi 6E , it ’s a decent bit of future - proofing for your next home router or whatever .
RL : Yeah , because you ask a Wi - Fi 6E router to take reward of that .
JC : Yeah , of course .
RL : But yeah , if you already have an M1 Pro laptop computer , those are the three reason why you would require to upgrade and maybe for you that ’s enough .
MS : Well , in your limited review , you kind of recommended it in a circuitous fashion that if you do worry about displays , if you do deal that it ’s not a terrible upgrade , even though it ’s $ 3,000 or whatever .
RL : Yeah , because there are some pro who have peculiar display setups and they want that , they want the HDMI , the better reinforcement in the HDMI , so that might be worth it for some particular person who have the money to burn for that . I imply , if they ’re range those kinds of display , they probably have the money to purchase a new laptop computer again after a year and a half .
MS : Sure , if you have an 8 super C display running , yeah , for certain .
JC : If you ’re doing that form of professional work where your time is money , like the fact that it ’s 10 percent faster at some render or something is , you know , that ’s endure to shave an hr off your day every day . Like that ’s going to pay for itself in six calendar month . And for , you bang , mundane user , like your Mac mini emptor , like that ’s not really you .
RL : Yeah , professional scales are dissimilar . You know , a video render for me is not the same as a video render –
JC : : Yeah , going a quite a little faster is like 20 seconds faster . And for them , it ’s a big undertaking that ’s like prune a four - hour render down to a three and a half hour render is like a huge quite a little . That deliver a lot of time , correct ?
RL : So as far as recommending the 16 - in laptop computer , it ’s funny because I ’m struggling to find something to say because it ’s really just a speed bulge , but it ’s a good laptop . It ’s a really secure laptop computer . I love this laptop . I use it and I ’m care , oh , it ’s really nice . It feels very voluptuary . I feel almost guilty using it because it ’s just such a darn courteous laptop .
MS : You had the 14 - inch . Comparing the two , it ’s only two inch . What ’s your thought on that ?
RL : See , I have a bias toward large laptop computer . For the long time , I used to use a 17 - inch MacBook Pro back when they had 17 - inch laptop computer .
MS : The cafeteria tray .
RL : Yeah , I affectionally called it the cafeteria tray . But then they discontinued it , so I used 15 - inch laptops . That ’s all right . But then I got this … I did n’t in reality look at the 16 - inch M1 Pro / Max laptop when it came out . So when I got this 16 - column inch M2 Pro … JC : It felt like drop dead home . RL That ’s a thoroughgoing manner to put it . It sense like going home . There ’s a lot more tractableness for me in terms of what I can do with the blind . I get laid it ’s only two inches , but there ’s just a little bit more , peculiarly if you ’re using apps like Final Cut where you need every inch of the screen track estate because you ’ve dumbfound so much going on on - screen and it really helps . The 14 - inch display , that Liquid XDR show , look really skillful . And I know it ’s not qualitatively well on the 16 - inch , but it just feel like it because it ’s bigger .
JC : Oh , yeah . It ’s more immersive . To me , the difference between a 13- , 14 - column inch laptop and a 16 - in or so is a 16 is where even like you said , it ’s just a dyad of inches , but it ’s enough distance that I ’m running things in windows alternatively of full screen . Like when I use my 13 - inch Air or 14 - in professional , I ’m using a lot of maximized windows and I ’ve just got them on different , virtual desktops and swipe in between them . And a 16 is like , I ’m using it more like a desktop data processor . I ’ve set about layer window . I ’ve get windows that are n’t full screen and I ’m moving them around and it just feels , it ’s a dissimilar feel to me .
I just ca n’t endure lugging around a 16 - column inch laptop . It ’s a nice thing to plop on a table and utilize for a while , but if I have to travel , I ’m not going to stock that thing . It ’s not that they ’re profound for their sizing , it ’s just , every petty act of weight really matter .
MS : Yeah , it ’s three , four quid we ’re talking cash in one’s chips to be there . They ’re not something you just not notice in your bag and you ’re going to know if you ’re carrying 16 inch of MacBook Pro .
JC : And you ’ve take a bigger might adapter and you ’ve gravel all this other stuff , you know .
RL : It ’s large , so it ’s a little more unwieldy when you ’re on the road , when you ’re traveling around . So yeah , there ’s that . There ’s definitely that . There are even some laptop computer bags it wo n’t even conform to in . So that ’s unquestionably a consideration .
If you ’re thinking about buying this laptop , and you ’re just kind of a … perchance you turn over yourself a world power user , but you ’re maybe not a professional , so to utter . I think like any of us , so to speak . You might be capable to come up a better deal with an M1 Pro laptop . They ’re still uncommitted . you may still find them on Amazon and a bunch of them are like $ 500 off .
MS : Yeah . Yeah . They ’ve been run gross revenue for a while and now , they kind of ramped them up where all of them , they ’re just blowing them out now . And yeah , you could get that 16 inch one , that ’s normally $ 2,499 for under $ 2,000 or $ 1,999 , which is , that ’s emphatically worth appear at .
JC : If you ’re just going to cop up to a regular TV , like to do a presentation or something , you do n’t care that it ’s 240Hz or that you need 8 special K and you ’re just doing workaday study , browsers , Excel , you require your big Excel sheet on that handsome 16 - inch varan or whatever . That M1 is everything you need and they get all the good stuff . Like you said , they get the keyboard upgrade and the exhibit and all that other stuff last time . There ’s no new webcam or any other thing that you necessitate to occupy about this time . So for the price cut , it might really be worth getting the M1 version while they last for people .
RL : We have full reviews of the Mac mini and the 16 - inch MacBook Pro on our website . We ’ll have link to that in our show notes .
That does it for this installment of the Macworld Podcast , instalment 825 . Thanks to Jason Cross .
JC : give thanks you .
RL : Thanks to Michael Simon . MS : Thank you , sir .
