First impressions 2021 MacBook Pro 16” with M1 Pro

[elnadav12]

Hey guys,

I’ve just replaced (after almost two years) my 2019 16” MacBook Pro (i9-9980HK, 32GB RAM, 5500M 8GB, 1TB) with the new 2021 M1 Pro 16” (16GB RAM, 512GB) and my big excitement for this leap in technology and innovation (that is ironically going back in some regards) made me post these first impressions:

1. Battery is exemplary! I’ve used it for 12 hours yesterday, including 6 hours of zoom calls (kills battery on intel Macs), 4 hours of programming and 2 hours of browsing and watching YouTube. All unplugged, with 25% left! Crazy stuff.

2. Display is super bright and very sharp, similar to the old one. Contrast is much improved and HDR content looks amazing! There’s some blooming but it’s  not that noticeable. The notch doesn’t bother me at all.

3. Speaker are damn impressive. Especially bass is punchy and strong without distorting.

4. Performance is great, with a 2x jump in CPU and GPU power from my old Mac. It wakes up instantly and never slowed down. I had some bugs in Monterey but the latest update solved them for now.

5. Keyboard and trackpad are as good as it gets on modern laptops.

6. New design is thicker but was necessary to accomplish all the above. And more ports!

Overall I’m very impressed with this device. A true professional laptop from Apple and a leap forward for the entire industry.  
 

 

 

[Roswell]

I'm jealous of that battery life. I would have upgraded myself by now but I can't because of work and the need for x86 Parallels support.

[Lightwreather]

So, somewhat unrelated. But your pfp is a lot like Jake's on the side bar, I thought LTT had finally released their next video on the subject

[elnadav12]

39 minutes ago, Roswell said:

I'm jealous of that battery life. I would have upgraded myself by now but I can't because of work and the need for x86 Parallels support.

I’ve managed that through an Azure VM… If you have a good internet connection it can replace parallels for some use cases.

[elnadav12]

28 minutes ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

So, somewhat unrelated. But your pfp is a lot like Jake's on the side bar, I thought LTT had finally released their next video on the subject

Haha...

2 short circuit (first impressions and M1 Max gaming) and 1 LTT for the 14"...

Anthony did a great job!

[skylinetofast]

Nice upgrade. Do you miss anything  from your 2019 Macbook pro. 

[elnadav12]

2 minutes ago, skylinetofast said:

Nice upgrade. Do you miss anything  from your 2019 Macbook pro. 

Thanks

I wish they could bring the fn keys back without removing the Touch Bar...

The thin curved design of the old MacBook was really nice in my opinion, but I understand that it couldn't fit the new internals...

Other than that, an upgrade in every aspect.

[skylinetofast]

3 minutes ago, elnadav12 said:

Thanks

I wish they could bring the fn keys back without removing the Touch Bar...

The thin curved design of the old MacBook was really nice in my opinion, but I understand that it couldn't fit the new internals...

Other than that, an upgrade in every aspect.

If they made the track pad a little smaller they could of fit the touch bar in. Do you run any iphone or ipad apps if so how good do they run. 

[elnadav12]

11 minutes ago, skylinetofast said:

If they made the track pad a little smaller they could of fit the touch bar in. Do you run any iphone or ipad apps if so how good do they run. 

I've only had it for a few days so haven't messed with that too much.

All apps I tried to install were blocked by the developer... YouTube, Calendars by readdle and some more.

As Anthony mentioned the Touch Bar would fit with a half-height fn row.

[skylinetofast]

Sad to see that apps were blocked by developers. would like to have a YouTube app.  Hope the laptop works out for you 

[elnadav12]

1 minute ago, skylinetofast said:

Sad to see that apps were blocked by developers. would like to have a YouTube app.  Hope the laptop works out for you 

Surprisingly the biggest challenge was purchasing it haha!

The 5th ave store staff told me it was out of stock everywhere and they only take orders for pickup in mid December!

Luckily I signed up for stock notifications at B&H and sniped the only one they had.

Chip shortage is insane! Apple is definitely effected.

[skylinetofast]

1 minute ago, elnadav12 said:

Surprisingly the biggest challenge was purchasing it haha!

The 5th ave store staff told me it was out of stock everywhere and they only take orders for pickup in mid December!

Luckily I signed up for stock notifications at B&H and sniped the only one they had.

Chip shortage is insane! Apple is definitely effected.

Wow I didn't think the laptop would be that hard to get. I wan't to get the 16ich macbook pro i9 like the one you have. I'm using the 15inch i9 32gb of ram 4GB 560X gpu and 1tb ssd. I could definitely uses the gpu upgrade and new keyboard upgrade. 

[elnadav12]

10 minutes ago, skylinetofast said:

Wow I didn't think the laptop would be that hard to get. I wan't to get the 16ich macbook pro i9 like the one you have. I'm using the 15inch i9 32gb of ram 4GB 560X gpu and 1tb ssd. I could definitely uses the gpu upgrade and new keyboard upgrade. 

You can get it for very cheap rn but if you can afford it I highly recommend the new one.

[skylinetofast]

15 minutes ago, elnadav12 said:

You can get it for very cheap rn but if you can afford it I highly recommend the new one.

I would love to get the new 16 inch but I rely on bootcamp. so i'm stuck on intel macs until windows comes out with arm for mac

 

[elnadav12]

11 minutes ago, skylinetofast said:

I would love to get the new 16 inch but I rely on bootcamp. so i'm stuck on intel macs until windows comes out with arm for mac

 

Apparently they have some contract with Qualcomm that prevents them from doing that, for now at least.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/23/22798231/microsoft-qualcomm-exclusivity-deal-windows-on-arm

As I said previously, could you consider using a remote VM?

[GenuineJakob]

Some issues I have with my 14"

• It looks so thick! Maybe it is different on the 16" since it has a larger footprint. But when I put my 15" MBP from 2016 next to my new 14" MBP, it looks like I traveled back in time. Due to the flat edges it looks even thicker than my 15" from 2013.
• The auto dimming for the keyboard doesn't work for me most of the time. The removal of dedicated keys were a big mistake. I remapped the Mission Control and Spotlight keys to keyboard brightness.
• I miss the TouchBar very much. The bar often failed on my 2016 MacBook but when it worked, changing the brightness or volume was way superior than mashing these buttons. I also miss the timeline in videos.
• The speakers sound off, compared to my other Macs. The first movie I watched was The Line, and in the intro with the helicopters and gunshots the speakers sound utterly broken. They are amazing when listening to music and live conferences.
• I hate the HDMI port in the right side of the MacBook. Too be fair, I don't use HDMI often, I always connect my monitors via USB-C to Displayport. I would have loved a 2nd TB4 port on the right side, and a thinner device. I don't really don't want to turn this threat into a dongle vs ports, but a TB4 to HDMI dongle is this tiny, I am sure you can fit it somewhere in your bag. Leave it in the bag forever, so it is always there if you need to present something. In most of the discussions I read about this, people acted like the walk around with their MacBook in their hands and have no bag whatsoever.
• The menu bar at the top forgets to adapt its colour to the dynamic wallpaper during the day. This occurs very often and I am stunned how Apple missed this bug.

[DANK_AS_gay]

On 11/24/2021 at 12:58 PM, skylinetofast said:

Wow I didn't think the laptop would be that hard to get. I wan't to get the 16ich macbook pro i9 like the one you have. I'm using the 15inch i9 32gb of ram 4GB 560X gpu and 1tb ssd. I could definitely uses the gpu upgrade and new keyboard upgrade. 

The 560X is slightly slower than the base M1 integrated GPU (8-core, not 7-core) so it isn't an upgrade in a compute sense, but it is an upgrade in terms of thermals and battery life while being significantly cheaper (new) (in the MacBook Air).