My review of Apple MacBook Pro with M1 chip

MacBook Pro with M1 chip in the house.

Damage on wallet: Rs. 97,000 in recent Flipkart deal (MRP 1,23,000)

Ever since I completed my formal education, my computing needs were never too high end I always have been settling down with base versions of macbook pro in 2010 and air since 2011. Fast forward several years and my requirements changed. I have been looking for a capable mac and when Apple launched the M1 series I was quite compelled to give it a try

Most of my comparisons would be with respect to my mid 2016 macbook air which was my previous machine.

Display - Lot higher resolution, crisp, less reflective, wider colour gamut and thinner bezels. All in all, the display on my current macbook pro seems to be an upgrade over my older macbook air in every possible way. It’s a delight to use the macbook all day long.

Keyboard - one of the other primary factor. The very recent macbook had a notoriously failing butterfly keyboards which received lot of criticism over the years. Apple finally ditched the butterfly keyboard and launched something called magic keyboard. Compared to my macbook air, the travel of keys isn’t as deep but the click response is so much better and I am somehow able to type much faster. Love the new keyboard too and got accustomed to it in no time.

Trackpad - one of the other major advantage I see with macbook is the accurate and lot more usable trackpad. Though a basic means of interaction in a laptop, I see most laptops falter as compared to what a macbook offers. The one macbook pro has almost twice the area of macbook air but the one thing I dislike is the hollow sound I get when I move my finger on the trackpad. Also, it’s a bit too huge for comfort as I am unable to find a proper resting position for my hands.

Sound - I personally find macbooks to have one of the best sound systems again. The ones on macbook pro are lot fuller and deeper. Much better than the ones on macbook air again.

Hinge - not many talk about it. The hinge on macbook air was reliable too but I feel the one on macbook pro is lot more robust and better holding. I liked the more smooth movement of hinge on macbook air but the one on pro is more robust.

Speed - blown away. Apart from being a benchmark monster beating even the top of the line intel chips based macbook pros, the m1 does show in real time performance too. I haven’t seen it sweat irrespective of what I throw at it. Any app opens super quick. I am especially able to notice a huge improvement in implementation times of the code I run.

Heating - my old macbook air used to heat only when I charge and in the area around the charging port, but for that I never really faced much heating issues unless I run some demanding algorithms which I code. This M1 macbook pro seems to have resolved all those issues too. As far as I have been using it for several days now I haven’t seen it heat up neither while charging nor while running the algos. A hue thumbs up for thermal management.

Battery life - blown away! Again, I find macbooks in general have lot longer battery life than their windows counterparts and the M1 series blows the competition out to next level. My macbook pro easily last 17 hours + on real time usage with a mix of videos, songs, programming and office apps. Crazy good battery life!

Weight and form - One thing I was worried about is the portability factor moving from air to pro but apple has refined the pro series so well that they are as sleek as an air now. My old macbook air weighed 1.34 kgs whereas the new pro weighs just 1.4 kgs. Also, air has a wedge design where the thickest part is thicker than the current pro. The new pro has a smaller footprint too overall so I feel it’s easier to handle my macbook pro than my previous air.

TouchBar - meh! I didn’t really find it of much use. It feels more of a fancy feature as of now and also leads to lot of accidental touches when I use the numbers on keyboard.

App compatibility - most apps that are not customised for M1 chip still run really well using rosetta compatibility so no issues here either.

Ports - One and only major drawback. I miss the USB-A ports and SD card reader on macbook air. The macbook air itself has been criticised a lot for going minimal on ports but the macbook pro seems to have went even more minimal and all it has is 2 usb-c ports and one 3.5mm jack. I have to invest more on dongles and carry them around when in need. A big thumbs down here.

Tip: I suggest the base version of macbook air instead if anyone is keen. The only difference as compared to pro is the GPU on base version of macbook air is 7 core as opposed to 8 core on pro. Air battery life is 1 to 2 hours lesser. Air lacks a fan ventilation system but most users say even when air is pushed to max it still doesn’t heat up. Air lacks touch bar, which again I feel is quite pointless.

Overall, for what it’s worth, I find it to be one of the best gadgets I invested in recent times. Totally recommend it for anyone considering it.