MacBook Pro (2021) Review: should you get the cheapest one?
Mac Address
·Mac Address
·2022-05-05
·
2,176 words · ~10 min read
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(upbeat music)
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- It's here, the new MacBook Pro. Unlike the previous generation,
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this MacBook Pro shows us the future of computing without forgetting about today.
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So you get the latest chip technology and nicest screen technology
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without missing some crucial ports or a useful keyboard.
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But which one should you get? This 14 inch model is the cheapest one you can buy,
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with 8 and 14 cores, 16 gigabytes of RAM,
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and 512 gigabytes of storage for $2,000.
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It's a lot of money, but is this base tier powerful enough
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to do everything you need it to? Or should you spend even more?
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(upbeat music)
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I hate to admit this, but yes, the new MacBook Pro offers clout.
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It's got a whole new design that people will notice quite simply
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because the form is very different. It calls out directly to the old titanium PowerBook G4,
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which was launched 20 years ago. That was a revolutionary design
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because it looked unlike any other laptop that came before.
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The base had rounded corners while the top was more squared off and flat.
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This laptop takes that form and boils it down to its essentials,
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Using aluminium instead of titanium.
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It's very minimal, almost to the point of being plain,
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but when you flip it open and these two sides separate,
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it really comes into its own. I particularly like the flat lid
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as it makes the laptop look more assertive on the desk from the back.
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I also think that the color for this generation is going to be silver. Space gray is so out.
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It's assertive enough to tell everyone around you that serious work is being done on this computer.
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Even if you're writing your next spec screenplay or a YouTube video script,
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'cause that's who I imagine will be buying a MacBook Pro for clout.
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And if you are someone who bought this MacBook Pro to look good writing,
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let me encourage you to get producing, because this can do so much more.
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The headline for this MacBook Pro is the addition of the M1 Pro
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and optional M1 Max processors. It's the latest installment in Apple's ARM transition,
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and the future looks quite promising. Now, this base model gets a bin version
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of the M1 Pro, which features 8 CPU cores, and 14 GPU cores,
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down from the full option of 10 and 16 respectively.
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But don't think that you're getting the same eight cores as a vanilla M1.
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There are six high-performance cores and two efficiency cores in here versus
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four and four under a touch bar. Plus there's an awful lot more besides in this package,
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especially for video editors. The thing I'm most interested in is the media engine,
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which provides acceleration for decoding and encoding
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of a whole bunch of codecs, from the commoner gardener H 264,
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to the high demand HEVC and even professional ProRes.
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In a professional workflow, transcoding to ProRes is something that can
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help speed up editing, but it takes time. Yet with the media engine, it doesn't have to.
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To convert 44 clips to ProRes with compressor
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a 2020 Intel core i7 MacBook Pro took
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just under 25 minutes. A full 28 core Mac Pro took just over
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eight and a half minutes. 30 seconds more than last year's M1 MacBook Pro by the way.
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Yet, this humble base MacBook Pro took
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less than three minutes. And don't think a full 10 16 M1 Pro is faster.
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Because they share the same media engine, it took the exact same amount of time.
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But you might be able to get away with skipping encoding to ProRes all together.
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Even with what should be challenging H 264 footage on a premiere timeline with some color correction,
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playback is smooth. You can totally get away with editing
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a relatively straightforward 4k video on this machine, without having to think twice
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about what codec you're using. And that's really impressive.
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Also impressive is how cool the computer remains.
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Have this on your lap, which you shouldn't do. And it gets to a nice, comfortable warmth.
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It's not a leg burner like the last Intel MacBook Pro.
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As for benchmarks, the 8 14 M1 Pro
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is slower than a full 10 16 M1 Pro, to a degree that tracks with the differing core counts,
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but the performance floor is still quite high, thanks to the other engines that these processors get now.
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For example, NVIDIA editing, the massive performance acceleration we're seeing
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is thanks to the media engine. This is effectively an afterburner card, but better.
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And all M1 Pros get it. The Max gets even more.
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But there's also the neural engine, which will accelerate difficult to process tasks
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like object tracking. These are things that would normally bog down a CPU,
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but now they're being offloaded to hardware explicitly designed for the task,
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and the CPU can then focus on other things, like all this stuff you can plug in now.
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Worrying about having the right dongle to get files off an SD card
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is not something anyone wants to deal with. So I'm pleased to report that the built-in reader is back.
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As is the HDMI port, which is perfect for plugging into a projector or TV screen,
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should you want to show off the finished product of your screenplay slash YouTube script.
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But the most notable return is that of MagSafe.
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Apple pioneered the charger plug that could survive the clumsiest of owners,
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and then perplexingly abandoned it. But it's here, with the charging indicator light
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and everything. And it's a USBC to MagSafe cable, clad in a fabric,
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that's weirdly wonderful. Unlike these old charging cables that
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kind of feel and coil clumsily, this one just feels so free and easy,
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like how it is to plug in. Now, I really want to tell you about the screen,
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So the display, it's also a significant upgrade.
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It's an XDR display, and because of the rounded corners, it's liquid retina.
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At 14.2 inches in diagonal, it's sizably bigger than the outgoing 13 inch models.
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You get a noticeable increase in vertical resolution and the pixel density has increased to 254 PPI,
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up from 227. This should make for a more generous screen
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in default display scaling. This means that you get a more generous layout
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when running macOS at the screen's resolution divided by two,
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which is now the default scaling. Older Macbook's default scaling,
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isn't actually divisible by the screen resolution. And when it is everything's too big.
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One difference you will notice is the ProMotion smoothness,
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at least in apps that support it. It's really nice when moving Windows around
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the macOS desktop, but it doesn't really work everywhere.
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And I have encountered uncomfortable stutters here and there, as it adjusts the refresh rate
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for what it's doing. It can be smooth, but it's just not
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all the time right now. And it makes me realize that there are a few places
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where it's worth adjusting expectations a bit like the notch.
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I don't really care that the notch is there. Even if it takes up a lot of space to fit
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the much improved 1080 P camera. In fact, I'm willing to bet that
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future Macbooks will get face ID if they're making this so big now.
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What is annoying, is how poorly the notch is implemented in Apple software.
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As snazzy guy Quinn Nelson noticed, the menu bar options can inexplicably
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get pushed under the notch. While in other apps they don't,
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and developers aren't sure how to implement it. Now, if this is a problem for you,
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you can try to fix it by setting the individual apps
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to scale to fit below the built-in camera.
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But that just makes the entire screen proportionally smaller.
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Look at these giant bezels the MacBook Pro has now.
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Now in regards to full screen mode, I'm delighted to report that Monterey
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now has the option to keep the menu bar visible permanently in full screen mode.
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It's not on by default, but thank you.
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Though the problem of apps, buttons getting blocked
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or pushed away for the red, yellow, green close buttons
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and header bar still persists. Stop doing this.
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But, this is still progress, and the notch lets you get the best
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of both the menu bar and vertical real estate.
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Well, except for these six pixels, the taller menu bar takes up under the notch.
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I don't think they should have done that. It's just a waste of space.
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Is that six pixels? What are we counting? It might be eight.
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Okay, so the notch is a bit of a wash, kind of like the battery life.
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The battery will last you a full day, but over the course of 24 hours from a full charge to empty,
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I got about seven hours of screen on time, mostly installing apps all day.
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Apple claims up to 11 hours of web browsing and 17 hours of video playback.
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In fact, Anthony clocked 22 hours with this,
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but begin adding professional tasks and your battery life will suffer.
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That being said, macOS does not throttle the Macbook on battery at all.
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All the benchmark tests I did running on the juice, spit out the same numbers as if it were plugged in.
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One thing you won't get with this base model though is fast charging.
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With the 96 watt charger that's $20 extra
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or included with upgraded models, you can charge to 50% in just 30 minutes.
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Sounds great, but I did try to charge this base model from dead with the included 67 watt charger
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and after half an hour, it was at 41%. So not a huge difference.
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Unlike the price. This is $2,000, and any and all upgrades
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will increase the cost right quick. Just upgrading the RAM, which you might want to do,
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will set you back $400, Simply upgrading to a one terabyte SSD is 200.
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It's 600 if you want two terabytes and a full 10 16 M1 Pro processor is $300.
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See what I mean? But compared to an 8 8 M1 MacBook Pro
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with the same memory and storage, this one costs $300 more.
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And for that you get a more capable chip, way better screen and less dongle life irritation.
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It's certainly worth that cost, even if it shows how expensive an upgraded 8 8 M1 is.
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The story with this Macbook is that it's very powerful, almost too powerful
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for what I use a computer for. So the question becomes, which one should you get?
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If you're not a creative professional, but maybe thinking about getting into video editing
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or anything creative, or you just want to look cool,
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just get the base model. If you're doing anything more intensive though,
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like music production, 3D animation, or 8K multicam video editing,
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it's worth venturing beyond from the base model. Even if it's just a little.
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In some respects, it's important to remember we haven't completed the ARM transition journey,
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and the capabilities of these machines should expand even more as developers take advantage
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of all the different parts of the M1 pro SOC.
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Right now, some are further behind than others. I'm predicting that as we explore the more powerful models
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on different workflows, we'll have a better idea of what's ready and just how much better these laptops are.
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So stick around for that. And they are better. These are much more practical than the Macs they replace.
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This inspires optimism for the future of the professional Mac lineup.
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Something we've been missing for a long time.
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Thanks for intruding on this Mac Address. Now, if you liked the video, give it a like,
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and if you want to see more in the future, give us a subscribe.
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Now I'm curious how many of you would
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go for this base Macbook Pro, over, say a Macbook Air,
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or even last year's M1 MacBook Pro.
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It is quite a bit more money, but think of the clout.
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That's gotta be enough, right?