MacBook Pro with the M1 processor

[DT]

Ah, such a dangerous thing for me to do, watching that Verge video!!!!!! AAAAIIEEEEEEEE!!!!! My 12" MacBook, who had thought she was safe, is now getting anxious again..... Ooooh, this is SO, SO tempting!!!!

OH MY GOODNESS, I HAVE SPILLED WATER ON MY NOTEBOOK, WHAT A MISTAKE, IT'S TOTALLY BROKEN, OH, WHAT WILL I DO ... ?

 

[iMi]

OH MY GOODNESS, I HAVE SPILLED WATER ON MY NOTEBOOK, WHAT A MISTAKE, IT'S TOTALLY BROKEN, OH, WHAT WILL I DO ... ?

Crazy. Mine inadvertently fell out of an open window, landed in the driveway and got run over by a lawnmower. Bad things happen to good Intel machines.

 

[Clix Pix]

LOL!!!!! . . Hm....... Well, I sometimes am a little careless when carrying the 12" MacBook to the other room.... Wouldn't it be a shame if I stumbled at just the wrong moment?!!

Now, THERE's a thought......!!!!!! I still have the 15" 2018 MBP to use, though -- she's my primary machine -- and she's sitting here smugly safe in the knowledge that the ax won't fall for her until there is an M[fill in the number] version replacing the 15-and-16-inch MBPs...... THAT's the one I am definitely going to be buying when it becomes available!!!!

Of course, it is always useful to buy a new, basic entry-level machine when there are major changes in order to become accustomed to the changes and to make a transition to that new system smoother before one takes the big plunge and buys a more powerful, more robustly configured, new machine...... That is essentially what I did with the 12" MacBook. It was my introduction to USB-C and began my transition to USB-C and Thunderbolt 3. I bought a couple of dongles/adapters, then when available, the appropriate cables and such so that by the time I was ready to buy my 15" 2018 MBP I had all that I needed to make the transition smooth and easy between it and the older 15" 2015 MBP she was replacing. I never considered the transition to be "dongle hell" or any such thing. It was effortless.....

Dang this pandemic! If I had a couple of road trips planned and all that, it would be so easy to justify buying the new M1, as that is my 12" MacBook's primary purpose, although she does earn her way by doing some stuff around home here, too..... One thing which IS attractive about the new M1 MBP or MBA is that both have 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports and the 12" MacBook has just the one USB-C port which then has to do everything, and can't be charging while I'm using that port for something else such as connecting an external drive. I'll admit that this honestly hasn't been much of a problem, BUT.....the other day I was doing something on the MBP with two external drives swapping data and wanted to check something on my Samsung X5..... I picked it up, ready to plug it into the 12" MacBook and, remembered: oops, nope, that wouldn't work. MacBook only does USB-C, not Thunderbolt 3. I had to wait until the larger machine had finished with the two external drives that were doing their thing on it before I could check what I needed to check on the X5. Hm.... is that justification enough to buy a new M1 machine???? Well.....no, I suppose not......

 

[Eric]

I haven't spent this much time at MR in weeks but they have a ton of great discussion going on around this.

 

[Clix Pix]

It's probably not a good sign that I have been reading the threads there about the M1 machines......and even went to the extent of again looking at the specs and info on the Apple website and partly going through the process of selecting a machine, spec'ing it the way I'd want (1 TB SSD, 16 GB RAM MBP M1) and also checking to see what the price of AppleCare on it would be.... Ran the numbers to see what the state tax would be on one, too....and, ahem, pickup availability at my closest store. (Thursday)..... I haven't checked the trade-in value on the 12" MB, though: actually, I think before I do that I'll take her into the other room. so she doesn't see! Wouldn't want to hurt her feelings.....

 

[Eric]

It's probably not a good sign that I have been reading the threads there about the M1 machines......and even went to the extent of again looking at the specs and info on the Apple website and partly going through the process of selecting a machine, spec'ing it the way I'd want (1 TB SSD, 16 GB RAM MBP M1) and also checking to see what the price of AppleCare on it would be.... Ran the numbers to see what the state tax would be on one, too....and, ahem, pickup availability at my closest store. (Thursday)..... I haven't checked the trade-in value on the 12" MB, though: actually, I think before I do that I'll take her into the other room. so she doesn't see! Wouldn't want to hurt her feelings.....

All I can say is I'm glad Matt and DT jumped in and said something. It was too late to cancel my initial order of the Intel based MBP but we're just going to return it to Costco. Does anyone know if I can cancel AppleCare on that at the time of return or will it be separate? When we made the order for the M1 model I also got AppleCare separately for that one. I see it as insurance well spent just to be safe.

 

[Clix Pix]

Don't have an answer to your question but I definitely always purchase AppleCare on any devices and computers, especially mobile ones that will be going around the house and around town and out of town with me. It's definitely something which brings me peace of mind.

 

[iLunar]

Wow, M1 is a beast. Just catching up on the reviews and specs. Just amazing.

I'm going to wait till next year to get a new MPB. I'm hoping for a new pro model that will last at least 5+ years. And I'm also hoping for a bit of a redesign or something completely unexpected.

I feel like Apple Silicone has potential to really accelerate Apple's hardware creativity going forward.

 

[DT]

It's probably not a good sign that I have been reading the threads there about the M1 machines......and even went to the extent of again looking at the specs and info on the Apple website and partly going through the process of selecting a machine, spec'ing it the way I'd want (1 TB SSD, 16 GB RAM MBP M1) and also checking to see what the price of AppleCare on it would be.... Ran the numbers to see what the state tax would be on one, too....and, ahem, pickup availability at my closest store. (Thursday)..... I haven't checked the trade-in value on the 12" MB, though: actually, I think before I do that I'll take her into the other room. so she doesn't see! Wouldn't want to hurt her feelings.....

I just did a trade-in check on the wife's machine, that was a hand-me-down from me when I got my Mini last year. It's a decently stout machine, a mid-2015 15" MBP, i7 2.5GHz, and it has the 390X dGPU option ... but it's also one of the recall machines (for the battery, never done ...), it's a bit heavy, and it's constantly going into 747 take off mode because I think the GPU gets a little excited (running an external display, so it has to fire up the GPU).

$520, not bad, makes a new M1 MBA 8/8-core, 512GB, 16GB RAM around $900. The MBP is mint condition, original box, etc., so it might be worth a bit more on the open market, but that's also a PITA.

 

[DT]

All I can say is I'm glad Matt and DT jumped in and said something. It was too late to cancel my initial order of the Intel based MBP but we're just going to return it to Costco. Does anyone know if I can cancel AppleCare on that at the time of return or will it be separate? When we made the order for the M1 model I also got AppleCare separately for that one. I see it as insurance well spent just to be safe.

You might have to go through some gyrations with Apple, re: Apple Care. I was going to say you might also have been able to just transfer it to the new machine.

I mostly do AC/AC+, I mean, for my Mini, it was a no brainer at $89, and I've been getting it on iPhones, our iPad Pro is covered, also wife's new-ish Watch, and when I was shopping for a used Apple Watch, having some AC or the ability to guy AC was more or less a requirement (I mean, I super dirt cheap one, I might've not worried, heck my original pre-order Series 0 is still an 8.5-9 / 10 on condition).

One thing I was not able to determine about AC+, if you buy a product used, that has AC+ active, when that expires, Apple now offers going month-to-month, but I wasn't sure if a new owner could pick that up without the AC being in their name. It wound up not being an issue, as I had a great seller who transferred it into my name (there was like 18-19 months remaining). So now, in 2022, I could go month-to-month, if so inclined.

 

[chagla]

I was curious about this new chip. Not a good year for Intel. AMD is highly competitive, Apple using their own.. Last I heard they were going to try big.LITTLE architecture in future.

 

[SuperMatt]

I was curious about this new chip. Not a good year for Intel. AMD is highly competitive, Apple using their own.. Last I heard they were going to try big.LITTLE architecture in future.

Apple came to Intel in 2006/7 when they were readying the first iPhone asking them to work on the chip with them, and Intel refused. They didn’t aggressively pursue processors for Android phones either. That decision is reverberating 13 years later, and Intel’s days are numbered. You can make the best trucks in the world, but if everybody decides they want cars instead, you’re no longer king of the hill.

 

[SuperMatt]

Daring Fireball’s M1 Mac review is up. I know he’s almost always pro-Apple, but I do like the way he writes his reviews.

The M1 Macs

To acknowledge how good the new M1 Macs are — and I am here to tell you they are *astonishingly* good — you must acknowledge that certain longstanding assumptions about how computers should be designed, about what makes a better computer *better*, are wrong.

daringfireball.net

 

[Eric]

Daring Fireball’s M1 Mac review is up. I know he’s almost always pro-Apple, but I do like the way he writes his reviews.

The M1 Macs

To acknowledge how good the new M1 Macs are — and I am here to tell you they are *astonishingly* good — you must acknowledge that certain longstanding assumptions about how computers should be designed, about what makes a better computer *better*, are wrong.

daringfireball.net

Did you see this video? That is insane man.

Absurd performance.

Just a little fun test I did on the base MBA... Just opening every single default app in the dock of a fresh user and then opening the activity monitor at the end to check out RAM usage. I dunno how useful is it to see this, but the speed and fluidity of everything is simply obscene for a MBA.

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Renzatic]

That decision is reverberating 13 years later, and Intel’s days are numbered....

They really have screwed the pooch in a number of ways, haven't they? In 10 short years, they went from being the premiere processor manufacturer, with world leading fab technology, to designing 3rd place chips that are unable to match AMD's architecture for brute force strength, nor able to compete with Apple's now sky high performance per watt standard.

I'm not ready to write them off as a has-beens just yet, but they're solidly behind the 8-ball.

 

[lizkat]

They really have screwed the pooch in a number of ways, haven't they? In 10 short years, they went from being the premiere processor manufacturer, with world leading fab technology, to designing 3rd place chips that are unable to match AMD's architecture for brute force strength, nor able to compete with Apple's now sky high performance per watt standard.

I'm not ready to write them off as a has-beens just yet, but they're solidly behind the 8-ball.

Haven't sold what's left of my long since all-gravy AMD yet, which I bought on a lark back in 2009 because even in their previous stumbles they were worth more than how they bottomed out along with everything else as the Great Recession went on. But I haven't bought more Apple either.

As a consumer though, I'm not leaving the Apple ecosystem at this point in my life, so on the gear (and software) side, they still got me... but not without some cranky feedback I'm always happy to email them from time to time. I call that my rightfully imposed Apple-Eater's Value Added Tax.

 

[iMi]

I’ll be getting the M1 mini today. I’ll let you guys know how well it works. I have high hopes.

 

[Eric]

I’ll be getting the M1 mini today. I’ll let you guys know how well it works. I have high hopes.

Awesome, let us know how it turns out. I was just watching another review here, so far the results have been positive across the board. It will be interesting to see how Intel responds to this, it's game changing for Apple from what I can see.

 

[iMi]

Awesome, let us know how it turns out. I was just watching another review here, so far the results have been positive across the board. It will be interesting to see how Intel responds to this, it's game changing for Apple from what I can see.

Some people in that other place are ridiculous. They are crying foul because these machines are not beating out the latest dedicated GPUs from Nvidia or AMD. That’s like responding to a new line of Volkswagens by complaining they aren’t as fast as Porsche. It has become such a cesspool of over-opinionated morons over there. And everyone of them is an expert, of course.

 

[Renzatic]

I’ll be getting the M1 mini today. I’ll let you guys know how well it works. I have high hopes.

Hey, want to do me a favor? If you do it, I'll think you're the coolest ever...