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New M1 Pro and M1 Max First Look: Unleashed!

13:07 video

Apple’s Unleashed event brought new designs, processors, GPUs, memory options, keyboards, displays, mics and speakers: these are finally the pro laptops with Apple silicon that pros have been waiting for. (I’m a part-time “pro-ish” and the M1s have been super good, but I can’t wait to try these.) Skillshare sponsored this video.

Displays

The 13-inch models are now 14-inch, and the 16-inch stays at 16, with a new XDR display on both: up to 1,000 nits peak and 1,600 nits in HDR, on the same level as the iPad Pros and the $5,000 Pro Display XDR, with up to a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a billion colors. That’s 7.7 million pixels on the 16-inch and 5.9 million on the 14.2-inch, at 254 ppi (vs. about 218 on the iMac and Pro Display XDR). ProMotion adaptive up to 120 Hz, which I poo-pooed on the iPhone 13 Pro, but I think makes more sense on larger displays where you’re moving things around or scrolling; you can also set a fixed refresh rate if you have an issue editing video. I’m definitely getting the 14-inch, and haven’t decided on the 16-inch.

Notch, camera, mics and speakers

There’s a 1080p camera in a notch, which isn’t what I expected, and like other notches I think it will fade away; it mostly sits in the menu bar. The camera is up to twice as bright and uses AI and the image signal processor for a clearer image. There’s a new three-mic studio array with a much lower noise floor, and a six-speaker system like the 24-inch iMac’s (two sets of noise-canceling subwoofers on each side for more bass without rattling), with spatial audio.

Ports

MagSafe 3 is back: I don’t know why they took it away; somebody trips over the cable and your computer doesn’t fly across the room. (They removed it when they added USB-C.) Two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a headphone jack on the left; an SD card slot (anybody who’s a photo, video or audio pro needs one), another Thunderbolt 4 port and HDMI on the right, so no adapters for a projector or monitor.

Chips

  • M1 Pro: up to a 10-core CPU (eight high-performance and two efficiency cores, vs. four and four on the M1), a 16-core GPU (double the M1’s 8), up to 32 GB of memory and up to 200 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The base models support two external displays.
  • M1 Max: a 10-core CPU, up to 32 GPU cores (16, 24 or 32), up to 64 GB of unified memory (more GPU memory than any other laptop graphics) and up to four external displays (Apple said three Pro Display XDRs and a 4K display), thanks to additional Thunderbolt 4 buses.

Apple’s comparisons against the 13-inch i7 and 16-inch i9 MacBook Pros show two to four times the performance, up to 13 times better in 4K video rendering on the 14-inch and up to three times faster 8K rendering on the 16-inch. The graphs don’t give much information, so wait for reviews. I expect real-world results to knock our socks off. When disconnected from power, Apple silicon laptops still get 100% of CPU power.

Battery and weight

Some battery life is lost compared with the 13-inch M1 Pro: 17 hours of wireless web there versus 11 hours on the 14-inch and 14 hours on the 16-inch, but you get a better display and much more power. Weight: the M1 MacBook Pro is 3 pounds, the 14-inch is 3.5 pounds and the 16-inch is 4.7 pounds, still under five pounds.

Skillshare

Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes on illustration, design, freelancing, filmmaking and more. I took MKBHD’s new YouTube Success class, which breaks down how he creates a video from idea and script to editing and growing a channel, and I learned techniques for microphone and lighting placement and building a better script. The first 1,000 people who use the link get a free month of Skillshare Premium.

Pricing

The 14-inch starts at $1,999, and many people expected these to replace the M1 at a $1,299 starting price: they don’t. These are the high-end models. The 14-inch starts with an M1 Pro with an 8-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16 GB of unified memory and 512 GB of storage, and you can upgrade to a 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU, then to the M1 Max with a 24 or 32-core GPU (I added the 32-core for $700), 64 GB of memory ($400) and up to 8 TB of storage ($2,400), for a fully loaded total of $5,899. The 16-inch starts at $2,499 with the 10-core CPU, 16-core M1 Pro, and loaded with the M1 Max (32-core GPU), 64 GB and 8 TB, comes to $6,099, “or for the very low price of all of your organs.”

I can’t wait to get mine, which should be Tuesday. I’ll do an unboxing and initial tests, at least of the 14-inch; let me know if you want a 16-inch for comparison.

In this video

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