this is the
2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro and I've been
dailing it for the past 2 years you see
I didn't feel the need to upgrade to the
M2 Pro Models because I just didn't find
a compelling reason to justify A1 to 15%
Improvement but also the design looked
pretty much identical now this was my
primary tool for video production both
at my office here as well as my home and
of course when I'm traveling recently I
did switch to the Mac Studio as my
permanent setup here because the
performance on the thing is absolutely
incredible it just chews through all of
my editing tasks like butter but I still
end up doing some work on the MacBook
Pro so in this video I just wanted to
sit down and talk about my experience uh
using this thing for the past 2 years
I'm going to go over you know things
like battery life how has it been
holding up how have I sacrificed on
performance especially after the upgrade
to macoma how are The Thermals holding
up so if you're on the fence about
switching to a Mac or just looking to
pick up a refurbished model I hope this
video could provide some valuable
insight to help you make your decision
so to kick things off let's talk about
build quality now I know initially in my
full review I said that Apple makes some
of the best built Hardware but does that
hold up really well over the long term
well um I have to say it's still in
Immaculate shape guys since day one now
I take pretty good care of my tech I
mean I WEP down all of my accessories
since day one it's just nature of habit
so you can't really notice any scuffs or
scratches is on this unibody aluminum
construction I'm actually really
surprised to see how it has held up
considering how much I've traveled over
the past 2 years to CES computex and
other cities for coverage heck even the
bottom panel looks in pristine condition
there are no science of creaking or even
wobbling with the hinge I mean seriously
this thing is still going strong the
keyboard on this MacBook Pro has been
durable and reliable over time G of
other days where you had to replace
those sticky keys on Intel base mat
remember the butterfly switches yeah we
don't get any of that here I've written
tons of emails and scripts on this
keyboard and it's still an awesome
experience it's not the best out there
but it gets a job done uh the same thing
goes for the trackpad I don't carry any
external Mouse when I'm traveling
because the responsiveness the
smoothness and just the way how Mac OS
is optimized for this Hardware Works
beautifully the keys themselves have
been worn out slightly in terms of their
final finish typically I do tend to use
alcohol to just like wipe it down if I
have any grease these do pick up grease
very quickly so um I would highly
recommend not using sort of like a
silicone keypad or key keyboard cover
because um I've read on the forums that
that actually ends up uh cracking the
display so uh in terms of the overall
finish it I mean still looks great it
works great can't complain these
front-facing speakers are still world
class he's probably one of the best you
can find for a laptop in general because
the sound projection is awesome there is
just a lot of depth to whatever you're
listening to in fact I've had a lot of
instances when I'm at show floors or
just like in the editing Bay editing
with Mike and Dimitri when we're
reviewing the final footage or the final
edit they're just blown away by just how
these speaker sound uh compared to you
know Dimitri's razor blade 17 and of
course the other laptop I believe that
was an isus Zen book that Robert was
editing on yeah this thing just it's
just an allpurpose just well-built
machine for even stuff like
entertainment you can easily just edit
videos off of this although I don't
really use speakers for editing um I'm
mostly using headphones which by the way
that high impedence headphone jack is
still awesome um it was easily able to
drive by dt990 Pros without a problem
usually I'm only at 50% so clearly you
can drive higher impedance headphones
without an issue so yeah the hardware is
Stellar guys the 16in mini LED Pro
motion display has also held up pretty
well I think as a Creator working with a
color accurate screen is a top priority
and this has been extremely reliable
promotion AKA 120 HZ continues to
contribute to a smoother and more
responsive user experience especially
when scrolling through web pages or
scrubbing through the timeline div you
resolve even when you're battery it's
super smooth it doesn't really I haven't
noticed any jitteriness um with that
which again just goes to show how well
optimized a software and Hardware is on
the laptops I mean sure it still has a
blooming issue it's basically an
artifact caused by one dimming Zone
affecting the neighboring zones it's not
terrible and 99% of the time I'll always
have something else on it other than
just a black screen so it doesn't bother
me that much there's just so much screen
real estate to work with when you opt
for a 16-in display I would actually
highly recommend considering it over the
14-in model plus you also get a bigger
battery speaking of which this is
probably the most important thing that
you might be wondering how has battery
life held up over the past 2 years now
let me give you a little bit of context
before I switched to the Mac Studio my
everyday 9 to5 setup is mostly with this
thing connected to a fundable dock which
also keeps the laptop charged up but
when I'm outside the studio I'm mostly
running the machine on battery without
needing to plug it in until the next day
Apple has integrated optimized battery
charging where the system will learn
your charging routine and essentially it
delays charging past 80% in certain
situations while still aiming to ensure
it's still fully charged when you are
unplugged we've seen this on iPhones and
iPads and I think it's a pretty
thoughtful feature but does it actually
work well as of today uh my battery
condition is normal and it's an 81%
capacity with 122 Cycles basically a
charge cycle happens when you're using
all of the batteries power but that
doesn't necessarily translate to a
single charge for instance if you're
using half of your laptop's battery
charge uh in a single day and then
charging it to full capacity and
repeating that same process the next day
that would count as one charge cycle and
not two So based on your usage it might
require several days to complete a
single charge cycle and as you can see
122 Cycles isn't a whole lot these
MacBook Pros can last up to a th000
Cycles so I barely made it past 15% of
where on the battery so I ran my usual
battery test to see if there was any
difference and guys this is where it
gets really interesting I gained almost
an hour more on our usual light load
test using Google Chrome on an auto
refresh extension and under intense
workloads where the CPU is 100% I lost
about 15 minutes compared to it State
back in 2021 now my theory is that Mac
OS anoma has some battery optimizations
built in where it puts the efficiency
cores and performance cores at a much
more efficient State uh meaning lower
clocks so that's pretty impressive now
for those of you wondering about mixed
usage where you're watching YouTube
videos in 4k uh or maybe pushing the CPU
slightly I was easily able to get close
to to 15 hours on a single charge which
is pretty wild I mean I've edited a
video from scratch graded it and
exported on a 6-hour plane ride and I
only lost like 20 to
30% I don't think any Windows laptop can
come nearly any close to what this
MacBook Pro has to offer in terms of
efficiency and performance by the way
Apple isn't paying us a dime to say any
of this guys it's just really eye
openening to see how this laptop plays
out really well in real world scenarios
now what about performance differences
well the good news is that it hasn't
been affected over the past 2 years guys
this MacBook Pro still performs just as
good as day one in fact in certain cases
it got a bit faster remember this was
Apple's first arm processor for the pro
family and a lot of third- party
applications were still catching up to
take full advantage of the neural engine
and the media encoders built in uh plus
the software updates help as well I mean
I reran all of these tests on the latest
version of Mac osoma so I'm really happy
with the consistent performance with
this MB Pro in terms of thermal and
acoustic performance this is what still
blows my mind guys even till this day
when I'm rendering a video or just
throwing anything intensive at this
machine the fans are still stupid quiet
I still can't hear them I haven't heard
them in the past two years which is just
a testament that goes to show the
remarkable engineering that went inside
this Hardware I even opened up the
laptop to see if there was any dust
buildup to the fans I thought of maybe
giving it a clean and again I was still
surprised with the incredible dust
management that this laptop has I mean I
I didn't had to clean the laptop it was
still in pristine condition uh it just
goes to show that the engineers at Apple
have really put a lot of thought into uh
building the chassis around the M1 Pro
family the software experience has been
pretty reliable so far Mac OS has been
through a few major updates a few things
that I didn't like in particular is just
a settings window they basically ended
up replicating a similar layout like
what you find on iOS and iPad OS and I
guess they wanted to keep things
consistent across all devices but I do
miss the old layout but other than that
it just works I will say on a few
occasions when I place a system in sleep
mode after I unplug it for my
Thunderbolt Dock and then wake it up a
few hours uh when I'm at home it
unexpectedly reboots indicating some
sort of error but that only happened to
me like three or four times uh and it
seems like software updates have
addressed that so yeah I haven't had any
of those um what I love about Mac OS is
just the ease of use and how it
communicates with the rest of Apple's
own Hardware I just cannot emphasize how
many times I use airdrop regularly to
transfer social media content to my
iPhone uh to post on Instagram it's just
convenient and saves me so much time I
also use a few third party tools to make
my productivity experience a bit better
like using rectangle to move and resize
Windows and Mac OS using keyboard
shortcuts or snap areas there's also MX
power Gadget that helps me monitor
system temps and clock speeds for the p
and E course and finally I use clean my
Mac to clear up junk and free some space
considering how fast I get through one
tbytes seriously I wish I got a 2 TB or
4 tab spec now Maco asoma also brings a
few cool tricks to the table like some
incredible high resolution screen savers
that seamlessly turn into a wallpaper
when you log in to the desktop uh the
import from iPhone feature lets you
basically use your iPhone to take a
photo or scan a document and then it
directly saves that file onto the
desktop it's pretty awesome if you're in
that line of work that requires signing
and scanning physical documents and
there are a lot more cool things added
to this version and I think it just
keeps getting better I mean the fact
that it can run so well on a 2-year-old
laptop just goes to show how Apple takes
hardware and software as their top
priority they have complete control over
the ecosystem and I guess that's a good
thing so that's my experience with the
2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro I'm still going
to continue to use this laptop because
it's still fast it's still quiet it's
still super reliable I mean the fact
that you know I'm still getting that
exact same performance when I'm on
battery the whole efficiency aspect
still continues to blow my mind uh which
is why it's probably the top choice for
creators who are constantly on the go
try to make content uh now if you're on
the offence about picking up a
refurbished model uh the M1 Pro right
now is going for around $1
1929 with a 512 gig SSD with 16 gigs of
RAM and then the 1 ter spec is a little
over $2,000 but if you were to sort of
compare the refurbished M1 Pro to the
brand new or I guess the newer M2 Pro
chips it's about $200 and
honestly I don't think it's worth
spending an extra $200 I mean depends on
you know if you really want the latest
and greatest Mac sure but if I were you
I'd probably get that refurbished spec
Plus for those extra $200 you could
probably pick up a set of airpods or um
just get an Apple Watch SC SC and you
know just kind of expand the ecosystem
if you really want to get into it so
yeah that's pretty much it guys I hope I
was able to convey or just help you guys
make a decision in terms of whether or
not if you if you should consider the M1
Pro MacBook Pro in
2023 I'm EA with hyrix thanks for much
for watching and um
I'll talk to you guys in the next one oh
and uh spend
responsibly