I've been using the M1 MacBook Pro every single day for the last six months but today i wanted
to give you my updated thoughts. Including what i like, dislike and whether i would recommend over
the 16-inch M1 Max over the 14-inch model. So if you are interested in getting a new MacBook for
yourself, hopefully today's video will be useful as it will give you some insight into how i use
it and why it's the best machine that i've ever bought. I will also give you some tips on the
best way to buy this to maximize your budget and thank you to SurfShark VPN for sponsoring
a portion of today's video so i went for the m1 max with 10 cores 32 gigabytes of memory
and the one terabyte ssd this build came in at 3 299 pounds or about 4 300 and this is by far
the most expensive laptop or even computer i've ever bought now the only reason i could justify
this was treating it as an expense as i knew that it would be used every single day for work
and as for the one terabyte ssd well that was a must for me last time i bought a macbook pro
i actually went for the 256 gigabytes of space and i maxed that out pretty quickly
and even though i store most of my large files on external ssds like my videos and photos i still
manage to fill the internal ssd and that's my one piece of advice so if you take away one thing from
this video definitely spec the largest ssd that you can afford as you will always wish you'd gone
for more right so i use this practically every single day for video editing writing documents
editing photos and recording my audio basically everything you've seen on my channel over the
last six months was written and edited on this machine and during that time i can safely say this
is the fastest and most capable macbook or machine i've ever used it has been stupidly fast and very
reliable for me now i opted for the m1 max as i wanted to give myself some headroom for editing
to make sure that if i did increase my workload in the future then it could happily keep up
and over the last six months i've thrown loads of different apps at it but the main piece of
software that i use is final cut pro it boots up in a matter of seconds loads my projects nearly
instantly and scrubs through 4k video without a single stutter i even set the view to better
quality instead of better performance and it still doesn't drop a frame when watching back or editing
comparing this to my old macbook pro which would often struggle to keep up with rendering on the
fly and everything that i have edited on here has seriously not been a problem and the m1
max is probably even overkill for the content i do create but it works really well but it's
not just about how fast or smooth it runs while editing it's the noise as well i've never not even
once heard the fans kick in whether i'm editing or exporting a video it is still whisper quiet
again compared with my old pro which would often kick the fans in within a few minutes of editing
so although i have that internal one terabyte ssd which you might think i would use for storing
my videos and photos on i still actually use an external ssd to store all of my media on and as
long as those external drives have a fast read and write speed it won't be a problem keeping up while
editing but i don't just use this macbook for creating videos i use other apps like lightroom
photoshop for a little bit of photo editing as well as general admin and as you can imagine
performance wise this has no problem with any app that you throw at it sure the odd
app crashes or it shows the not responding but that's pretty rare and i'll tell you what using
this macbook to work on every day is actually very enjoyable it's smooth and it's snappy
now other than the overall size screen size and weight there's not really any advantage to
choosing the 16 inch model over the 14 inch this time you're not getting a bump up in performance
or spec so you might wonder why i or you would even opt for this size well the bottom line is i
just like larger screens that extra screen real estate that you get from those extra 2 inches
is awesome and it's the same reason i prefer the iphone pro max models to the normal pro the larger
screen just feels easier to consume content and work on and while i'm editing writing or
just viewing the 16 inch screen i don't ever find myself needing to lean in or resize the windows
to see what i'm working on i'd say if you want to use the macbook exclusively like not plugged into
an external monitor or as a secondary display i think the 16 inch is the better choice overall
obviously this larger screen only makes sense if you're actually going to use it so if i only had
mine docked on my desk and it never left quite honestly it would have been a waste of money now
i typically used it docked around 50 of the time i'll have it connected to this 38 inch ultra wide
monitor this means any video editing or work that i do is actually done on the monitor and not the
macbook screen i then pair it with a logitech mouse and keyboard so it sort of acts like a
computer rather than the laptop but the other 50 of the time is used away from my desk and that
includes on my kitchen table my gaming desk or on my lap in front of the tv and that's where i
really make the most of that larger screen and don't forget the resolution and the clarity on
the screen is incredible something i have gotten used to over the last six months is actually when
going back to another screen or monitor that you really notice just how nice that retina screen is
and also not forgetting the 120 hertz refresh rate is so smooth when scrolling i'll be honest i hope
all future displays are at least 120 hertz now but one more thing about the screen now i wasn't going
to mention this but is that the notch is not even noticeable i don't actually think there's
been a single time where i've had a problem with it after the first couple of days you completely
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now when it comes to the portability for the 16 inch model well it's big it's bulky and it's
pretty heavy there's no denying this isn't the easiest macbook pro to carry around so
if you needed something slim and lightweight this definitely is not the one to buy i've gotten used
to its weight in size now but every time i see my old 15-inch macbook pro sitting on my coffee table
as i gave it to my wife it reminds me just how much bigger this one is but it practically never
leaves my house i mean it moves between my desk and my sofa most of the time and it's only when
carrying it do you notice his weight but once i'm sitting with it on my lap in front of the tv the
weight isn't even noticeable but i'll be honest if i was transporting every single day to say
the office or school maybe even between meetings constantly i would seriously consider going for
the 14 inch over the 16 for the portability and looking at the keyboard and the trackpad so we
lost the touch bar across the top and i actually use that quite a lot although i understand most of
you didn't and since moving back to the physical keys i have realized just how much faster and more
convenient it is to adjust the brightness and the volume without relying on that touch bar
typing on it feels fast and responsive and as i've literally written every script for the last six
months on here it's easy for me to say just how nice it is although you might have noticed some
of the keys are starting to look a little bit shiny but none are sticking and none are faulty
and the trackpad is still awesome but the 16 inch model is massive comparing it to other laptops on
the market it might even look too big but there are even a few times where i'm using it i wish it
was even bigger i often have my hand placement to the right of the trackpad just like i would
use a mouse so i end up actually running out of space as i'm swiping maybe i should actually
pick up a magic trackpad instead so at first i was really pleased and borderline excited with the new
magsafe port on the side i mean it is pretty cool but since i pretty much only charge the macbook
while it's docked on my desk i don't really use it for me i would actually rather have four usbc
ports which can be used for both charging and data transfer and as i have to have three things
plugged in which maxes out those three usbc ports one next report would have been useful so i've
normally got things like the monitor plugged in one for the external ssd and another for my mic
then we've got the sd card and the hdmi ports on the side now i've never used these but i can see
myself using the sd card slot in the future and that's because i recently picked up the insta360
camera but if it wasn't for that i don't think i'd ever use them now the battery on this has been
surprisingly good so when it's docked it makes no difference obviously but when i'm using away from
the desk i very rarely need to plug it in for me actually comfortably lasts me an entire day before
needing to dock it again at night and if i'm doing light work like writing scripts it will literally
last me two to three days now on several occasions while i've been on battery i have managed to fully
edit a video from start to finish export and upload it without even worrying about plugging
it in and looking at my battery capacity is now showing 96 now i don't believe that has anything
to do with having it plugged in all of the time as mac os is actually clever enough to draw its power
from the mains instead of the battery so it's not actually constantly charging but either way it has
dropped four percent in the last six months i'm not really sure if that's good or bad but if you
were looking to buy yourself a 2021 macbook pro there are two ways that you can do it the first
is the obvious option which is to buy brand new from apple or any retailer and that's what i did
on launch day last october but the second option is to buy a refurb so although this macbook was
brand new my old macbook the 2019 model was actually a refurb from the apple store and i
can tell you now there is absolutely no reason not to buy a refurbished model the only difference is
literally the box that it comes in it just looks a little bit different on top of that you're going
to save at least a few hundred pounds or dollars doing it this way you could then take that saving
and reinvest it to buy a bigger screen or a bigger internal ssd so the ultimate question is would i
recommend buying the 2021 macbook pro especially after using it for the last six months and the
short answer is yes it is incredibly powerful fast and reliable and it is perfect for both being
docked or as a portable workstation of course the desktop versions out there will be higher specs
but to have all of this power in a portable mode is just awesome now whether you need the 14 inch
or the 16 inch model comes down to your setup if you know you're going to be using it 100
of the time dot just go for the 14 inch model save yourself some money and put that towards
the storage if you're going to be carrying it around a lot and you think the weight could be
an issue again go for the 14 inch if you're going to use it for video or photo editing and you don't
mind that extra weight the 16 inch offers some serious screen real estate and makes working on
it that little bit more enjoyable and productive i can comfortably edit on and use the macbook
without an external screen so if i didn't have use of another monitor i would happily use this screen
and i also have no plans to upgrade from this to anything else including the new mac studio i don't
actually want to be restricted to just my desk but let me know what spec or screen size you would go
for in the comments would you prefer a macbook pro an air or something like the new mac studio and if
you did enjoy today's video check out my working from home desk setup as it covers everything that
you see in today's video although i do need to do an updated one as this one is nine months old now
and i've changed a few bits i've also linked to the surfshark vpn deal that i mentioned earlier
in the description so make sure you check that link out thank you for watching if you haven't
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