We should always be careful with the Hype,
and of course the huge amount of attention in the media and massive Youtube channels saying
this is an amazing machine, you know... after 5 minutes of it being unboxed....
Sometimes it takes a bit of time,
and a small channel and a normal user like me to really find out what's what.
It's not all bad by the way... IT IS an amazing machine but
there are some things that are concerning here and I thought I should share it with you.
I am Alex and I do down-to-earth tech reviews...
While I'm waiting for my maxed out M1 Max MacBook Pro to arrive...
My wife's ...BASE model M1 pro HAS arrived so I thought I'd give it a go.
And after a few days, I started to think that I made a mistake with my M1 Max.
Maybe I overcooked it a little.
Let me explain
I ordered the M1 Max Macbook Pro, pretty much maxed out on memory and CPU because I thought...
I don't wanna be upgrading for a long time...
And I've had a really bad experience with my
Intel MacBook Pro, even though that was maxed out as well!
So I thought there was no point choosing a lower spec version.
And since I use this machine to run my other business too,
it made sense to invest in something that will last.
Well, it looks like I was wrong!
I've been trying the M1 Pro for two weeks now (whenever
I am allowed to) and I've been throwing some of my video editing workflows at it.
To be fair, nothing too exciting about it ...Just some 4K video editing,
two or three different sources... and different frame rates.
During this time I decided to not use any proxies either. If you don't know, in video
editing creating a proxy just means working off of a lower resolution copy of your footage.
On my Intel MacBook Pro, I HAD to use Proxies, or it would really struggle.
the Intel is not a bad machine... But sadly,
the minute Apple announced the M1 MacBook Pro, the Intel one just started to deteriorate. Fast!
It's a shame because it's a late 2019 version
and I only bought this at the beginning of 2020, so not even 2 years old yet!
Anyway, that's a conspiracy theory for another day.
On THIS 14 inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro, I've tried both Final Cut and Adobe
Premiere Pro and I have to say... I was really impressed to start with.
Even something like After Effects which hasn't
yet been developed for Apple silicon seems to be behaving really well.
Plugins on Final Cut? No problem!
This M1 Pro only has only 16 gig of RAM and 16 Core GPU
so I was SURPRISED but also kind of expecting that it would be that good, after a week of usage.
Fast forward ANOTHER week and I started to throw a bit more at it
....from a video editing perspective.
Nothing too crazy but I added a few more layers, and more effects, again - very basic stuff.
And I noticed a CONSIDERABLE slow down. Nothing in comparison to the beach balls and crashes
I was getting with my Intel but significant enough for me to want to make a video about it.
Let me show you what I mean on the screen, then we can talk about it.
Typically during an edit I like to zoom in and out of the timeline,
and I need this to be like... really snappy, really fast.
When I am editing I am usually trying to get the video out to you as quickly as possible...
so any delay in this operation takes my concentration away, I get frustrated...I
have other things to do.... And that's not good.
Scrubbing through the timeline, no problem... Everything runs smoothly here. And as you can see
I have a preview window here in full resolution too, so that is excellent actually. I know people
were already seeing this performance on the M1 but this is new to me and I AM impressed.
But this here, down in the timeline, this little stutter.....It's not quite frustrating yet,
because I am able to do the work. And I haven't seen a beach ball yet...
But it's annoying enough and something I wasn't expecting. On final cut this is much better
which tells me that Adobe when they said they "optimised" their software for the M1...there's
clearly more work to be done there.
OPTION: In fact... I got some footage from Adobe, in a secret meeting they had about this.
Hey Jeff, are we good to go on that code re-factor the M1 Macs?
It's not ready but we can ship it
What? It's... it's optimized... 5% give or take
That's nothing! Really? Well, it's an improvement.
We're kinda working agile here. Continuous improvements, iterations...
That sounds like an excuse to me. When are we gonna have software that is truly optimised?
It could be 2-3 years Ok, just ship it. Get
them to ship it. Say it's been optimised. What about that stutter on the timeline?
Shall we call it cinematic mode?
I am afraid that has been taken!
Who is that guy? Do what you always do, make something up!
How about magnetic timeline?
Nope!
Oh forget it!
And that is how we got this version of Adobe Premiere Pro. Not trying to make an excuse for
Apple here but, it's just being conscious that it takes two to tango in this case.
The other thing that I am noticing is a crackling in the audio. Initially I thought
maybe it was in the recording itself.
But going back and listening to the same clip, the problem is not there.
So I carry on editing and there it goes again.
I can't figure out why this is happening. I've never noticed this on the Intel MacBook Pro so it
can only be related to the love triangle between Adobe + Mac OS Monterey and the M1 architecture.
Which brings me to a couple of points I want to make.
The first one is, there are many variables at play here. I am quite
patient when it comes to these things... And I know it will take a WHILE for
3rd party software to... bed in and run smoothly on this, FAIRLY NEW architecture.
The other point is, I am just one person experiencing this.
Should this stop you from buying the M1 Pro Macbook Pro?
No, I am just pointing out to you that
you have to... kind of remove yourself from the hype and be realistic.
I still think the M1 Max is overkill FOR ME and right now,
even with these little issues I've pointed out here, the M1 Pro has been a dream to use.
I love how convenient these ports are,
even though Apple removed them previously for no apparent reason!
But I also like that I can still charge it via Thunderbolt, which means I can make
the most of my hub that I already use with my iPad. By the way I will be doing a video about
the best accessories for the MacBook Pro very soon so stay tuned for that.
I hate the notch and that's all I am going to say about it...
But I I love how the camera quality is now....
more akin to a 21st century camera - as opposed to the potato camera we had before.
And the keyboard is beautiful.
It's really pleasant to type on it.... And actually that is another mistake I made!
I went for the 16 inch M1 Max for myself and... I don't know, I do like the 14 inch laptop size.
It makes it more realistic to be used as a laptop and to be taken on the road.
It's just perfect, and since I am connected to a large monitor anyway when I am at home...
Yeah I may have made a mistake with that 16 inch. Time will tell I guess.
We do have a 30-day return policy here so worst case,
I can exchange that. We've gotta protect our investment after all.
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Right, back to the MacBook Pro.
I fully believe that I what I am experiencing here is purely software related.
The reason I believe that is because when it comes to
doing things that require SHEER processing power, like batch editing photos, color grading,
or rendering videos, this has been an absolute beast! Even though it's just the base model.
So the fact I am getting some audio and some UX issues in Premiere Pro
leads me to believe that these are teething problems, and specifically SOFTWARE related.
On that point though, I'm now thinking how much better can the M1 MAX be?
I am already saving a ton of time when creating my videos - and that
alone is priceless for me. The time I am getting back is really valuable to me.
But do you think I will even notice the difference? That will be interesting to compare.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
But some of these little motion graphic effects here,
sometimes when I do that in my Intel MacBook Pro it's at least 20 minutes to perform a task...
Wait perform another task
wait a bit more and then render....
And then put it back into premiere...
That's 20 minutes to do like a five or six seconds animation !
It's so bad that I stopped doing them, but here as you can see my workflow it's really smooth!
I select the clip that I want, I send it After Effects and that's it!
I do what I need to do, render it and in less than
five minutes I'm done so that really is already a major improvement for me!
I can't see how the M1 Max will improve that to be honest with you,
but I am excited to try it out and compare it.
Right now, with the stuff that I do on a daily basis, the M1 Pro is not even breaking a sweat.
Is there even a fan on this thing??
I can't hear it all.
So is it worth upgrading from the Intel MacBook Pro?
100%!! I guarantee you gonna see a difference, if that's you too.
Is it worth upgrading from the M1 MacBook Pro?
I don't know. I really don't know I think the M1 is still an amazing machine
and still fairly new...I can't really see the benefit there.
Of course if you are a real pro and that marginal gain
makes a BIG difference for you then of course, you always
want to be using the higher specs. For me, if I had the M1...I probably would stay put for now.
Is it worth getting the M1 max instead of the M1 pro?
If your workflow is similar to mine, I would say no right now.
But I will tell you for sure in a couple of weeks when I get the M1 Max.
And I will see you and your smiling
faces.. On the next
one! Bye!