- So I've had my Mac Studio for one year.
I pre-ordered it with high hopes
that it would fix many of my Mac problems.
After one year, is it still worth buying today?
So a year ago, I was using an M1 Mac Mini.
I sold my Intel 27-inch iMac
in hopes of transitioning my main Mac to Apple silicon.
There weren't really any other desktop options at the time.
When I saw rave reviews on the M1 Mac Mini,
so I thought I'd give it a try and boy, was it problematic.
I had a lot of issues with the I/O and graphics problems
and many users said that I was just using the Mac wrong,
but I was anxiously awaiting the Mac Studio,
believing that it was gonna fix a lot of the issues
and quirks of the M1 Mac Mini.
Once again, I got viewers commenting saying,
it wasn't gonna fix the problem
and Macs are Macs, they all have quirks,
but I can say a year later,
the Mac Studio has definitely been the fix
to most of my Mac problems.
So what is it about the Mac Studio that won me over?
Well, let me start with what I like.
First of all, the speed is insane.
Tasks are all extremely snappy, launching programs
and even doing intensive tasks
like rendering 4K video, it's super fast.
I never feel like my Mac Studio
is slowing me down or lagging.
I'm able to do just about any task that I need to do
and I never think about speed or performance.
It just works.
And for reference, I'm using the base model Mac Studio
with a one terabyte SSD,
so I did upgrade the storage, but everything else is normal.
It's the M1 Max, 32 gigs of RAM,
so it's not super specked out.
The next thing I love about my Mac Studio
is not something I ever imagined I'd be saying in a video,
but it's actually that the fan noise is non-existent.
I know what you're thinking.
Why does it matter?
Computers have fans, they make noise.
It's normal.
Aren't we all used to rendering video
and hearing the fans spin up or playing a video game
and hearing the fan in the background?
This is just normal stuff for a computer.
Well, that's what I thought too.
I heard people mention
that Apple silicon Macs were really quiet and I was like,
why do they care about this?
Why are they even mentioning this?
But actually, I will say,
I've really enjoyed the lack of fan noise.
When I render 4K video
or when I'm working in a timeline, I don't hear the fan.
And I've found that it's actually really nice
to have a quiet, peaceful environment to work in.
And when I've been in an environment with an Intel Mac
and someone's doing an intense task and the fan is spinning
and it's really loud, I'm like, man, that's distracting.
And it really makes me appreciate the lack
of fan noise on the Mac Studio that much more.
But by far, the thing I like most
about the Mac Studio is the I/O.
On every other Mac I've owned,
I've inevitably had to use adapters and hubs just to plug
in all my accessories, but not with the Mac Studio.
This thing has four Thunderbolt 4 ports,
two USB-A ports, an HDMI port,
a 10 gigabit Ethernet port, two USB-C ports,
even an SD card slot.
The 10 gigabit Ethernet port comes standard
on every Mac Studio.
And this is really gonna future-proof your Mac
for any networking situation you may find yourself in.
I'm able to run two 4K displays flawlessly
with the HDMI port and one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports.
And the Mac Studio supports up to five displays,
four up to 6K in resolution on the Thunderbolt 4 ports
and one display up to 4K resolution with the HDMI port.
But despite everything Apple got right,
there's still some things I don't like about the Mac Studio.
First, I do have to compliment Apple for sacrificing some
of the design in favor of functionality.
In the past, we've known Apple to care
about design over functionality with their Macs.
We can see this with decisions they've made
like trying to make the MacBook as thin as possible,
even if it means sacrificing battery light
just so it's a little prettier and it's a little lighter
in your backpack, but it's clear with the Mac Studio,
they were willing to sacrifice the design
in favor of functionality.
I mean, it's not the prettiest Mac,
it's kind of a brick that just sits on your desk,
but Apple still made some decisions in favor of design
and I wish they would've just gone all out on functionality.
They put a lot of the I/O
on the back of the Mac studio and that's fine
but I can't understand why Apple put the power button
in the Mac Studio on the back instead of the front.
Every time you go to turn it on,
you have to try and reach around and it's a pain,
especially if the Mac Studio is mounted under your desk.
There's already a status light on the front,
so I don't know why they didn't just make that
the power button.
And while we're on the topic of buttons,
be sure to hit that Subscribe button,
which is conveniently located right under this video.
You don't even have to reach for it.
Another design quirk about the Mac Studio
that I don't care for is the curves
that go right up against the I/O.
I don't know if the curve actually starts
where the ports are, but I've noticed that the USB-C port
on the front closest to the curve and the Thunderbolt 4 port
on the back right at the edge is difficult to use.
Whenever I plug cables in, it seems like I have
to push extra hard to get the connector to seat properly.
(cable clicking)
And I notice frequent disconnections with these ports.
It's like you barely bump the connector
and your accessory disconnects.
I don't know if the curve in the metal actually
does start where those edge ports are located.
So you're kind of plugging in the cable at an angle
or if it's a flat surface
but I noticed this issue specifically on the ports
right next to the edge, right before the metal curves.
Also, there's just the general instability of macOS.
Look, I love macOS.
I use Final Cut, Logic and other Mac-exclusive softwares
and I'm not that person who's just gonna jump ship
to Windows because Mac has a few bugs.
But it is disappointing that when Apple has full control
over the CPUs with Apple silicon,
they still haven't been able
to work out all the random bugs.
Things like Finder crashing, relaunching,
the wallpaper reverting to the stock wallpaper
for no reason when you restart
and random beach balls and freezes when doing simple tasks
like launching a program.
I've had these issues on my MacBook too
but it's just frustrating that even now
that Apple has full control with Apple silicon,
the issues still can't seem to be resolved.
So after a year of using the Mac Studio,
is it still worth buying today?
I think the reason a lot of people
are asking this question
is because the Mac Studio has not been updated
with the M2 chip.
The M2 Pro and M2 Max chips have been available
on the MacBook Pro for quite a while
but Apple is showing no signs
of refreshing the Mac Studio with the M2 chip.
So what's the deal?
It's believed that Apple's not gonna implement the M2 Max
and M2 Ultra chips in the Mac Studio
because they're saving those chips for the upcoming Mac Pro.
And if they put them in the Mac Studio,
there would be basically no reason
for people to buy the way more expensive Mac Pro.
Some people believe that the Mac Studio
will get updated when the M3 chips come along
and some people believe that Apple's actually going
to discontinue the Mac Studio entirely
and that it's never gonna see an update past the M1 chip.
Personally, I have a hard time believing
that Apple would do this brand new design
with all this I/O
only to discontinue it after one generation.
But that's honestly kind of irrelevant to the question
of if it's still worth buying one year later.
But regardless of what you think Apple's gonna do
with the future of Mac Studio, the M1 Max
and M1 Ultra chips are still extremely powerful
and I absolutely think it's worth buying one year later.
The M2 chips are only slightly more powerful.
And if the M2 chips did exist in the Mac Studio,
I would probably be saying to buy a used M1 Mac studio
because it's just that good.
The I/O offers everything you need, and if you're worried
about Apple cutting off software support for the Mac Studio
if they were to discontinue it, I don't see this happening.
That's because the M1 Pro
and M1 Max chips are available in the MacBook Pro
and the MacBook Pro is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Since this shares the same internals of the MacBook Pro,
I think we could expect five, six, seven,
maybe even eight years
of software updates before it's obsolete.
So yes, I absolutely think the Mac Studio
is worth buying one year later.
But what about the normal M1 chip?
The M1 Max and M1 Ultra
and the Mac Studio are very powerful
but it's also an expensive computer.
So what about something like the M1 Mac Mini?
Well, I've got a video about my experience
with the M1 Mac Mini that you can check out here.