We have the new m1 max in hand here's our first impressions
and how they compare to intel based macs stick around
Hey everyone welcome back to today in tech i'm Juliet Beauchamp joined as always by
Computerworld executive editor Ken Mingis as well as Macworld senior writer Michael Simon. So
Ken you've got one of the new Macbook Pros right in hand and you previously had a 16 inch Macbook
pro what are your first impressions correct okay so you know for the record it looks just
like the uh the last 13-inch Macbook pro really doesn't look any different mike has already been
it's doubting that this is really an m1 it's i know exactly um but yeah actually surprisingly a
single thing about it no yeah externally it's it's the same um surprisingly that what i was going to
say is having ordered it the day they were first announced i didn't really expect to get this uh
apple had initially said november 24th to the 27th and then suddenly boom it showed up on
well i mean they saw your name on the order right i don't think so my name in the order doesn't seem
to make any difference at all um but nonetheless i mean it was apparently in in the early uh
the first round of of shipping max uh in terms of how how it works it really is fast okay i
mean i know we've seen a lot of benchmarks a lot of ginkpit geek benchmarks uh you know making this
making it apparent this blows past the intel processors and the Macbook pros now um you know
i haven't run any more tests and have already been out there but just in day-to-day quick you
know first hands-on use it's blazingly fast and it just goes to show you when you can match the
hardware which is what apple's doing with its own silicon with the software mac os big sur uh you
know you get uh it's a yen and a yang that really combines to create an amazingly fluid system uh i
thought i might have some issues with some some corporate apps and some third-party apps in
terms of running in emulation rosetta too i have not uh it is true if you've got something like
outlook or office and which have not been compiled yet for the for the m1 chip the first time you run
them it you know it does take a good 10 or 15 seconds while rosetta too sort of translates
the code but after that it's it you know they launch as quickly as they would on an intel mac
the update process upgrade process moving my files and everything over from my 16-inch macbook pro to
this one was actually fairly smooth i was really surprised i was prepared for all kinds of hiccups
things that didn't work um that went well so it's been about as seamless a transition uh as i can
imagine now it's you know the big difference i've gone from a 16-inch screen to a 13-inch screen
which i you know to be honest with you has also been less of an issue than i thought it would be
uh but in terms of the hardware itself apple really delivered on this one what's interesting to
me is based on um what we did at macworld testing and and even just anecdotally around the internet
that the 13-inch air which is under a thousand dollars you know just barely is basically the same
machine as the 13-inch pro the only difference that i can tell is on like sustained performance
like if you're doing like a half hour video render you'll be able to keep those peak speeds
longer because it has a fan so it doesn't the processor doesn't ever have to throttle down
otherwise those benchmarks you you're hitting those peak speeds single core multi-core
basically the same i mean they're they're you know your your normal everyday immediate tasks
they're the same and it's just it's you know to the so the first question i have
is why would you need the pro unless you're you know like a real pro if you will like i i mean
i'm we're professionals in the sense that we use these things all day long for work
i wouldn't consider myself a mac using pro in the sense that i can probably do all my work on a
on a 329 ipad and get it done like i don't need that kind of power how much fun is that really
going to sure of course exactly you could yes so you're you're future proofing you know for one
by getting the pro because you're getting so it's it's in the in the lower end macbook air you get
one less gpu core which you're not going to notice in a day-to-day thing maybe you
will over the course of you know two years three years from now when when things are
are changing and different you know otherwise it's i mean it's the same you you're getting
eight gigs of ram or 16 gigs of ram i got 16. 16 in this one yeah and that's another
thing i've read some some stories about that and the way apple was handling the ram so it's it's
it's been soldered to the motherboard for years and years and years with the exception
of of some imac models it's it's still it you still can't replace it but it's not soldered to
the motherboard it's on the chip it's part of the chip yeah yes so yeah apple is calling it unified
ram or maybe that's the technical term for it i don't know but um what that means is that system
the way the system accesses it is completely different than it was before because you're
you're you're the system that the chip and the memory are all working together now and
i mean there are there there are reports on the internet of people trying to
to max out memory in the way that they would previously for example
17 chrome windows running youtube things like that you know things that you wouldn't normally do
but things that tax the current not just intel max but pcs running eight gigs of ram like it
would your system would would slow to a crawl and it takes first of all it takes more to get there
and second of all it's so much easier to unlock it or to uncrawl it than it was in the past because
of the way everything is working together and you know so when we're buying these things
i wrote an article last week about how i wanted a macbook pro with 32 gigs of ram maybe i don't
maybe i don't i don't need that i don't think yeah i think this is you know i've seen a lot of pieces
along those lines saying that we're going to have to really rethink about how
you know rethink how we spec machines yeah going forward because in the past there were all these
components you could get the different gpu in the past like you know three weeks ago well
in the past as of before last week uh no but seriously i you know and i i mean i i can say
that i've tried to do something like that by you know you know firing up some youtube 4k videos and
having a variety of apps open i haven't even heard the fan come on yet okay and i know it's got a fan
that's why i got the pro you know again so that at some point as you say future proofing and for like
long sustained read writes you know use hitting the cpu fine but uh i agree with you the macbook
air you know is the difference between these two in terms of day-to-day use you would not notice it
yeah and i don't really know so going forward i think we're going to see much like the iphone
the differences aren't going to be the differences that we think whereas you know the 16 inch has a
better processor and and a higher ram limit and things like that i think it's going to be more
the 16 inch maybe has has face id and the 16 inch has a better and a better camera
and and more features and a nicer design or maybe a a micro led screen or mini led whichever
one is i get i'm confused but i think apple's going to be differentiating its pro machines
more like it does the iphone than it does currently with the mac i think it's it's an
interesting it's an interesting transition if you will and i wonder how the rest of the industry is
gonna it's kind of gonna handle this because you know apple's not the first pc maker to do
an arm based laptop it's the first one to do an arm based laptop that's good and it's the
first one to do an arm-based laptop that's like mind-blowingly good because you know the for one
they've had the iphone they've had practice with the iphone chip for 10 years but they you know
they also but by controlling this this whole stack uh there was an article uh earlier this
week talking about how this was like steve jobs dream but he was still alive obviously you know
you know so so they had the iphone and they have the whole system he wanted to bring this to the
mac and tim cook or maybe it was craig federicki i remember who was saying it they were saying
that you know this is this is finally the the dream realized for the mac and they are three
years down the line already we're just not we're not seeing it what we saw right now is
very very slip shot so to speak you know the same design new chip yeah i was going to say slip shot
i wouldn't say slave shark but i know what you mean yeah this is the bridge i mean you're right
there's there's no redesign here there's nothing that screams out this is you know anything
different from the last there's not a there's not a design change even internally really other than
the chip the battery is the exact same on the air in the pro the touch bar is the same the the
the chip has two thunderbolt controllers and it still has two ports like it's identical
because they're focusing on earth this is we're just getting this out there
we're showing people what these macs you know like what they can do what they will do but i mean
what's gonna happen to the macintosh a couple years from now and this this kind of this opens
up just such a wide swath of possibilities for a mac steve jobs to bring him up again ten years ago
said uh you know pcs were like trucks and the iphone was like a sports car saying i forget
the analogy something like that meaning that they were utilitarian uh semi-obsolete devices that we
have to keep around to perform a singular purpose and for the most part that's that's that's true
you know we we can do i can do all my work on an ipad or i don't want to i want to use a mac
but i think what this processor and the whole system that apple is designed and as they as
it matures and evolves and as they as they craft into what they what their vision is i mean we're
going to see things that you know merge all these products and and and do things that you know we
aren't even really thinking about that next big thing that everyone keeps saying where is it
it's it's not here yet but i think it's it's it this is the start of it well you know we we
talked about this you know a few weeks back right after uh apple announced this and you know it is
exciting because it is actual innovation which is something we haven't seen in this area in a
long time and it as you say it opens the door i want to back up for one second you you would talk
a few minutes ago about the difference between like the macbook air and a macbook pro and how
they'll be differentiated in the future i mean i could easily see something where you know the
macbook air comes with a traditional 720p camera but if you've got a macbook pro you've got 1080p
or something super high def whatever you know and i think you make a very good point that these
will eventually or in the not too distant future be differentiated by features that are not the
chip the amount of memory the storage those will all be sort of a given across the line
and then there'll be something added on top of that and that i i am fascinated to see
you know where apple goes i mean it kind of blows up the whole industry because right now we're you
know like cheap pcs chromebooks things like that they're predicated on these tinker toy processors
and when apple announced this arm transition that's what pc people enthusiasts said you
know well get ready to max gonna be a thousand dollars and it's gonna suck well that ain't the
case it's a thousand dollars and it's faster than 1500 laptops gaming laptops so you know
apple just totally they they took that out of the equation speed is no longer an issue on the mac
no matter what you spend you're getting a machine that is faster than you need well it's it's not
just it's like the iphone it's not just the speed it's also i mean in terms of battery life i mean
i just pull this thing i pull this thing off charge in the morning wander around the house
with it wander outside wherever i'm working if i'm running video editing whatever and the battery it
just goes and it's like it's like you know it goes i haven't even run it out because by the
time i'm done with it at the end of the day it's still got juice you know and also an iphone thing
you know they yeah they're the leading they're the leaders in the industry they don't pack it with a
4500 milliamp hour battery like samsung does but they get you through 20 hours on the max and you
know 17 hours on the other ones and that's what they're doing here too they're they're making sure
that all the things that you worried about all the things that you predicated your buying decision on
previously out the window yeah no matter what you buy you're getting a battery the last all your
entire work day in the entire day probably more you're getting more speed than you'll ever need
and you're getting a machine that you don't have to fret over do i need 16 gigs of ram
do i need 512 gigs of storage you know this is it it's whether you want to spend 9.99 or or
1599 that you know i think the people that are gonna buy the higher ones like you and and i
know what they're know what they're looking for and they're there for that reason
but that air is gonna they're gonna sell a ton of us oh and well they should you know the eight
i really did debate between the eight gigs and the 16 gigs of ram because i don't really do
anything that really requires a lot of ram but i thought i did and i did out of the out of the
box too because we didn't really know i probably still would like you did
i mean it's 200 bucks and you can't do anything about it once you buy it right so just for that
reason i think it's smart to get to 16 but um but those are the exact kinds of you know equations
that you run through your head when buying new hardware for sure that we're going to have to
revisit now but that may not necessarily be the case you really might not need 16 unless you're
doing something super super intensive you know yeah and i mean i 32 for extra 400 bucks or 200
over 16 whatever the charge i don't think it's necessary and i'm curious to see what the like
what what's the mac pro gonna look like that thing goes up to one and a half terabytes of of um of
him well if apple comes out and tells you you can get by with 16 gigs and we'll know something's up
but you know like everyone who buys these things is going to have to change their their their
whole mentality their whole philosophy of what it means to to buy a pc it's not just a mac it's the
whole pc buying landscape is is different i've got one quick question before we wrap up here
and i'm wondering ken were you running big sur on your 16-inch macbook pro and how
what is the mac os experience like on the the new m1 macbook pro is it different are there
any like glaring differences or is it kind of just more of the same no it's more the same i
mean the the difference would be the hardware it's a little faster the short answer is yes
i was i was running big sur on the uh the 16-inch macbook pro i didn't really have
any issues with that i mean no reason i should it's last year's model so it's fairly current
you know the only difference is there is a certain smoothness i think the word i used earlier was
fluidity to launching apps moving windows around it it feels even more cohesive than it did before
uh but you know i've been pleasantly surprised at uh i mean you know to use the old apple phrase it
just works everything's just working everything i mean i was able to move from one to another from
the old generation intel chip to the new m1 chip and you know different versions of of the apps
the m1 you know built the ones that were built for m1 the ones that are running in rosetta emulation
everything's working fine you know it's it's a very pleasant surprise and and and i'm very
happy yeah and you know the transition is what eight days in and things are already progressing
way better than they were in intel and you know it it's just there was one i did see one one
fly in the ointment i guess some people who had bought the new macbooks they've been the macbook
air and the macbook pro uh they like to go in and basically wipe the drive and install a completely
clean version of the operating system and there were some boot issues there boot up issues when
they did that uh i'm not quite sure if that's been rectified or not i didn't i just had a time
machine back up from my my old laptop but you're getting a clean install why would you do it yeah
you know this i saw there was some discussion i think was on mac rumors well you know people
like to to do their own thing um but there were a few issues there i mean a handful and i think
it's something that maybe apple didn't account for you don't assume getting a completely new laptop
you're going to wipe it and do it you know from an internet restore or but anyway they tried it
so don't do that i didn't and uh so far so good all right well thank you both
so much i think there's going to be i mean certainly a lot more to learn and uncover as
new m1 max are released do you guys have any idea when they're going to release like for example an
m1 imac is that is there a target date for that or is that just a general eventually
uh my guess is the spring march marches march-ish before wwdc you think
probably i think wwdc is when we'll see the um the pro machines the 14-inch uh that that
that fabled 14-inch pro the uh maybe a 62-16 maybe the um maybe the the higher-end desktop
but um mid-year then by mid-year julia i think so i mean they said it would be about a year
ish they say years for the transition so what do they have left they have um not much i mean
they just did three three only have like seven machines they just did three of them
so yeah my guess is if not march then as ken says wwc but i don't think they'll do everything in
wwdc i think they'll talk about the architecture of whatever the higher-end stuff is so
march is a is a nice general time for their events i think they have a march one a june one september
and maybe you know november this this year was different obviously so they usually have four
uh ipad iphone mac and then ios and stuff so my guess is my predictions they have have everything
updated by the end of next year and say that they got their ahead of schedule yeah well that's sure
i think they do like to under promise and over deliver and i think you write about that yeah
all right well thank you both so much i really appreciate it and thank you all so much for
watching this episode of today in tech if you liked this video be sure to give it a thumbs up
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we post a new video ken mike and i are gonna have a week off for thanksgiving next week so there
won't be a new video the three of us next week but the following week probably if you have any
comments about the new m1 max if you got one and you have any first impressions that you want to
share with us please leave a comment below thanks again for watching and i'll see you next time