- So I've been looking for a new daily driver laptop
for quite a while.
And after years of waiting, it's finally here.
This is the brand new M1 2020 MacBook Pro.
And this is the laptop that I'm now gonna be.
carrying around with me everywhere I go.
(upbeat music)
Hey, friends, welcome back to the channel.
If you new here, my name is Ali,
I'm a doctor based in Cambridge.
And nothing is more exciting for a productivity nerd,
like me, then switching laptops.
And honestly, I think this is gonna be
a huge improvement for my quality of life
and mental well being.
This is, for now, the perfect laptop
that I'm gonna be switching to.
And in this video, I'm gonna go over all of the things
I love about the new MacBook Pro and try and review it
somewhat extensively, despite only having it
for a little while, and explain why I'm switching to it
as my daily driver.
As usual timestamps in the video description
and in a pinned comment, so do feel free
to skip around the video if you feel like it.
But now let's just dive into it.
So as usual, because I like to start
with upfront conclusions, here is the top line summary,
in case you don't have very long,
and the top line summary is that
this laptop is absolutely amazing.
It's got blazing fast performance.
It's got absolutely ridiculous battery life.
It's got a keyboard that's best in class,
a trackpad that's pretty amazing.
It only has two ports, but that's not a big deal.
And it is a small and light
and reasonably portable designs that I can just
take with me everywhere I go.
That is why I love this.
That's why I'm switching to it as my daily driver
from this huge ass 2018 15 inch MacBook Pro,
which is a real pain in the bum to carry around.
Diving more into the details.
Let's start with the design and possibility.
So this design, honestly, it's not really changed much.
It's the same design they've had
on the MacBook Pros for the last several years.
It is pretty thin, it's pretty light.
And we stick it on a set of scales,
it weighs 1338 grams, which I think is identical
to my iPad Pro, it is basically identical.
This is a 1360 grams, this is 1380 grams,
it is basically the same way
and they feel exactly the same.
And I've been carrying this 12.9 inch iPad Pro
with magic keyboard and Apple pencil
around with me basically all year.
But now I can carry that in addition to this.
Because there are some things that the iPad is good for,
but there are a lot of things that a MacBook is good for.
In terms of design, unlike the MacBook Air,
you do not get the wedge.
This is just a pure sort of slap.
It feels nice, it feels good.
You can open it with one hand, and the screen
turns automatically on, thanks to the new M1 chip,
which we're gonna talk about in just a sec.
Let's talk portability now.
Now this is a 13 inch laptop, and I've been carrying around
a 15 inch laptop for the last two years,
because this is fully specked out.
And it's one of those really annoying things
where if I was going to my mom's place for the weekend,
or if I was traveling or going on a trip,
I would always feel the need to take
my huge ass 15 inch MacBook Pro around with me
just in case I needed to edit a video or edit a podcast,
or to do something that required
a proper computer rather than an iPad.
Because, and I'm gonna make a proper video exploring
this in depth, I still don't think an iPad,
even an iPad Pro, even a 12.9 inch iPad Pro.
For me, I don't think it can feasibly replace
what a laptop does for me.
And so I would have to carry my iPad and take my laptop.
And every time I would put this into my bag,
I would sigh thinking, "Ah, I really wish I had
a small light 13 inch like very, very powerful machine
that I could just use as my portable machine."
And now it's finally here.
And so from now on basically
this is gonna go with me everywhere I go,
and I'm probably actually gonna replace this
with the new M1 Mac mini.
Review on that coming in a little while
it'll be linked up there once it's out.
And then I'll have like a permanent Mac mini base
to set up for my desk, and then I'll just be able
to carry this around with me if I'm going to,
somewhere for the weekend or if I'm going to a coffee shop.
Or even if I'm just sitting on the sofa
or trying to work on the balcony,
this will be absolutely perfect
rather than having to lug this thing around.
Secondly, let's talk about the processor.
And this is absolutely huge news this year,
in the last week or so.
Previously, all of the Apple laptops
were based around Intel chips.
And so Apple would buy the chips from Intel,
and it would be like an Intel I9,
and an 8-Core whatever, 3.2 gigahertz processor,
blah, blah, blah.
Now what's happening is that Apple
has switched away from Intel and have started
designing their own chips for the Mac.
They've been doing this for years, well, they pretty much
from day one with the iPhone and the iPad,
which is why when you have an iPad and you tap something,
it's just ridiculously fast.
Which is why iPhones feel ridiculously fast.
And Apple does this thing where they don't
really talk about the processor numbers
and the clock speeds and the number of cores,
'cause they don't really have to.
And because they very, very tightly control
and integrate the software, the hardware, and the processor,
it means everything works beautifully
and seamlessly together.
And I sound like an Apple fanboy.
I sound like I'm doing an Apple ad.
But it really is that fast.
And if you watch any review about these new M1 chips,
absolutely every reviewer, even the tech reviewers
with like zillions of years and more experience than I do.
Everyone is saying just how ridiculously
blazing fast these new chips are,
and how seamlessly they seem
to work with absolutely everything.
Let's take a quick look at the Geekbench score, for this.
Now normally I'm not a huge fan of talking about numbers.
But I think in this context,
the numbers actually show you just how far
we've come with this new M1 chip design.
And so if we look at single core performance,
we see that the MacBook Pro, this MacBook Pro,
this 13 inch MacBook Pro is absolutely leading
the pack with a score of 1689.
That is ridiculous because outside of these M1 chips,
the next best is the iMac 27 inch Retina
that has 10 cores that's with the Intel i9 processor
that's gonna cost at least a few thousand pounds.
And we've got this thing for, like £1299 or $1299,
which is absolutely bonkers, as they say.
And if we just take a quick glance through these numbers
we see like these machines are sort of hovering
around the 11 1200 mark.
And these are all of the old Intel based processes,
even the super, super, super expensive super fast ones.
And this new M1 chip, which is now
on the entry level MacBook Pro, the entry level MacBook Air
and the entry level Mac Mini is just completely
blowing them out of the water.
Let's have a look at multicore performance as well.
Now multicore performance is a bit,
it's a bit different, because obviously
like the huge ass massively, kind of 28 cores,
24 cores, 16 cores, 18 cores,
these massive machines that cost 10s of thousands of pounds,
are gonna out perform.
But actually here we have the Apple M1
which is about 7400-7200, we're talking the low 7000s.
And if we look at what that's faster than,
that is faster than the 2019 16 inch MacBook Pro
with the i9, 2.4 gigahertz 8-Core processor.
I don't really like talking about numbers,
I don't like talking about processor speed.
But this is actually just ridiculous.
And in my testing of this, and in my testing
of the MacBook Air, I don't have the Mac Mini yet,
but I'm gonna swap it out and test that as well.
I'm just not noticed any issues
in the slightest with performance.
And so I've sort of had to resort to looking
at Geekbench scores and trying to understand
how this stuff works, just to see
how this is even possible.
Because the earlier generations, the Intel designs
of the entry level MacBook Air
and the entry level MacBook Pros,
you could quite easily stress them out
by doing things like having like 80 tabs
on chrome open and playing a video,
and, I don't know, using Final Cut.
With the old MacBook Air, actually,
you would just need three tabs open on Chrome,
and you'd be able to stress it out
and hear the noise of the fan.
But now, it's just ridiculously fast,
you don't see any performance issues.
And that's why I'm so excited to be using
this as my daily driver moving forward.
And the reason I'm going for the MacBook Pro
rather than the MacBook Air even though
the MacBook Air is absolutely amazing
is partly because the MacBook Pro
has a fan and the MacBook Air does not.
And that means that if I wanna do stuff
like video editing, I've got the option of a fan.
The MacBook Air would probably handle
that completely fine as well.
But if you've got a fan, then you've got the option
of running the processor at higher speeds,
and then the fan can cool it down.
Whereas on the MacBook Air,
it would likely thermal throttle.
I don't even know if I'm gonna be tasking it enough
to hit those levels of performance.
But because for me, this is only an extra 300 pounds,
and it's a business expense,
I might as well just go for the option of a fan.
And the extra, I don't know, 100 gram weight,
which is not really something I'm gonna notice.
Thirdly let's talk about battery life.
And this is to me, and to a lot of people
even more important than processor speed.
Because you know, even these Intel processors,
they're pretty fast.
This is an Intel based processor, it's pretty fast,
I never really noticed any issues with performance.
But what I do notice issues with are battery life.
Now for this 2018 15 inch MacBook Pro,
I have to carry around my charger basically
everywhere I go, because if I'm using Chrome,
if I'm using Final Cut, if I'm editing podcasts
or movies or whatever, I know the battery life,
like it's only gonna last about four or five hours
in terms of battery life.
Whereas this, the advertised battery life
for this is 20 hours of video playback,
or like 18 hours of web browsing,
which is absolutely insane.
And if you look at the people who have
had this for the past week, and I've done lots
of extensive tests on battery life,
they're all saying the same thing.
They saying even on non-optimized apps
for the MacBook Pro, the battery life
is still absolutely insane.
And over time, as more and more apps get optimized
for this chip, the battery life is just gonna improve.
And battery life is one of those things that actually
makes a difference to how you work.
Like honestly, when it comes to speed,
I'm not really gonna notice the speed difference
between this MacBook and this MacBook
or between any laptop that I buy
because everything is fast these days.
But I will actually notice the difference in battery life.
It's the difference between just being able
to take this in my bag and go to a coffee shop all day
versus having to put this in my bag
and having to put the charger and then having
to go to a coffee shop where I find it plug and cable is,
like it's a huge quality of life improvement
not to have to worry about battery life.
And that is probably the main thing that
I'm so excited about with this new generation of MacBooks.
Alright, moving on, let's talk about the keyboard.
And the keyboard is the exact same as it's been
for the last few sort of iterations of this laptop.
Thankfully, it's the new keyboard mechanism
that they introduced, I think it was this year
or maybe late last year rather than the old one,
which was really, really crappy.
And so this keyboard is absolutely fantastic.
And I'm gonna do a little typing test.
Alright, typing test on this new MacBook Pro.
Let's go.
(typing sound)
147 words per minute, this is not too bad.
I just did a typing test on the MacBook Air
and I got 159 and it's the same keyboard.
So usually I'm hovering around about 145 to 155 range.
But yeah, this keyboard is absolutely amazing.
Honestly, probably the best keyboard I've ever used
to this one and the keyboard that's on the MacBook Air,
which sort of feels like the keyboard
that's on the iPad Pro magic keyboard.
But if I had to choose,
this one feels a little bit nicer overall.
Other things on the keyboard is unfortunately
we do still have the touch bar.
Honestly, I don't really use the touch bar
for a lot of things.
Occasionally I'll use it to select an emoji
but often I find that the Control + Command search option
is just a little bit quicker with keyboard navigation.
Thankfully, we do have an escape key
and we have this little touch ID button
that also puts the laptop asleep,
and then you can touch ID to wake it up,
which is quite nice.
Trackpad wise, things are pretty much
the same as they've always been.
This is the best in class trackpad.
I try trackpads every time I go to a computer shop
to try them out, and it's just fantastic.
Like there are some windows laptops
that have really good trackpads these days,
but I guess for me, I'm just so used to the way
a MacBook trackpad feels that the one this one,
the one of the MacBook Air, even the one
on the 2018 MacBook Pro, it all kinda feels identical.
And we've got the forced touch,
we've got the haptic feedback, we've got all of the things
that we're used to seeing
in absolutely world class trackpad,
so no changes there, no complaints for me.
Display wise, this is another reason
why I'm going for this laptop rather than the MacBook Air.
It's the same sort of display,
I think it's 2560 by 1600 retina display.
This has 500 nits of brightness compared
to the MacBook Airs 400 nits of brightness.
500 nits is pretty bright.
And it's not like amazingly bright,
but it's reasonably good if you're outside.
And often I'm using my laptop on the balcony
or in the garden outside.
Even in broad sunlight, I think 500 nits
of brightness is a reasonable amount.
And I don't mind using it too much.
Whereas 400 nits on the MacBook Air is a little bit,
a little bit hit and miss.
It's hard to reliably get the screen brightness
out of that 400 nits versus 500 nits.
So this is a reason why I think it's worth
getting the MacBook Pro, if you're into
that sort of thing.
In terms of the ports, slightly annoyingly,
there are only two ports on this entry level model,
which I guess is to be expected because
it is only an entry level model.
And I mean, I use four ports on this one.
But because I'm only need to have a charger
plugged in at all times, I don't think I'll particularly
be annoyed at the two port situation.
Usually, if I do take this out and about,
I'm only using a maximum of two ports.
I'm not usually using more than two ports
unless this is actually plugged into
the whole shebang on my desk.
And of course we have a headphone jack
for whatever that's worth.
I can't remember the last time
I actually use wired headphones.
But I guess it's nice if you're
into that sort of thing as well.
Let's talk about the microphone now.
And apparently this MacBook Pro has studio quality mics,
compared to the new MacBook Air
which has not studio quality mic.
So this is what audio sounds like
on the MacBook Pros microphones.
And this now is what audio sounds sounds like
on my $500 proper audio setup.
Going back to the MacBook Pro,
this is what audio sounds like.
And at the same time, we can test out the webcam.
The webcam, I kinda wish it was a little bit better.
It's a 720p FaceTime HD webcam.
And with all the Zoom calls and videos
and stuff people are doing these days,
it would kinda be nice if they had a more 1080p,
a legit webcam.
This quality is slightly better
than it's been in the past because now
within the new M1 chip, they've got
this fancy S neural engineer type thing,
which apparently improves the image quality
on the fly computationally
using some software related stuff.
But there's no getting around the fact
that the webcam is still kinda crap.
And I wish they would have had at least a 1080p webcam
or just like a slightly better camera on this
given the amount of Zoom calls and working
from home that everyone's doing.
Finally, let's talk about configuration options.
Now, if you are in the market for a budget laptop,
I actually think the base configuration
of this is completely fine.
8-Core CPU, 8-Core GPU, 256 gigabytes, SSD storage.
That's one thing that I might think of upgrading.
And so for example, if I was a student
and I was very strapped for cash,
I would firstly just go for the MacBook Air
'cause I probably don't need the MacBook Pro.
But instead of paying 899 for the MacBook Air,
I could pay instead 1199 for the MacBook Pro
with the student discount, so it's an extra 300 pounds.
But in return for that you get the fan,
you get the touchpad, which is totally pointless,
but you get the fan and you get
slightly increased battery life.
And those are two things that I actually think
it is probably worth spending the extra money on.
I think the base model for most people is completely fine.
You might wanna upgrade the storage
if you're the sort of person who uses lots of storage.
And in fact, for me, the model that I'm gonna use
is gonna be, well the free delta version,
because this is gonna be a business expense.
And if it's my daily driver, then I really don't care
how much money I splash on this thing.
So I'm gonna upgrade the RAM and go for a two terabyte SSD
because to me, doing a lot of video related work stuff,
this has a one terabyte SSD and it always runs out of space.
So it's gonna be a really nice quality
of life improvement to not have
to worry about the hard drive space.
But this is overkill for most people,
you do not need to spend £2300 or $2,300
on an entry level MacBook Pro and then deck it up.
If you're looking to spend that kinda money
and you're not someone who reviews tech on YouTube
and hopefully tries to make money from it.
If you're not that sort of person.
And you want this to be fully decked out,
I'll probably wait until next year when hopefully
the new 14 inch and 16 inch models of the MacBook Pro
are gonna come out with this new Apple silicon design chip,
I'd probably wait for those.
But for most people, if you're interested
in getting a MacBook Pro.
Honestly, I think the base model
is probably completely fine for you.
And you might consider upgrading the Ram
if you use loads and loads and loads
of very resource intensive things
that rely on parallel processing and all that kinda stuff.
So that concludes this review of the 2020 MacBook Pro
which is gonna be my daily driver.
Click here for my review of the 2020 MacBook Air
which you might like to check out and then
very soon over here there's gonna be a video
where I explicitly compare the new MacBook Pro
with a new MacBook Air and give some unsolicited advice
about which one and which one you should get.
Thank you so much for watching
and I'll see in the next video, bye bye.