- This one hasn't been easy to sequester myself from.
Every time I know I'm gonna be doing a short circuit
for a really hot product,
I go out of my way to learn
as little about it as possible.
But obviously, there are things
that I know about the M1 Max already,
like the fact that it has absolutely taken the world
by storm with its performance.
So, this is the 14-inch version
of the new MacBook Pro with their M1 Max processor inside.
And immediately, I absolutely love
what they've done with the shape of the machine.
That might not seem like an important detail,
but for the longest time
Apple was making computers that were kind of sharp.
You know?
Like Andy, do you know what I'm talking about?
Like, they were kind of uncomfortable to hold.
But man, that is totally not a thing here,
with an exception, actually.
The hinge at the back,
where it's opened up for ventilation is a little
(hinge scraping)
Like you hear that?
- [Andy] Yeah.
- It's something you can hear in addition to just feeling.
Every other surface of it, though,
just feels really great, actually.
- [Andy] I think it's harder to pick up from the desk.
- Harder to pick up from the desk?
- [Andy] Cause you have to really squeeze in your finger.
- Hmm.
Yeah, I see what you mean.
I think it's minor, as long as you've got two hands,
you shouldn't have too much trouble picking it up,
but it's got a lot of heft to it too.
I mean, that makes sense.
So the 16-inch version has a 100 watt hour battery,
while the 14-inch version has a 70 watt hour battery.
Those are extremely hefty
considering the size of these machines.
And especially considering that Apple went and put
one of the most efficient processors on the market
into these machines, right?
So Apple has a long and proud history of building
extremely efficient processors in their phones
and then putting weak sauce batteries in their phones,
when they could be putting ones that are
three times the capacity because they simply don't need to.
But here they went, "You know what? Full ham."
We're going efficient processor
and we're going to put a giant battery.
So the 16-inch is actually at the limit
of what you are allowed to put in a device
that can be carried on to an airplane, 100 watt hours.
As usual, I need to disclose
that I'm invested in Framework Inc.
They make laptops, nothing like this one,
but they definitely do make laptops.
Oh okay.
This is cool.
One of the big things that the Internet's wondering about
with the M1 Max is, "Hey, they've got
all of this GPU power, right?
They've got this 32 core GPU, whatever that means,
but how does that actually compare to the kind of GPU that
you might find in a PC laptop? I mean,
apple made comparisons to NVIDIA's RTX 3080 mobile,
and depending on the application.
So for some productivity applications,
that has actually not looked that crazy,
but then if you've got all that power,
what about gaming?
So we've actually preloaded this machine with Deus ex
mankind divided,
which I'm going to fire up in a minute here,
but first I just want to,
I just want to tinker around with it a little bit,
just take it, take it for a quick,
take for a quick test drive,
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- I was, I was actually, oh, okay.
That's as far out as it opens,
this is something I think apple could do a better job of,
it doesn't happen that often.
But there are times when I find myself wanting to open up
the hinge of my laptop a little bit more than this. I mean,
this even goes back to when I was still in university and
sometimes I would walk around on campus with wireless B,
wireless B, Andy.
Eleven megabit per second.
And I would actually have my machine completely opened up
180 degrees. And I'd be like,
tapping tapping on something while I'm walking around
from one place to another.
Remember this is before like touchscreen smartphones.
So like, okay, maybe it's not part of your life,
but it is something that I still find myself doing
once in a while.
The polling rate on their track pad,
I would say is, it could be better for a 120 Hertz display.
You can see there's some irregularity in the gaps between
cursor movements, but it's good.
It's not bad.
- (Andy) Can you game on it?
- Can you game on a track pad?
I wouldn't try to game on a track pad. That's really,
that's really not the point. Now,
obviously the most controversial thing about the new M1
Max and M1 pro Mac books is the notch.
I've seen arguments both ways.
I've seen arguments that it matters a lot because you might
have a whole bunch of stuff lined up in whatever apple calls
this and they can actually end up hidden by the notch.
And you can actually see that instead of taking the approach
that they have with the iPhone,
where that part of the screen simply doesn't exist,
they've actually made it. So it does exist.
Like you could move your mouse quite substantially on this
Phantom portion of the screen back here.
And this is a trend that apple is not the only one to be
responsible for.
So Microsoft, in their most recent surface device,
actually has rounded corners.
And you can end up hiding the cursor behind it.
Personally, I'm not a fan.
I, I wish there was another way,
but I also recognize the validity of the arguments that go,
well look, other than the area with the notch.
This is a 16 by 10 display,
which basically everyone in the know agrees is the ideal
aspect ratio for consuming computer content.
It's not that far off 16 by nine,
which is what a lot of your TV shows and YouTube videos are
going to be rendered out at.
But it gives you that extra little bit of vertical for
scrolling documents. You know,
whether you're reading something on Reddit or whatever the
case may be,
and you want another couple of tracks in your timeline for
Adobe premier or final cut,
it really does make a big difference.
Something apple has done a really good job of here,
actually better than the iPhone, now that I look at,
it is matching the blackness of the
display being off to the blackness of the blank part,
where there is no display.
And that's a minor thing,
but it is something that I notice on their other devices,
like on the iPhone,
you can clearly see where the notch is,
like without a lot of effort, you see that?
On here, it's a lot harder to pick up.
And it's those little things that contribute to the
distraction of features like this.
Now I'm not going to sit down with this device for long
enough to draw a final conclusion about how distracting the
notch is going to be.
Fundamentally, I oppose bites out of displays,
but I'm not going to say that I wouldn't be able to get used
to it because I'm just not spending enough time with it
right now. I want to fire up some HDR content.
Wow. That's actually, that's really impressive right there.
Like I've been saying about the last couple of generations
of phone displays,
unless you've got like a multi thousand dollar TV,
this is probably going to be the best screen in your house,
which is kind of mind blowing to think about,
even though Microsoft has managed to achieve some level of
HDR in mobile,
this is clearly on an entirely different level.
What's the peak brightness of this thing?
- (Andy) 16.
- 1600 minutes.
I mean, content like this,
I'm not even going to be benefiting from that, that Maximum.
That's freaking awesome, especially when you consider
the kind of battery life that
apple is boasting for this machines, like what did they say,
14 hours of web browsing on a single battery?
That 14 hour quote is for the 16 inch version.
And they quote 21 hours of content consumption on apple TV
while the 14 inch version is still pretty darn impressive.
It's 17 hours of apple TV and 11 hours of web browsing.
I haven't actually tried the new keyboard yet.
It's got a bit of a clang to it.
Okay.
I definitely have some thoughts,
in terms of deck stiffness, outstanding.
Any of the flex that you're seeing right now is probably due
to the three and a half millimeter thick desk pad
that's sitting under this device,
as opposed to any kind of lack of stiffness
of the chassis here, by the way, LTT store.com.
I find the bottoming out a little bit mushy,
and I still find that these super short travel keyboards are
in my opinion, really great for bursty type things.
So like sending IMS,
which obviously you'll be able to do because, you know,
Imessaged integration on the Mac or whatever else,
but I have a hard time kind of sustaining speed on them
compared to something with a bit of a longer travel.
But from most people who aren't spoiled by a hundred to
$200, you know, just talking mechanical keyboards,
this is going to be the best keyboard in the house.
You know what I mean?
- (Andy) And no touch bar!
- Yeah, no touch bar, I mean, honestly,
because I never actually tried to daily drive the touch bar.
I don't have the same kind of anger about the touch bar that
I think a lot of people do.
I've reserved my anger at Apple's unnecessary nonsense for
things like the lack of integration of face ID.
If you're going to have a gigantic notch there,
or the fact that apple still refuses to put
a touchscreen on the Mac,
because they simply have decided that people don't want
those things.
That that's the ultimately,
the reason they provided for sticking with touch ID
apparently, was because touch ID is like better.
Cause you're hands are on the keyboard.
No, it's not better.
As someone who has daily driven windows hello,
I can tell you, unequivocally, that it is not better to have
to touch the keyboard in any way.
Now I do understand the challenges.
You might look at something like a phone and go, well,
if they could put face ID to boom and surely they can put
face ID in here, but it's a thickness issue.
So the camera element for face ID is actually quite thick.
It's a lot of the thickness of the iPhone and they just
don't have enough space in the top of the clam shell.
Now I'm sure that these are problems that apple could solve
because they're very smart people.
They could put something like the dot projector
under somewhere else or something.
I'm sure they could figure it out,
but they didn't. And now they're just making excuses.
Oh yeah, megs.
I haven't even talked about ports.
How did we make it this far without talking about ports?
I don't have a ton to say because there's really no room for
an opinion on this, apple adding more ports to their
professional device is objectively an improvement.
Meg safe, welcome back thunder bolt, heck yeah.
Three and a half millimeter Jack,
which is apparently suitable even for high impedance or more
difficult to drive headphones. Hey, thanks.
Absolutely makes sense for something like this. HDMI
the only thing missing to me is I would've actually rather
had a single USB type A,
rather than this third type C,
but I've also seen opinions to the contrary where people are
saying, well, look,
I've already invested in the dongle ecosystem because I've
been stuck with it. I don't want to throw it all my dongles.
Let's not go back. Let's not go back in time,
but I don't think USB A is going back in time.
I don't think it's going anywhere for a lot of devices.
SD card though. Welcome.
Welcome back. Welcome back.
SD card. I had said on the land show, I said the SD card,
maybe not as big of a deal as it used to be now that so much
camera media is not SD, but people brought up to me then.
Okay, well, you know,
what about drone enthusiasts or brass pie enthusiasts or
all these other developers?
Like all these other people that might need to use an SD
card. It's definitely a thing that professionals beyond just
cinematographers are going to benefit from. And Hey,
I read you guys loud and clear.
I have high expectations for the speakers on this.
It is amazing how much bass they tack into these, like,
tiny little speakers. Isn't it?
And it's actually punchy. Like it doesn't suck.
Sorry, I can't hear you Andy, busy,
like DJing on my Mac pro dog, just listening to them.
I can pretty much guarantee you're going to get a nicer
profile on a hard surface.
That's impressive between Microsoft, Dell and apple.
The bar is so high now for laptop audio,
that, if you're not putting a ton of work into
software tuning your speakers,
you are just not going to be able to be competitive.
It's that simple.
Sarah did up these little short circuit
banana for scale plushy.
So if you were wondering how big the laptop is,
here's your, here's your banana,
here's your banana for scale.
They're a touch bigger than a normal banana.
We actually need a banana for scale for the banana,
but it was just a limitation of how,
how skinny you can make them. Yeah,
the length is about right. The length is about right,
but it's, it's girthier.
And as we all know, that's the most important thing anyway.
So you guys can check these out at lttstore.com.
Thanks Jono. We've got different colors too.
We're going to get to gaming really soon,
but there's a couple of other things I wanted to talk about.
Apple has thrown their pro moniker on a lot of products,
I feel like, over the years, that have not necessarily
deserved to be called pro, but in this case,
the upgrades over the regular M1 Mac book are just,
they're also pro focused. So instead of being limited,
in terms of how many displays you can connect,
with the Max version of the processor ForMax,
you can have up to three 6k, 60 Hertz displays.
So those are going to connect to your Thunderbolt,
four ports and an additional 4k HTMI display. And again,
that's going to be 4k 60 Hertz because this is an HDMI
2.0 rather than 2.1 port, but still, four external displays,
like this thing is actually mobile battlestation capable,
as opposed to just being a laptop,
that's like a little better.
So it's pro, I didn't even mention the core count.
10 core CPU up to 64 gigs of Ram.
I believe they can do up to like eight terabytes of storage
these days. Now let's play some fidget games, shall we?
datasets, mankind divided, running at ultra,
on a low on a Mac. What?
Okay. This frame rate is not great,
but ultra at this kind of resolution on a mobile device is
also not reasonable.
Let's turn it down to something not stupid.
I don't want the low frame rate at ultra to undermine how
impressive it was that it was even running it that well,
this is a demanding game. Oh, hi there, buddy.
Okay.
Oh, there, they're there too, and I'm dead.
Thank you too, I was about to say the fan kicked in.
It's still like pretty quiet, but it also,
hasn't been under this kind of load for an extended period
of time here yet. Let's give it some time to ramp up.
Oh no, please don't kill me.
Fans going now, but it's a whoosh, not a nee,
okay, do I have melee, melee?
It's running a little choppy.
Okay, I have three rounds left.
Still, got them.
Man, this display, even though this is not an HDR game,
looks so good.
But this isn't the full review though.
This is short circuit, gets subscribed for more quick
unboxings, like this one.
Full review is coming on LTT,
Anthony's been working on it for quite some time, and
we're going to have a bunch of followup content.
We actually bought every configuration of the new M1 Mac
pros and M1 Max Macs.