New apple M1 chips - who's buying?
Discussion
ZesPak said:
Magnum 475 said:
ZesPak said:
,but when I had a MBP I couldn't do without windows for my work situation.
I'm the other way round. I get a Windows machine as part of my job then end up using my MBP for work as I find it's far easier to be properly productive using the Mac. The only thing I can't do with the Mac is edit MS Project files, which is something I'm doing less and less of these days anyway.I NEED windows for several work related applications. You only NEED it for MS Project files. You don't need OSX for anything other than you prefer it.
I can make do with a Chromebook for most things, but I need to be able to run some things that don't run on a chromebook or ipad.
MS has done a great job at dismissing the need for Windows imho, but there's so many legacy stuff running on it, it's hard to remove it from most work environments at this point.
Not my main machine, and if doing any serious development work I have to tweak the virtual machine settings to give it 6GB of memory, but apart from that it's certainly usable.
Development work includes a dozen large solutions (175 projects & 7.5 million lines of code in the largest one) which I can work on with no problems.
I do like the way Parallels can just display the Windows app window on the MacOS desktop, and it integrates Windows apps that'll open when you double click a file with the extension they handle.
And as the M1 MBP will be something like 5 times faster (and I'll order it with maxed out memory) it'll be within spitting performance of my work Windows laptop.
Not worried about any non M1 native apps either, seeing the speed of the Rosetta 2 emulation - 75% of native speed (which is 5x faster than my current MBP) - yes please!
First impressions of the base M1 Air compared to a 2013 MBP;
Night and day difference in speed.
Everything I’ve tried so far opens pretty much instantly. No spinning beach balls, even briefly; got used to them on the old MBP even if I knew full well it was only for a few seconds.
Web pages load noticeably faster in both Safari and Chrome.
RAW image loading in Adobe RAW happens very quickly (running off a NAS, so may well be network constrained) with no real hesitation, instead of a gradual fill in of the image (couldn’t test this too much though as Adobe’s login then threw a wobbly and now refuses to work - have to look in to that this evening).
4K video playback at 60fps - couldn’t manage that on the old MBP at all, used to grind to a halt after a few seconds. No problem for the Air.
Night and day difference in speed.
Everything I’ve tried so far opens pretty much instantly. No spinning beach balls, even briefly; got used to them on the old MBP even if I knew full well it was only for a few seconds.
Web pages load noticeably faster in both Safari and Chrome.
RAW image loading in Adobe RAW happens very quickly (running off a NAS, so may well be network constrained) with no real hesitation, instead of a gradual fill in of the image (couldn’t test this too much though as Adobe’s login then threw a wobbly and now refuses to work - have to look in to that this evening).
4K video playback at 60fps - couldn’t manage that on the old MBP at all, used to grind to a halt after a few seconds. No problem for the Air.
fwaggie said:
Early 2015 13" MBP (8GB RAM, 1TB SSD) here running Parallels running Windows 10 Pro + Visual Studio 2017 Pro for work development.
Not my main machine, and if doing any serious development work I have to tweak the virtual machine settings to give it 6GB of memory, but apart from that it's certainly usable.
Development work includes a dozen large solutions (175 projects & 7.5 million lines of code in the largest one) which I can work on with no problems.
I do like the way Parallels can just display the Windows app window on the MacOS desktop, and it integrates Windows apps that'll open when you double click a file with the extension they handle.
And as the M1 MBP will be something like 5 times faster (and I'll order it with maxed out memory) it'll be within spitting performance of my work Windows laptop.
Not worried about any non M1 native apps either, seeing the speed of the Rosetta 2 emulation - 75% of native speed (which is 5x faster than my current MBP) - yes please!
So you can run Windows in Parallels on the M1?Not my main machine, and if doing any serious development work I have to tweak the virtual machine settings to give it 6GB of memory, but apart from that it's certainly usable.
Development work includes a dozen large solutions (175 projects & 7.5 million lines of code in the largest one) which I can work on with no problems.
I do like the way Parallels can just display the Windows app window on the MacOS desktop, and it integrates Windows apps that'll open when you double click a file with the extension they handle.
And as the M1 MBP will be something like 5 times faster (and I'll order it with maxed out memory) it'll be within spitting performance of my work Windows laptop.
Not worried about any non M1 native apps either, seeing the speed of the Rosetta 2 emulation - 75% of native speed (which is 5x faster than my current MBP) - yes please!
That would be great!
JonChalk said:
First impressions of the base M1 Air compared to a 2013 MBP;
Night and day difference in speed.
Everything I’ve tried so far opens pretty much instantly. No spinning beach balls, even briefly; got used to them on the old MBP even if I knew full well it was only for a few seconds.
Web pages load noticeably faster in both Safari and Chrome.
RAW image loading in Adobe RAW happens very quickly (running off a NAS, so may well be network constrained) with no real hesitation, instead of a gradual fill in of the image (couldn’t test this too much though as Adobe’s login then threw a wobbly and now refuses to work - have to look in to that this evening).
4K video playback at 60fps - couldn’t manage that on the old MBP at all, used to grind to a halt after a few seconds. No problem for the Air.
Any thermal issues?Night and day difference in speed.
Everything I’ve tried so far opens pretty much instantly. No spinning beach balls, even briefly; got used to them on the old MBP even if I knew full well it was only for a few seconds.
Web pages load noticeably faster in both Safari and Chrome.
RAW image loading in Adobe RAW happens very quickly (running off a NAS, so may well be network constrained) with no real hesitation, instead of a gradual fill in of the image (couldn’t test this too much though as Adobe’s login then threw a wobbly and now refuses to work - have to look in to that this evening).
4K video playback at 60fps - couldn’t manage that on the old MBP at all, used to grind to a halt after a few seconds. No problem for the Air.
Thanks for the first impressions. It looks like it'll be a winner, especially once native software is more widespread.
Here's a teardown of the new M1 Mac Mini for anyone interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ArjHz4gd4
Hopefully Ifixit will have better ones on all the new models soon.
And Here's a picture of the M1 chip with the heatsink removed:
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/18/apple-silicon...
You can see the RAM chips soldered in right along side it.
Here's a teardown of the new M1 Mac Mini for anyone interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ArjHz4gd4
Hopefully Ifixit will have better ones on all the new models soon.
And Here's a picture of the M1 chip with the heatsink removed:
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/18/apple-silicon...
You can see the RAM chips soldered in right along side it.
ZesPak said:
fwaggie said:
Early 2015 13" MBP (8GB RAM, 1TB SSD) here running Parallels running Windows 10 Pro + Visual Studio 2017 Pro for work development.
Not my main machine, and if doing any serious development work I have to tweak the virtual machine settings to give it 6GB of memory, but apart from that it's certainly usable.
Development work includes a dozen large solutions (175 projects & 7.5 million lines of code in the largest one) which I can work on with no problems.
I do like the way Parallels can just display the Windows app window on the MacOS desktop, and it integrates Windows apps that'll open when you double click a file with the extension they handle.
And as the M1 MBP will be something like 5 times faster (and I'll order it with maxed out memory) it'll be within spitting performance of my work Windows laptop.
Not worried about any non M1 native apps either, seeing the speed of the Rosetta 2 emulation - 75% of native speed (which is 5x faster than my current MBP) - yes please!
So you can run Windows in Parallels on the M1?Not my main machine, and if doing any serious development work I have to tweak the virtual machine settings to give it 6GB of memory, but apart from that it's certainly usable.
Development work includes a dozen large solutions (175 projects & 7.5 million lines of code in the largest one) which I can work on with no problems.
I do like the way Parallels can just display the Windows app window on the MacOS desktop, and it integrates Windows apps that'll open when you double click a file with the extension they handle.
And as the M1 MBP will be something like 5 times faster (and I'll order it with maxed out memory) it'll be within spitting performance of my work Windows laptop.
Not worried about any non M1 native apps either, seeing the speed of the Rosetta 2 emulation - 75% of native speed (which is 5x faster than my current MBP) - yes please!
That would be great!
https://www.parallels.com/blogs/parallels-desktop-...
(I don't know if the version of Parallels shown in Apple demo in June was a non native version of Parallels running under Rosetta? I'll be trying it to see
)I pick up my MBP M1 16GB 1TB this afternoon
Was very tempted by the Air but really have no problem with the weight of my current MBP, and testing of the MBP M1 shows the fan hardly kicks in, only after an hour or two of intense usage.
This all sounds very positive!
I was considering replacing my 2011 iMac earlier this year but decided I probably couldn’t justify the expense.
This now makes me wonder if a better compromise may be an Air or MBP and plug into my desktop when I need the big screen?
I am at best a casual photo and video editor (lightroom and iMovie) so am unlikely to be pushing the performance envelope of a desktop. Is a laptop a better compromise, given the flexibility benefit that it brings over a desktop I wonder?
What do you think?
I was considering replacing my 2011 iMac earlier this year but decided I probably couldn’t justify the expense.
This now makes me wonder if a better compromise may be an Air or MBP and plug into my desktop when I need the big screen?
I am at best a casual photo and video editor (lightroom and iMovie) so am unlikely to be pushing the performance envelope of a desktop. Is a laptop a better compromise, given the flexibility benefit that it brings over a desktop I wonder?
What do you think?
sooty61 said:
I assume the new Mini doesn’t need an external GPU so does anyone recommend a monitor (at least 27”). Is the LG 4K sold by Apple the best?
How much do you want to spend?The LG 4K Ultrafine on the Apple website is only a 24" screen (@ £629). The 5k is the 27" screen (@ £1179).
If you want a 32" 4K Dell Ultrasharp then you've got a choice between the colour-calibrated UP3216Q at about £1000, or the less picky U3219Q (with tiny bezels) at about £800.
If you're happy with 27" then I'd happily recommend the higher-res version of mine (only has a small bezel too), but the styling may be a bit 'gamey' if you want it to look more 'professional'.
I was looking at the 4k 27" LG 27GN950-B screen for a while before I decided to save half my cash and go for the 1440p version (27GL850-B) as I would be using it for gaming and WFH duties and didn't want to have to try playing around with resolution scaling on the work laptop (heavily locked down, can't even change background or screensaver).
Blown2CV said:
MBA i mean. I have a 2020 one pre the M1 and it has been universally panned. I am shocked that they pulled the same trick with the M1 MBA...
I hope the corona will put a halt to s
tty cameras and camera positions on laptops.It's insane how good the front camera on some smartphones is compared to how s
tty the ones on laptops are. The "macbook" when it came out was just horrendous, I didn't know the MBA was similarly bad.Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff