The Perfect Christmas Gift: This Is The $1,299 New 13" MacBook Pro
Tags: Mac, Future, Tech, Apple, SEO

Welcome December, welcome Christmas season, and welcome Apple M1 Chip. Yes, this is the perfect Christmas gift by far. Apple has finally transitioned Macs from Intel processors to ARM chips of their own design. The first generation called M1 comes in the new 13 “MacBook Pro. I have tested it for a week and I have been pleasantly surprised, it is ultra-powerful, light, small, and with the same autonomy as an iPhone. What else can we ask for?

Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash

This is the second transition of processors in Macs. The first was when Apple went from PowerPC — which they designed in conjunction with IBM and Motorola — and later, to those designed and manufactured by Intel in 2005. At that time it was Steve Jobs who did it. announced during Apple’s famous presentation known as WWDC.

Apple announces, 15 years later, that Mac processors are once again being designed by themselves. This time with many years of experience with all of the other devices that they make and sell: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and HomePods. They all have an SoC (System on a Chip) designed by the company, which is also one of its biggest innovation engines.

Apple New M1 Chip. Source: Apple

They begin the transition with three products: MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13", and Mac Mini. The two best-selling laptops and the cheapest desktop. It’s a statement of intent, a way of telling the world how confident you are in the overall performance of your processors. They have called it M1.

Apple has decided not to change the exterior design of Macs with the transition to its M1 processors. Nor has the names changed. Recall that PowerPC laptops were called iBook and PowerBook. Once the change was made, they were called MacBook and MacBook Pro.

From the outside, the MacBook Pro is exactly the same. It is the same design, same dimensions, screen size, panel, keyboard, and trackpad size. The weight doesn’t change either. Well, slightly, depending on the unit of measurement that Apple uses to indicate it on its product pages.

In the metric system, both products, according to the company, weigh 1.4 kilograms. In Imperial, the 13 ”MacBook Pro with Intel weighs 3.1 pounds, but the 13” MacBook Pro with M1 weighs 3 pounds.

If we take the imperial system as valid and make the conversion, the version with Intel has a weight of 1.4 kilograms and the version with M1, therefore, weighs 1.36 kilograms.

Performance

It is a bit unsettling to realize that you are holding a $ 1,300 or $ 1,450 laptop with a processor that, in single-core tests using Geekbench 5, is faster than the higher-spec 16 ”MacBook Pro, which exceeds $ 6,000. . In addition, it does so by delivering double and sometimes triple the autonomy without any kind of effort.

Therefore, when considering the performance improvements of M1 processor notebooks, we should not limit ourselves solely to their higher performance. We have to do it alongside the fact that it achieves it using less battery.

Any Universal application, that is, compiled also for the M1 processor works significantly better than on Intel. Apple has made the transition so simple for developers that the day I received the laptop for this review there was already quite a lot of software available, much of which I use in my day-to-day life.

In fact, all Apple apps have been updated to work in native mode on Apple-powered Macs. From the most basic ones like Notes, TextEdit, or Reminders, through the company’s office automation — Keynote, Pages, Numbers — to Safari and Mail.app. Also professional software: Final Cut Pro X or Logic. Everything is ready to go and show the potential of the M1.

I insist, in all these cases, with the native apps, the user experience on the MacBook Pro 13 ”has been extremely positive. It is remarkable since we are talking about a $ 1,300 machine that has a performance that you previously expected in teams of three to four times its value.

Photoshop has a beta version optimized for M1, but some features are disabled. In that case, opening “normal” Photoshop, barring the extra boot time (when Rosetta 2 works its magic) works fine. It’s a testament to the power of Apple’s processor, even on your first try.

Remember: this will be “the worst” Apple processor for your Macs. In other words, everything that comes out in the future will work better, faster, with an even higher level of efficiency.

Geekbench 5 multi-core tests are also surprising. The base 13" MacBook Pro ($ 1,300 or € 1,400) outperforms the 16" MacBook Pro with the fastest Intel processor available in the custom configuration (a Core i9). It’s practically as powerful as a 2017 iMac Pro (approximately $ 5,000) with an Intel Xeon and a bit slower than the 2019 Mac Pro, also with an Intel Xeon.

Rosetta 2 & Applications Built for Intel Processors

Rosetta 2. Source: Apple

Let’s start with the positive: During the transition from Macs to Intel, compiled apps for PowerPC could be run using a dynamic binary translator called Rosetta. Apple did this as a workaround while developers fixed optimized, and recompiled their apps in “Universal” mode, that is, running natively on both older PowerPC and Intel processors.

But when you opened an app with Rosetta, you definitely noticed: everything was slower. If it was professional apps, they reached the limits of uselessness. This has not been my experience with Rosetta 2. The first time you open an app compiled for Intel, macOS prompts you that it will have to download a component that allows you to open software not optimized for M1. Now, you don’t see that message anymore. It is a significantly more refined experience. All apps work properly, in some cases as fast as if they were run on an Intel processor.

Let’s talk about the downsides. Not all apps work as well as we would like to. It’s funny, it happens with the simplest ones because most of them use “Electron”, also known as the new Flash. The problem here is that we’re translating an app that in turn work on a framework that is not native either, since it adapts web technologies to make graphical interfaces typical of desktop software.

It’s really curious that apps like Spotify, Notion, Discord, Atom, Slack, or WhatsApp Web, all classifiable within non-production software that could well be light, work badly. While “heavy” apps such as Premiere Pro works better. Electron already has support for compiling apps run natively on Apple Silicon, released on November 17, so it is a matter of time until the apps are updated with the new version of the framework.

The main reason why there are so many apps made on Electron is that it significantly reduces the cost of development for various platforms, as it works equally on Mac & Windows. Apple wants developers to use native technologies for their applications and avoid frameworks of this type. Since many have native apps for the iPad, in theory converting it for Mac (especially now) would be very easy. But the reality is that it does not stop happening.

Amazing Autonomy

Source: Apple

With the launch of the M1 processors comes a better energy use control system and a much more efficient chip when it comes to using watts to generate processes. Apple has learned so much about energy efficiency with devices like the iPhone or the Apple Watch and all that knowledge has been deposited in the design of the M1. For the first time, we have Macs with autonomies similar to the iPad or the iPhone.

The MacBook Pro 13" is able to last between 18 and 20 hours of normal use. It is a huge difference with similar devices with Intel processors, which hopefully reach half.

For one of my tests, I unplugged the laptop at 7:00 p.m., worked for a long time in a cafeteria, then continued working at home, left the laptop open while I ate dinner, and continued answering emails until after midnight and the battery remained at 67 %. Amazing.

Let’s Talk About The Keyboard

macOS Big Sur. Source: Apple

The 13" MacBook Pro with an M1 processor, like the latest generation of the Intel processor notebook, has the new “scissor mechanism keyboard” that was released with the 16" MacBook Pro. It replaces the troublesome butterfly mechanism that has given Apple and its users so many headaches over the years. Apple recognized this problem some time ago and makes free (and usually quick) changes with an appointment made at an Apple Store or authorized service provider.

Is It The Perfect Christmas Gift For You?

Photo by Artem Kniaz on Unsplash

Absolutely. It’s fast, it’s efficient, the battery lasts longer than you need. The absence of physical changes contrasts with internal changes. But in true Apple style, the improvements must be invisible to the user. The important thing is that they are there. The how, although it is relevant now, should at one time cease to be.

Apple wants the focus to be on the fact that everything will be significantly faster and more efficient from now on. May this “new generation”, as they call it, be that, a new generation. It’s not the how, it’s the what. And what it is, simply put, is a 13" MacBook Pro faster than ever, matching and beating professional desktops three to four times as expensive.

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