Why the M1 MacBook Pro Is Nothing Special and Totally Fantastic
By: Jeff Brown
Tags: MacBook Pro, Apple, Computers, Mac, Technology

I’m writing this on my brand new MacBook Pro with the M1 chip. I imagine there are a lot of people wondering if they should go ahead and buy one and if the hype is justified. I’ll share some of the pros and cons and why I made the decision to buy one. I’ll also discuss why you might want to go ahead and get one and why you might want to wait. Spoiler alert: there’s not one right answer for everyone.

First, it’s important to note that I’ve worked in technology most of my life. I’m comfortable with new equipment and beta software. I wasn’t particularly worried about being in the first wave of M1 buyers, because I’m generally my own help desk and know how to work my way through just about any technical problem. If there’s a way to make it work, I can find it. If I can’t make it work? I can probably live with it or find a work-around. Changing chips may sound trivial, but it’s a big deal.

Working from home during the pandemic has been a strain on my previous machine, which to be fair wasn’t all that old. I had a mid-2017 model, which puts it right around the 3-year cycle where you would want to consider a replacement. For me, there were two things driving the decision to update: The butterfly keyboard and it was really a pokey machine now that I needed multiple windows AND Microsoft Teams open all day. Even with 16 GB or RAM, the user experience had gotten rough around the edges.

When the Apple event walked through Rosetta and general compatibility, I ordered my MacBook Pro immediately after. I was especially comfortable because Microsoft had their M1 native Office Suite all set for the new chip. I figured this would be the bare minimum compatibility I could tolerate. Did I expect zero problems? Heck no. There will be some issues on the way. Some I even knew ahead of time, like how Parrallels, a virtualization package that runs Windows and Linux for me, did not currently have a compatible version for M1. It’s also important to note that I have an Intel-based iMac to fall back on, so I had a pretty good safety net underneath me in case there were major compatibility issues still to be discovered. There are multiple sites springing up that talk about app compatibility, so if you really need something to work, look it up first.

So what is the M1 MacBook Pro like? Well, it’s almost exactly like your current MacBook Pro as long as you aren’t running a really old model. It runs Big Sur, it runs the same apps, minus a few that don’t work. It looks almost identical. IOS apps are kind of silly under Mac OSX, but it sort of runs that too. Wait, what? That doesn’t sound life-changing at all. What gives?

Well, here’s where it made a big difference for me. I work really fast. My old MacBook was strained. With Microsoft Teams up and running all the time, the fan seemed to come on quite a bit. I don’t think the fan in the M1 has come on yet at all. Suddenly, even with “only” 16 GB of RAM, I have a machine that works as fast as I do. In fact, I’ve even seen some good arguments that the real world performance of an M1 may not even need 16 GB of RAM for most. When you compare the stats from an M1 to an Intel you are not comparing apples to apples (sorry).

The M1 MacBook Pro is so fast and so good that I finally have a machine that moves as fast as I think. And that’s a game changer for me. And the exciting thing is that it only gets better from here. The chips will get faster and who knows where we go from here. A touchscreen Mac? Macs in the datacenter outperforming PC servers? The possibilities are just beginning.

Let’s talk about the other benefits that don’t just cover speed. I already mentioned the butterfly keyboard. While I liked the butterfly keyboard, I had already had to manually replace a key that stopped behaving. This wasn’t easy, but I think I already mentioned that I’m my own help desk. Apple now has a replacement program for it, but it’s just not a great design even though they typing experience was actually pretty good. The M1 completely moves away from this design and we can chalk the butterfly keyboard up to an Apple stumble.

Next up, is that battery. This thing lasts all day long. I think it’s lasting longer than my iPad Pro. It’s really impressive and not over-hyped. WiFi 6 was also an added bonus, as I had upgraded to a WiFi 6 mesh network earlier this year as part of trying to be a pandemic over-achiever.

Are there downsides? Well, it looks identical to my last MacBook. I was sort of expecting a new design. And that 720p camera is still there for reasons that are really beyond me. I mean, they upgraded the microphone and speakers, how’d they miss the camera?

Finally, there’s cost. While the price tag is still pretty reasonable, I wasn’t really looking forward to a big expense. For those who weren’t paying attention, Apple basically reimagined leasing without really telling anyone that’s what they were doing. When I bought the M1, I was able to trade in my old MacBook Pro for an almost $900 in credit back on the purchase. In addition, since I have an Apple credit card, I was able to split the money that I did owe into interest-free monthly payments over the next year.

So, for less than $100 a month and I get the latest, greatest. And if something better comes out in the next year or two? I’ll probably do this all over again. I’m reminded of a principle from Ramit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You to be Rich: “Spend extravagantly on the things you love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t.” Yeah, I’m not sure I really needed to buy a new computer. But it’s what I do and it brings me a lot of happiness.

So should you buy one? Well, of course the answer is that it depends. Do you need a new laptop right now? Can you afford it? Are you going to be disappointed if something more interesting comes out next year? Do you want to wait and see if there are more compatibility issues? Or do you want something that moves as fast as you think right now? I wanted the latter and I have no regrets.