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My New Daily Driver - M1 Macbook Pro (2020) Review

2020-11-20 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali, Ali Abdaal (channel) · recording, 14:34 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech · mode: Review and recommendation

Ali reviews the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro (2020), his new daily driver: blazing fast, with battery life that matters more to him than speed; he finds the base model fine for most people, the MacBook Air enough for students short of money, and would wait for 14- and 16-inch models before buying a fully decked-out one.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Switching to the new M1 MacBook Pro as his daily driver

00:00:51 — Top-line summary

  • ★★★ Ali is switching his daily-driver laptop from his 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro to the new 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro (2020), which he will carry with him everywhere. — 00:00:51 · MacBook
  • ★★★ Ali's top-line verdict on the M1 MacBook Pro (2020): absolutely amazing, with blazing fast performance, ridiculous battery life, a best-in-class keyboard, a pretty amazing trackpad and a small, light design; it has only two ports, which he calls no big deal. — 00:00:51 · MacBook

00:01:20 — Design and portability: carrying a 13-inch laptop, the iPad Pro, the Mac Mini plan

  • ★★ Ali weighs the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro on his scales at 1,338 grams and calls it basically identical in weight to his 12.9-inch iPad Pro, with further readings of 1,360 and 1,380 grams. — 00:01:20 · MacBook, iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali can now carry his 12.9-inch iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil in addition to the MacBook Pro, because some things the iPad is good for, but a lot of things a MacBook is good for. — 00:01:49 · iPad Pro, Magic Keyboard, Apple Pencil, MacBook, iPad
  • ★★★ Ali still does not think an iPad, even a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, can feasibly replace what a laptop does for him. — 00:02:34 · iPad Pro, iPad
  • ★★ Ali says he will make a proper video exploring in depth whether an iPad can replace a laptop for him. — 00:02:34 · iPad Pro, iPad
  • ★★ Ali will probably replace his 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro with the new M1 Mac Mini as a permanent desk base, and carry the M1 MacBook Pro for weekends away, coffee shops, the sofa or the balcony. (hedged) — 00:03:03 · MacBook
  • ★★ Ali says a review of the M1 Mac Mini is coming in a little while. — 00:03:03

00:03:25 — Processor: Apple's own M1 chip, Geekbench scores, why the Pro over the Air

  • ★★ Apple has switched its Macs away from Intel chips to chips of its own design, as it has done from the start with the iPhone and the iPad, which is why they feel so fast, Ali explains. — 00:03:32 · Apple, iPhone, iPad, iPad Pro
  • ★★ Because Apple tightly controls and integrates the software, the hardware and the processor, everything on its devices works beautifully and seamlessly together, Ali says. — 00:04:02 · Apple
  • ★★ In Geekbench single-core scores the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro leads with 1,689, ahead of the 10-core Intel i9 27-inch iMac that costs at least a few thousand pounds, while the MacBook Pro costs £1,299 or $1,299. — 00:04:31 · MacBook
  • ★★ In Geekbench multi-core scores the Apple M1 reaches about 7,200 to 7,400, faster than the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro with its eight-core 2.4 GHz i9, Ali says. — 00:05:20 · MacBook, Apple
  • ★★ In his testing of the M1 MacBook Pro and the M1 MacBook Air, Ali has not noticed any performance issues at all. — 00:05:49 · MacBook
  • ★ The earlier Intel entry-level MacBook Air and MacBook Pro could easily be stressed by 80 Chrome tabs, a video playing and Final Cut, Ali says. — 00:05:49 · MacBook, Final Cut Pro
  • ★★ Ali chose the M1 MacBook Pro over the MacBook Air partly because the Pro has a fan, which lets the processor run faster for video editing, where the Air would likely thermal throttle. — 00:06:28 · MacBook
  • ★★ Since the MacBook Pro costs him only an extra £300 over the Air and is a business expense, Ali might as well take the fan and the extra weight of about 100 grams, which he will not notice. — 00:07:01 · MacBook

00:07:12 — Battery life

  • ★★ Ali has to carry the charger of his 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro everywhere: with Chrome, Final Cut or podcast editing its battery lasts only about four or five hours. — 00:07:30 · MacBook, Final Cut Pro
  • ★★ The advertised battery life of the M1 MacBook Pro is 20 hours of video playback or 18 hours of web browsing, and reviewers who have tested it for a week say it stays insane even on apps not optimised for the chip. — 00:07:30 · MacBook, Apple
  • ★ Ali expects the M1 MacBook Pro's battery life to improve as more apps are optimised for the M1 chip. — 00:08:00 · MacBook
  • ★★★ Battery life makes a difference to how you work, Ali says: he will not notice a speed difference between any laptops he buys because everything is fast these days, but he will notice battery life. — 00:08:00 · MacBook
  • ★★ Not having to worry about battery life is a huge quality-of-life improvement and the main thing Ali is excited about in the new M1 generation of MacBooks. — 00:08:29 · MacBook

00:08:36 — Keyboard, typing test and the Touch Bar

  • ★★ Ali calls the M1 MacBook Pro's keyboard probably the best he has ever used, alongside the new MacBook Air's, which feels like the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard; if he had to choose, the Pro's feels a little nicer. — 00:09:10 · MacBook, Magic Keyboard, iPad Pro
  • ★ In a typing test Ali types 147 words per minute on the M1 MacBook Pro and 159 on the MacBook Air with the same keyboard; he usually hovers around 145 to 155. — 00:09:10 · MacBook
  • ★ Ali rarely uses the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar, occasionally to pick an emoji, but often finds the Control-Command emoji search a little quicker with keyboard navigation. — 00:09:10 · keyboard navigation, MacBook

00:09:54 — Trackpad and display

  • ★★ Ali calls the MacBook trackpad best in class: some Windows laptops have really good trackpads now, but he is so used to the MacBook trackpad's feel, the same on the M1 MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air and his 2018 MacBook Pro. — 00:09:56 · MacBook, Microsoft Windows
  • ★★ The M1 MacBook Pro's display has 500 nits of brightness against the MacBook Air's 400, which Ali finds reasonably good outside, where he often uses his laptop on the balcony or in the garden. — 00:10:25 · MacBook
  • ★ Ali thinks the brighter display is a reason to get the MacBook Pro over the MacBook Air for those who care about it. — 00:10:55 · MacBook
  • ★ The entry-level M1 MacBook Pro has only two ports, which Ali finds slightly annoying, but since he will not need a charger plugged in all the time he does not expect to mind. — 00:10:55 · MacBook

00:11:00 — Ports, microphone and camera

  • ★★ Ali finds the M1 MacBook Pro's 720p FaceTime HD webcam still kind of crap, though the M1's neural engine improves its image slightly; with so many Zoom calls he wishes Apple had put in a 1080p webcam. — 00:11:53 · MacBook, Zoom, Apple
  • ★★★ For anyone in the market for a budget laptop, Ali thinks the base M1 MacBook Pro (8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 256 GB SSD) is completely fine; the storage is the one thing he might think of upgrading. — 00:12:23 · MacBook
  • ★★ A student very strapped for cash should first just go for the M1 MacBook Air rather than the MacBook Pro, Ali says. — 00:12:23 · MacBook
  • ★★ With the student discount the M1 MacBook Air costs 899 and the M1 MacBook Pro 1199, an extra £300, Ali says. — 00:12:23 · MacBook

00:12:28 — Configuration: which model to buy

  • ★★ For the extra £300 the MacBook Pro adds a fan, a Touch Bar Ali calls totally pointless, and slightly longer battery life; he thinks the fan and the battery are probably worth the extra money. (hedged) — 00:13:00 · MacBook
  • ★★ Ali is getting the fully decked-out M1 MacBook Pro, with upgraded RAM and a 2 TB SSD, as a business expense: as his daily driver, he does not care how much he spends on it. — 00:13:00 · MacBook
  • ★★ A fully decked-out M1 MacBook Pro is overkill for most people, Ali says: you do not need to spend £2,300 or $2,300 on an entry-level MacBook Pro and deck it out. — 00:13:30 · MacBook
  • ★★ Anyone who wants a fully decked-out MacBook Pro and does not review tech on YouTube should wait until next year (2021), when Ali hopes 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with Apple's own chips will come out. (hedged) — 00:13:52 · MacBook, Apple
  • ★★ Most people interested in a MacBook Pro will be fine with the base model, Ali says; upgrade the RAM only if you use loads of resource-intensive work that relies on parallel processing. — 00:13:52 · MacBook

00:14:21 — Pointers to his MacBook Air review and a coming comparison; sign-off

  • ★★ Ali says a video is coming very soon in which he compares the new M1 MacBook Pro with the new MacBook Air and advises which one to get. — 00:14:21 · MacBook

In the description and comments

  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): In a comment reply of October 2021, asked by a student and part-time business organiser whether to get a Mac Mini with a display and an iPad Pro, or a MacBook Pro with a display, for desk and remote work, the channel answers: the MacBook Pro. — creator comment · MacBook, iPad Pro

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Apple M1 · MacBook

Also: Organizations: Apple · Intel

Concepts: business expenses · keyboard navigation

Products: Apple Pencil · Final Cut Pro · Geekbench · Google Chrome · iPad · iPad Pro · iPhone · Mac mini · Magic Keyboard · Microsoft Windows · Zoom

Also centred on Apple M1: Perfection - M1 MacBook Air (2020) Review · Tough Choice - M1 Macbook Air vs Macbook Pro

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