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MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

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Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#911
post #32

No graphs and all comparison is with Intel's Macs, not with M1s.

Was looking for comparisons with the M1 too, they do briefly do a few further down - but I'm guessing it's not worth the upgrade.

Single-generation, incremental chip upgrades like this are rarely worth the extra cost unless you have some other use for your older machine.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#912
post #748
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would strongly recommend the M2 air at 24GB, I too bought one of the first M1 airs with 8GB ram and that laptop is just gathering dust right now, but the latest ones are great, the increase in RAM really lets the processor shine.

Don’t they have thermal throttling issues?

Only if you are doing long sessions of heavy processing. Even then it just slows down by 15-20% so if you aren’t doing that on a regular basis it shouldn’t be a problem. Under normal loads there is no throttling. If you do video editing on a daily basis, you probably want to look at the MacBook Pros.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#913

There's also a new Mac Mini, which I found A LOT MORE interesting, given that its keyboard or batteries won't break: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/01/apple-introduces-new-...

You’re right. That is the sub rosa win of the day. I had no idea. It makes me wish I had a reason to buy a new computer!

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#914
post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can charge from any of the USB-C ports. Some discussion here is saying the MagSafe will charge at 140W, while the USB-C ports will only charge at 100W, so it will be a bit slower.

Thanks. I know that was the case with the M1 MBPs, but wasn't sure if that would carry over to the M2 versions, and I didn't see anything about charging via the USB-C ports in the press relese.

Always check the Tech Specs pages for the details that aren’t always in the press releases. https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#915
post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it's actually quite difficult to fit a high quality camera into a laptop lid. If you look at how thin the lid is you'll notice it's at least twice as thin as a cell phone.

Doesn't stop them using compound-eye like designs... They can be very thin and have 100+ 'cameras' over just a few square millimeters, all using the same CCD. As a bonus, they (after a bit of processing) output 3d information, allowing them to use the same system for face ID etc.

There just isn’t much market for it. People don’t feel the need to project high res images showing every little flaw. The video conference services generally downscale the video to 1080/720 by default.

You can get up to 4K on external cameras or on a few desktop monitors with thick cases but those cameras are much too large for laptop cases.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#916
I discontinued the use of macOS for programming/work stuff for a few reasons, but a huge one was lack of 8K display support. When my Linux workstation got the (old) 31.5" Dell 8K UP3218K, and it ended up on my desk next to my Mac's (insanely expensive) 31.5 Apple 6K XDR Display... the difference was literally night and day.

The 220ppi Apple displays looked like deep-fried dukey to me suddenly; it bugged me all day, every day after that. YEMV, but the text rendering 280ppi Dell was phenomenally crisper, better looking, and less blurry. It's something you can't unsee.

I'm not sure that there are any HDMI 2.1 displays on the market yet at 31-32" (I haven't checked out this year's CES coverage yet), but these new Macs (MBP and Mini) mark the first non-"Intel Mac with an eGPU" machines from Apple that support 8K.

To me, that's the most interesting thing about them.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#917

What is up with the gigantic notch? Deal-killer for me, personally. My Intel MBP works just fine so long as I disable Intel TurboBoost.

The only thing that's in there is a very low quality webcam and an ambient light sensor so as far as I can tell it's 90% empty black space.

We’ve seen the actual camera/sensor module and its mounting hardware. It is pretty close to the size of the blacked out area in the menu bar.

That notch is a very clever way to expand the size of the screen without increasing the size of the case. There is very little downside. that middle part of the menu bar is not used by most apps. When there are more menu items, the system automatically skips over that notch.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#918
post #719

My new setup as of November is an M2 Air (16GB /1 TB) and an base model M1 Studio. I really couldn't be happier. I run a small WFH / Music Production / Photography studio in my basement and I really wanted an always-on always connected computer, for which the Studio has been perfect. The M2 Air is pretty close to a perfect laptop. My complaints (low audio volume, slighty cramped screen) are absolutely dwarfed by the…

I am as happy with my 13” M1 mbp 2020 as you with your. My only gripe is that the screen is too small and more importantly after two years I went from a stellar 21h battery life to 13h for lightweight work and it now also seems to drain on sleep. And it seems to lose charge quicker under load. The battery capacity is still reported as 91%of spec which does not explain this behaviour. I hope yours holds up better.

I had some major battery and charging issues while sleeping with 2 older macs that were a challenge to isolate. It turned out that in one case, the charging brick itself had started having problems and couldn't keep up with how quickly docker was demanding power. Got that replaced under warranty.

The other was just a straight-up hardware issue with the computer. I'd close the lid close to a low battery and let it stay closed long enough for it to hibernate, and then when I'd open it back up it will have completely drained and I'd get a kernal panic. They replaced it after quite a lot of back and forth until I was able to prove it.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#919
post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe OP has the 13” MacBook Pro, which runs the plain M1 from the Air, not the M1 Pro or Max of the 14” and 16” models.

Ahh so that's what it is. I was confused because my coworker has the MBP with an M1 and dual monitor works fine for him. But that ran contrary to all research on my MBP specifically. Seems I'm due for an upgrade at some point in that case...

The 13” MBP has an M1 processor that only has support for 1 external display. It has the same internals as the MacBook Air.

The 14” and 16” MacBook Pros have M1 Pro and M1 Max processors and they support more video streams. The M1 Pro supports 2 external displays and the M1 Max supports 4.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#920

There's also a new Mac Mini, which I found A LOT MORE interesting, given that its keyboard or batteries won't break: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/01/apple-introduces-new-...

The lack of dedicated DisplayPort ports is fairly disappointing to me since their implementation is just "native DisplayPort output over USB‑C" and it doesn't support MST, so you can only do one displayport signal per port, even with a thunderbolt 4 hub with some bidirectional USB-C Displayport cables.

This obdurate refusal to support MST is indeed awful (and, actually, a minor one of the few reasons I mainly stopped using Macs).

But it is "just" a software problem, right? So they could come to their senses and change their mind.

It seems insane to me to keep putting DisplayPort ports on computers when we have USB-C, but it also seems insane to ship machines with crippled USB ports that don't support more than one monitor... so I wouldn't be surprised if they fix their OS in this regard.

(Apple being Apple though, the software fix might well "require" an M3 processor....)

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