- Real talk. I haven't seen this many
comments, tweets, chats, DMs, just questions and confusion in general, about anything since eight
gigabytes versus 16 gigabytes on last year's M1 Macs. And what I'm talking about is should you get the M1 Pro
or the M1 Max MacBook Pro? And, yes, because despite
all of the reviews, all of the recommendations,
all of the benchmark LARP, it's still seems just super
hard, really an inconvenience, to get a simple, straight,
easy-to-understand answer. Well, I'm Rene Ritchie and I'm gonna give you
that answer right now. So, I think the reason eight
gigabytes versus 16 gigabytes was so confusing last time, was because the M1 was only
an ultra-low-power Mac, and people who would
normally buy higher-end Macs were just desperate for
M1, did not wanna wait, and were trying to figure
out if they could fit into the more widely available
eight-gigabyte models, just as a bridge, as a holdover. And I think the reason
for M1 Pro versus M1 Max, the reason it's so confusing
now is pretty similar, it's broadly the same. Because, in a way, it's simpler than the old
Intel i5 versus i7 versus i9, with Iris integrated or
AMD discrete graphics. That and the whole
reputation of M1 has built for punching way, way above its weight. Plus, honestly, 2021 being as
awful in its own way, as 2020, especially in terms of how much
everything costs these days, I think people really do wanna figure out if they need to go Max, or if they can save
some money with the Pro. And yes, it totally does not help that every second tweet
is from someone saying how awesome or terrible
the battery life is, because they don't realize
surfing the web in Safari hits just so different than
rendering video in Premiere Pro, or if there's a memory leak, or if you're stuck on
Intel emulation in Rosetta and the app just never
bothered to update for Metal. Or any of a dozen other
things or other contexts. So, for people who really wanna know which MacBook Pro they
can get, you can get, as a bridge machine for the
eventual iMac or Mac Pro, or if you're a Pro and you're just looking to switch to the MacBook
Pro for the very first time, and you're wondering how much
MacBook Pro you really need, how much you need to spend? Well, here's the honest answer. If battery life is the absolute
most important thing to you, if you need to be able
to use your MacBook Pro away from main power, to use it a lot, and the added size and weight
just isn't an issue for you, because you just need your laptop to last as long as is
mechanically possible, get the 16-inch M1 Pro. It'll save you 200 to 400 bucks
off the cost of the M1 Max, or it'll let you put that
money, that extra cash, towards more RAM or more SSD instead. Because the 16-inch has
just a bigger battery, so you have more potential
power to begin with, and a bigger thermal envelope, so it doesn't get anywhere nearly as hot and there's even less chance
the fans will have to power up. The M1 Pro also has fewer
transistors, so, in other words, that means fewer graphics
cores, fewer media engines, and potentially, less RAM to light up, which means it uses less power as well. Now, yes, it does have a
bigger display to drive, but all in all, that
combination of bigger battery, bigger thermal envelope, and less silicon, just makes it the battery life champ. And of course, if you do light up all the
transistors in the M1 Pro, like rendering video with
a ton of effects applied, with screen brightness all the way up, on a shoddy wifi connection,
on a hot Arizona day, you can absolutely still
kill the 16-inch battery really damn fast. That's why I keep saying potential, because battery is like fuel, and a bigger tank is just a bigger tank. The more and the faster you go, the more and faster it'll go. Now, conversely, if performance is the absolute
most important thing to you, if time is literally money, or far more precious to you than money, and the faster you can
get through your work, or the more work you can just
get through on any given day, if that's just everything to you, then get the 16-inch M1 Pro Max because the CPU's are mostly the same. Mostly, because I'll
get to the one exception in a binned-down-minute. So if you're doing music with
a ton of plugins, for example, or anything that's CPU-bound, it won't really make
any difference at all. But the M1 Max has up
to double the GPU cores, which means it'll just tear
through any heavy graphics work, from 3D modeling to textures, transformation effects, and more, and double the media engines. So H.265, HEVC, and ProRes, they'll all just render
literally twice as fast. And while they're rendering, because they're on the media engines and not CPU or GPU-bound, you can still use your CPU
and GPU for other work, almost like having a second
Mac to use while you render, if you even have the time
because they are so hella fast. And that's just because the 16-inch has a much bigger thermal envelope, so those extra GPU cores
have way more room to breathe before they start saturating
the cooling system. And the 16-inch even
has a high-power mode. So you can fully unleash
the fans and the cores to get the most performance possible. At least, within the
limits of known physics. Now, I'm not gonna say
it's like hitting nitro on a fuel tank, all the
speed, but all the drain, because I honestly just don't know anywhere nearly enough about racing to land that particular analogy, but I'm not not gonna
not not say it either. And I know some of you are gonna ask about the 14-inch models if you need to save some extra cash, or you just really want something smaller and lighter to carry around, to work on planes and trains and buses, or in coffee shops, hotels, other venues. So, they have physically smaller batteries and smaller, thermal envelopes. So even though they have
smaller displays to drive, they still offer less potential power. There is a binned down
eight CPU and 14 GPU version of the M1 Pro for just the 14-inch models, which means even less
silicon that can be lit up. So even less drain, even if
and when it's fully lit up. And there's also a low
power mode in macOS Monterey And what that does is just reduce the overall draw in general so you can get even more time on the battery that you do have if you're not doing anything
too demanding or too intense. So that would be the best bet if you want or need the 14-inch model but battery life is still
really important to you. And if you want or need the 14-inch for those same maximum
portability reasons, and you don't care about battery life, but you do care very
much about performance, the M1 Max is still absolutely
positively a monster, even in that smaller thermal envelope. You can't go as long away
from power, of course, but you can still get
just a ton of stuff done really, really freaking fast. But also remember that Macs
are built like aluminum bricks. They typically last five or more years. So don't just think about what
present you need today, now. Consider what future you or whomever you give or
hand down or sell off to will need tomorrow. You can get batteries replaced
if and when they age out, you can hang external
storage off a USB4 port, but you cannot add or take out RAM or swap an M1 Pro for an M1
Max chipset, or vice versa. So if you have limited
cash on hand, of course, only ever get what you can afford. And if money is no object,
just get whatever you want. But if you're at all flexible, don't just consider the upfront cost, think carefully about
that long-term value. And I know on Twitter or in comments, you may see people warn you
away from the 14-inch M1 Max. And I, for one, took my own
advice and got the 16-inch Mac for all the reasons I just went over. But you know who did get a 14-inch M1 Max? Apple's VP of Mac product marketing, the guy who helped spec it all out, and Apple's VP of silicon,
the guy who helped create it, because they both want the
power and the portability, and everyone knows their
own workloads the best. So, seriously, ask all the
questions you want to ask, but make sure, at the end of the day, you do you and you get
what you really need. Also, make sure you catch
the extended version of my interview with those Apple VPs. - The scalability, getting
from where we were an M1, even, to where we are an M1 Pro and M1 Max was a fundamental re-architecture of what we call the
fabric, the interconnect, through which all of these
different cores connect together. And the big challenge. - Ad-free and sponsor-free on Nebula. That's where I post all my videos, including extended
versions of my interviews, reviews, and explainers, my exclusive documentary
on the original iPhone. - There was no question that
was a game-changer phone that was ahead of its time. - The iPhone really has changed
my life in so many ways. - Also, a little something on
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Cue the organ music. (spooky organ music)
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playlist above for more, much more on M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and everything that's coming next. So just hit up that playlist and I'll see you in the next video.
