The IT Nerd

In late 2021 I bought my 16″ M1 Pro MacBook Pro. It corrected all the sins of Apple laptops since 2016. On top of that it has Apple Silicon which literally destroys any processor from Intel. It’s been my workhorse since then. Now while I did a review that comprised of Part 1 and Part 2 of this notebook, I decided that I should to circle back to it to give you an update in terms of how I have got on with it.

I’ll start with the bad first. I’ve had two keyboard replacements on it. The first was a year ago, and the second was a few weeks ago. Both times the repair was covered by AppleCare which illustrates why you should always get AppleCare. But if you’re not convinced, you can read this to give you a few other reasons to always get AppleCare. Now I am chalking these keyboard failures up to how I type rather than a defect in the computer, by that I mean the sort of issues that Apple had with the infamous “butterfly” keyboard, because the exact same key on the keyboard went bad both times. Thus I have changed my setup to hopefully keep a third time from happening. Specifically I now run the MacBook Pro in clamshell mode attached to a monitor and an external keyboard as opposed to how I was running before which was in this manner. By the way, I’ll be doing a desk setup article in the coming weeks once I have my new setup finalized. I should also note that both times that the MacBook Pro has been in for repair, Apple has had to replace other parts. Specifically a new trackpad which failed calibration during the second keyboard replacement, and a logic board (the motherboard in Apple speak) during the first keyboard replacement because whatever on the logic board that interfaced with the ambient light sensor failed. But there was an upshot to these repairs. To replace the keyboard, Apple has to replace the entire top case. That top case includes a battery as well as a keyboard. Thus I got a new battery with 100% battery health both times. That’s a win.

Now over to the good. And there’s lots there that is good:

• The 16″ mini LED display is still the best display available in a notebook short of going to something with an OLED display. The only display that it competes against is the super expensive Apple Pro Display XDR which doesn’t have ProMotion (variable refresh rates up to 120hz) capabilities, but has HDR capabilities like this 16″ display. In fact, if you run this in a multiple monitor setup, you’ll find it difficult to find an external display that matches the 16″display in terms of quality. Which is my challenge at the moment as once you get sight of this display, anything else is second rate.
• The speakers are incredible. I honestly have never thought of adding external speakers to my desk setup because the built in ones are so good. And combine that with the microphones which record audio so good that fools people into thinking that you’re wearing a headset or you have a pro quality microphone in front of you. That makes it really handy for a Teams call if you don’t have AirPods handy.
• The fact that Apple brought back all the ports that people use so that way you don’t have to live “the dongle life” is very much appreciated. For example, I use the built in HDMI port all the time to plug into projectors when I do presentations. The SD card slot allows me to pull photos off of my camera as well as update the maps for my car which reside on an SD card. The only dongle that I carry these days is a 2.5 Gbps ethernet to USB-C dongle as I often have to connect to things like enterprise routers and enterprise network switches to do things like firmware updates and to tweak their configurations.
• It’s still fast. Three years later I am still able to do exactly what I need it to do and it doesn’t feel any slower than it did on day one. What I often have to do is create virtual machines with different operating systems using VMWare Fusion so that I can replicate client environments to do anything from testing to troubleshooting. But to be completely honest, If I didn’t have to do that on a regular basis I likely would have gotten a MacBook Air or something like that as I would not have a use case for this computer.
• Though I will admit that this observation is affected by the fact that the battery has been replaced twice, battery life has never, ever been an issue for me. In fact, one of the few times I have taken the power adapter with me when I leave home is when my wife and I spent a week in France last summer. Bonus points for the fact that I can also use a third party USB-C charger to charge the MacBook Pro if I had to.
• The camera is “only” 1080p. But it’s far from trash. It’s actually pretty good due to the fact that Apple does all sorts of wizardry to make images look good.

The only other thing that I will mention is that my wife also got a 16″ MacBook Pro shortly after I got mine. She “only” got 16GB of RAM rather than 32GB. But it does exactly what she needs it to do. Which is Word and Excel along with Zoom and Teams. It is overkill for those needs, but at the time, this was the only way to get a large screen on a MacBook as the 15″ MacBook Air had not been announced. She runs hers in clamshell mode most of the time though only taking it out of the house on a handful of occasions, including our trip to France. And she’s had no issues with it at all. Both of us agree on one thing though, we don’t see a need to replace these MacBook Pros anytime soon. This despite the fact they are three years old, and we’ve tended to replace our Macs every three to four years in the past. The fact is that these MacBook Pros were a quantum leap above the Intel models that they replaced, and the M2 and M3 versions of these MacBook Pros are more iterative upgrades. Thus unless Apple comes out with something that is a quantum leap above these MacBook Pros, our incentive to upgrade is zero. In fact, we’re not the only people who feel this way. YouTuber MKBHD reviewed the 16″ M3 Max MacBook Pro when they first came out. But before he got the review unit from Apple as he’s one of the few people that Apple will send review units to, he ordered one fully maxed out. Then cancelled the order once the review unit arrived, and he did his testing for his review. The TL:DR is that he discovered that there wasn’t enough of a difference between the M1 Mac MacBook Pro that he has been using and the M3 Max model. And keep in mind that his job is to edit videos for YouTube and he shoots them in 4K. Which means he pushes his MacBook Pro way harder than most of us ever will. Here’s the video where he explains his reasoning. But it illustrates how good the M1 series of MacBook Pros were. And still are.

One final point. If you’re wanting to get into the Apple Silicon game and you want something more than a MacBook Air, Apple on their refurbished store in Canada and the US still sells the M1 Pro and M1 Max versions of the MacBook Pro with a decent price cut. Plus you can still get AppleCare for items bought from the refurbished store. So that is a great way to get a powerful computer and save some cash at the same time. Thus if you’re in the market for a MacBook Pro, I highly recommend that you go that route as this is a great computer which will likely fit your needs for a long time as my wife and I have discovered over the last three years. Make sure that you get AppleCare, and you’ll be happy.