Beauty and the Beast - M1 Max Macbooks

Apple on Monday (18th October 2021) introduced their new 14.2- and 16.2-inch mac book pros which were powered by their new apple silicon chip, the Big brother of m1(The previous generation processor), and Apple calls it the M1 pro and M1 max. That’s right, apple not only announced 1 chip but 2 this time. What are they, how much more performance will it give and is it worth the $3000 premium which you might be paying if you are buying the mac. Several questions one article, let’s answer it all. 

M1pro and the M1 Max and Expected Benchmark scores 

Before heading to the MacBooks, let's look at the Processors themselves which act as the heart and brain of the devices themselves. Apple introduced 2 big brothers for the M1 called the M1 Pro and The Max. With The M1 pro being a beefed-up version of the M1 and the Max Taking the pro to a whole another level. So, this part of the article is going to be leaning on the enthusiastic side, so skip to the next Sub-division if you are unaware of it. 

The M1 pro has up-to 10 core CPU that delivers 70% more processing power than the previous M1 and up to 16 GPU cores which gives you 2x more GPU performance. Due to this gamers can play AAA titles and demanding games in the mac book pro itself without even plugging in.

 And also an industry leading Media engine, along with a pro res accelerating engine built in, which helps in editing 4k or even 8k video, which is insane, as even the iMac pro struggled a few of these tests. It also has more advanced display engine which allows the mac to connect to multiple displays, the chip also has more I/O controllers which helps in managing more ports and providing more I/O bandwidth which the new macs have, this will be covered in detail in the later part of the article. It also has 33.7 billion transistors which is more than 2 times the no. of transistors than the m1 and up to 200GB/s memory bandwidth, which is more than 3 times the bandwidth of the M1. 

The M1 Max takes the M1 Pro to the Max, with a much higher Bandwidth-on-chip fabric as Apple says, is said to be providing a total 400GB/s memory bandwidth, which is said to be 2 times more bandwidth than the M1 pro and a mind blowing 6 times more than the M1. This chip, just like the pro, has 10 CPU cores but the cores itself are said to be a tad more powerful resulting in better performance with the same number of cores, but it has 32 core GPU which is double the no. of GPU cores from the m1 Pro and 4 times more cores than M1.  if you buy this configuration it will satisfy all gamers, it  This also allows more memory interface, which is up to 64 GB providing one of the smoothest working experience. This chip has even more capable media engine and double the no of Pro res accelerators  resulting in even more smoother editing experience. This chip has 57 billion transistors which is nearly 2 times the M1 Pro and 3.5 times the M1. 

While the 2 chips being this insanely powerful, it is still much efficient than other equally powerful CPU, Apple actually software capped the CPU to take a maximum of 30 Watts only, which gives the ability to the mac to perform even the most CPU intensive tasks without plugging in, and the GPU to take a maximum of 60 Watts of power.

Below pictures are the expected Geek bench 5 benchmark scores (unofficial and actual results may vary) 

MacBook Pro 14 and 16” 

Moving on to the mac books itself, it got a full redesign after so nearly 5 whole years, so let's see what has changed and what did not.  

Design 

Starting with the design, the new mac books have thinner bezels, with a small notch on top for the front camera which sadly does not support face ID. They took the mac book Pro text which was previously present in the bottom bezel to underneath the device this year, this time the bottom body of the mac book seem to be curved and a millimeter thicker than the previous mac books which helps the mac to fit better cooling systems for the insanely powerful chips which power them, the hinge has been redesigned and the display itself is slightly thicker this time, which also serves a purpose which we will see in just a second.  

Display 

The mac books come in 2 sizes 14.2 inches and 16.2 inches, the notch takes up the .2 inch of space which effectively provides 14- and 16-inch display, with the 14-inch having a screen resolution of 3024x1964 with 254 PPI (Or Pixels Per Inch). The 16-inch version serving a 3456 x 2234 native resolution, and has the same 254 PPI. Even though the 16 inch version has a higher resolution display, both the 14 and 16" will have the same sharpness as both has a 254 Pixels Per Inch.

They both come with the all-new Liquid retina XDR display, which uses mini-Led technology to provide a 10,00,000:1 contrast ratio with OLED like blacks and an insane 1000 nits of full screen brightness, and 1600 nits of peak brightness in HDR.  which is double the brightness compared to the previous gen mac books, this is this mini-LED displays that makes the screen of the macs ever so slightly thicker. These mac books displays is gonna rank up in the best laptop display list.

 We were slightly concerned of the blooming effect that we might get, which causes a halo effect around a lighter colored object when placed in a dark colored background, the below picture will explain what I mean, but Apple has already done an amazing job of reducing this effect with the iPad pro, so I am not concerned about it this time. 

 It can produce 1 billion colors with the help of the P3 color gamut which is the default for several years now. But this year the screen also comes with a pro motion display, which means the display refreshes a maximum of 120 times a second to give you smooth experience while scrolling and in games that support these high refresh rates, and when you are not using it/idle, it can lower its refresh rates to save battery.  

If you don’t want the high refresh rates, Apple has also added option to manually limit the refresh rate to anywhere from 47.95 to 60 hertz.  

So the final take is that, this is one of the best displays you can find in a laptop, with world leading technology, so if you are a photo or a video editor, or who works in a bright environment and needs a bright display, these MacBooks got you covered. Even gamers who needs a smooth experience will be satisfied due to it having the Pro-motion technology. 

Ports and I/O capabilities 

This is where Apple really gone back to come forward, what I mean is that, this year they have brought back all the ports that we lost along with the mag safe with the 2016 mac redesign, which is great for all the pro users that this is meant for.  

We have a Full-size SD Card slot (SDXC), a thunderbolt 4 and a full-size HDMI on the right-hand side, and an upgraded Mag safe 3, 2 thunderbolt 4 ports and a headphone jack which now support Higher impedance headphones, which is pleasing for pro users.  

The thunderbolt 4 ports on the mac book can also support charging, display support, thunderbolt and USB 4 data transfer up to 40Gbps. 

The mac book pro also supports 2 external displays up to 6K 60HZ with over a billion colors (P3) with the M1 pro  

Or 

3 external displays up to 6K 60HZ with the same P3 wide gamut, if you buy the M1 Max configurations 

Keyboard 

This year along with all the other redesigns, the keyboard too got a redesign, Apple this year replaced the OLED touch bar with the real and full height function keys along with the new I mac style fingerprint scanner for Touch ID, placed in what Apple calls a double anodized black well, for enhancing the backlight while in the dark and also avoiding backlight bleed. 

Camera and microphone 

in the middle of the new notch lies the camera which is now updated to a 1080p camera from 720p, and backed up with the new Image Signal Processing (ISP) to even improve the video while you are in a call. 

The 3-studio quality microphone array is said to produce more cleaner sounds and better clarity, so it will help you if you are in a call or you are recording. 

Speakers 

Both the 14- and 16-inch model get the 6-speaker array instead of 4 in the previous 13-inch model, with 2 force cancelling woofers which now even has bigger diaphragms for even more thump in your bass. The built-in speakers also support for spatial audio and Dolby Atmos, which is great for a built-in speaker.  

Storage and RAM 

Both 14- and 16-inch models get a minimum of 16 GB RAM and it is configurable up to 32 GB if you buy the M1 Pro and a maximum 64GB if you buy the M1 Max. 

The 14 inch starts at 512 GB SSD and the 16-inch starts at 1 TB SSD, and both the macs are configurable to 8TB. 

Battery and Charging 

The 14-inch packs a 17-hour battery which is actually lesser than both the M1 mac book air and the M1 mac book pro, and the 16-inch model packs a bigger battery rated at 21 hours which is higher than the M1 macs, which is actually insane taking the power and the mini-LED display into consideration. 

The reason for the lower battery life is because of the absence of the 2 more efficiency cores that the M1 has over the M1 pro and the Max. Secondly because of the mini-LED display which is insanely bright.  but still a 17 and a 21-hour battery life is actually insane for a pro laptop, so Thank you Apple. 

Along with a great battery life, Apple has also included a charger in the box. The charger for the 14 inch is 67 Watts (6 watts higher than the previous 13 inch), and the 16 inch gets a 140-Watt charger (44 watts higher than the previous 16 inch). 

Price 

Along with great performance comes great price, the 14-inch model starts from a minimum price of 1999 dollars which has a reduced 8 core CPU and 14 core GPU, and goes all the way up to $5899. 

And the 16-inch version starts from 2499 (the 16 inch does not come with M1 pro, only M1 max variant available) and goes all the way up to $6099. Please share your opinions about the pricing in the comment section below. 

OS 

These mac books will be running Mac OS Monterey and it is said to be arriving next week along with these 2 macs itself, to all the other compatible macs as well, so I am also waiting for that.  It is rumored that the 16" model will recieve an exclusive mode on the OS, namely the High Power Mode, reducing efficiency and removing software limitations to provide more power.

Conclusion 

To conclude I should say, this is a beast of a machine, over a year ago when Apple first launched M1 mac books, we were told that this is just the starting and this is just the baseline, which left us wondering about how the maxed-out versions will be, we were thinking and getting our hopes high for a year. Around a month ago when the launch event got confirmed, the leaks and renders have been bursting out, leaking the benchmarks, features and design. Turns out all the hype, the leaks were not for nothing, Apple actually proved that they were listening. Most of the leaks except the name of the chip turned out to be true. If you liked this long article which took over 5 hours to compile and write, please leave a comment, I would love to see what you think of the macs as well as my article, shoutout to whoever made it till the end, thanks for reading, Have a great day.