The MacBook Pro: A Near-Perfect Laptop with Some Compromises

I've had the pleasure of spending some time with the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, and I must say it's an incredible laptop. The workflow and interface are familiar and comfortable, with a few quality of life improvements that make a big difference in my daily work. While it doesn't revolutionize the design or offer any groundbreaking features, it's a well-rounded machine that gets the job done.

One of the things I noticed right away is how quickly this laptop renders videos. In fact, I was able to side-by-side render a video with the old MacBook Pro and compare their performance. To my surprise, this new model rendered the same video faster and more smoothly. It's not a revolutionary difference, but it's noticeable, especially when working on demanding projects.

Another feature that caught my attention is the HDMI 2.1 port. For those who may not know, HDMI 2.1 is a newer standard that offers higher bandwidth and lower latency than the previous version. This means that you can take advantage of features like higher refresh rates and more precise color reproduction when connecting your MacBook Pro to an external display. While it's not essential for most users, it's a nice bonus for those who need high-quality video output.

The design and build quality of the laptop are also noteworthy. The aluminum construction feels premium, and the keyboard and trackpad are among the best I've used on any laptop. The screen is also excellent, with deep blacks and vivid colors that make it perfect for working on creative projects. However, I did notice that this model gets hotter than the old one, which might be a concern for some users.

In terms of performance, the new MacBook Pro offers a noticeable boost over the old model. With the M2 Max chip, you can expect smoother performance and better multitasking capabilities. The battery life is also slightly longer, with Apple claiming up to 18 hours of web browsing on a single charge.

However, there's a catch: in the UK, at least, the price has jumped significantly since the launch of the new MacBook Pro. The base model starts at around £1,400, which is £300 more than the old model. While Apple hasn't explained why the price increased, it's clear that inflation and other factors have contributed to the higher cost.

So, what's a user to do? If you're in the market for a new laptop, I'd recommend checking out refurbished or used 2021 models, which can be found online for significantly less money. Alternatively, if you're not set on buying a MacBook Pro specifically, consider pairing an M2 Pro Mac Mini with a nice external display and monitor. You'll get a similar level of performance at a fraction of the cost.

Overall, the new MacBook Pro is an incredible laptop that offers a lot of value for those who need it. While it's not perfect – and there are some compromises to be made – it's worth considering if you're in the market for a high-quality machine. Just be sure to check the price and do your research before making a decision.

My Verdict

As I wrap up this review, I want to emphasize that this laptop is almost perfect. The performance, design, and features all come together to create an excellent user experience. However, there are some caveats – like the higher price in the UK – that prevent it from being truly revolutionary. Still, if you're looking for a high-end laptop with great performance and features, I'd definitely recommend considering this model.

In conclusion, while the new MacBook Pro may not be the most groundbreaking laptop on the market, it's certainly one of the best. With its improved performance, sleek design, and excellent display, it's an attractive option for those who need a high-quality machine. Just be sure to do your research and consider your budget before making a decision.

What Do You Think?

We want to hear from you! What do you think about the new MacBook Pro? Are you tempted to upgrade or stick with the old model? Let us know in the comments below, and don't forget to like and subscribe for more tech content.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys I'm Donald Tech Chap and this is the brand new Macbook Pro 16. you'll be pleased to know that my MacBook was not actually in that box earlier uh you probably guessed that but I have actually had this for a couple of days now and I've got a few thoughts I am going to do a more extensive review and also some more comparisons with the rest of the Mac lineup soon but I also want to bring in this guy this is my old MacBook Pro 16. the one I've been using as my daily driver for the past just over a year this came out October 2021 and fortunately I have a slightly different color than new one this is silver this is space gray because from the outside these are physically identical the only difference is this gets a new color matching magsafe cable now I review an awful lot of laptops and for me at least this is or at least what's as close to the perfect laptop as I could get of course unless you want to play games in which case Mac's not really ideal so of course I was extremely excited for the new 2023 M2 versions We had the M2 air launched at WWDC last year we expected them to come out sort of at the end of the year but they didn't but here we are with the new 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros so what's new is it much faster and is it actually worth upgrading to and paying their new higher price for so headline upgrades both the new 14 and 16 can be specked with either an M2 Pro or an M2 Max chip which Apple claim will give you roughly 20 faster CPU 30 faster GPU and about a 40 boost in neural AI performance not too shabby although I put that to the test in a second according to Apple we also get an extra hour of battery life which I would test except because I've been using this a lot over the last year the battery capacity has actually gone down to 91 which is not ideal although I do use it a lot so for my full review I'm gonna have to get myself a new one of these to do a direct test so it's faster it lasts a little bit longer probably and also we have a bit of an upgrade to the connectivity we get Bluetooth 5.3 which isn't a huge deal it's a little bit more reliable and more power efficient we also get Wi-Fi 6E which gives you access to these six gigahertz Spectrum with up to two times the throughput it has much higher bandwidth than Wi-Fi 6 which we had before but it does require you to have a Wi-Fi 6E router or router so faster slight longer battery life Bluetooth Wi-Fi and HDMI 2.1 now most people are excited about the performance boost and how much faster everything is but for me it's actually this the HDMI 2.1 Port that I'm most excited about because let me show you my setup at the moment this is the old MacBook Pro 16 with the M1 Max I have it hooked up via HDMI to this Asus Rog pg48 uq a very nice gaming monitor really and if I bring up the settings menu you can see it is limited to 60 hertz 4K 60 which is fine but it's not as smooth as the one 120 Pro motion that you get on the actual main screen so it feels like a bit of a step down but now if we switch over to the new Macbook with its more advanced HDMI 2.1 Port you can see I get the full 138 Hertz or even a variable refresh if I want so now you can get up to 4K at 240 hertz this isn't even maxing it out or probably more likely if you are a Creator or a professional hooking up to an 8K display that is an 8K TV where you can get 8K at 60 as opposed to ak-30 before which is again a much smoother experience it's not exactly a run out and buy one of these kind of upgrade but it's definitely a nice quality of life upgrade in my little MacBook Pro 2023 wishlist video I had kind of hoped Apple might be able to shave a few grams off the weight the 16 in particular is a bit of a chunky boy although I can forgive it given how capable and Powerful this thing is but it does kind of make me think do I still need the 16-inch version the performance is basically the same between them although you do get about four hours less battery on the 14 but it's an awful lot more portable and with Thunderbolt and the new HDMI whenever I'm here in this studio I'll output to a big screen anyway so do I need the 16 and it's a lot more expensive now this video is very kindly sponsored by these the brand new Urban is boo what a great name and these guys are a little bit different because they're made from 97 recycled Plastics like bottles air conditioning units and other junk they're trash basically and the box is made of fully recyclable cardboard E-Waste is a huge problem and I have a lot of time for Brands who go the extra mile to help the environment so big points there for sustainability but we also get 30 hours of play time they sound great we get dual mics on each earbud so cool quality is really good as well Bluetooth 5.2 touch commands they're water resistant charged via USBC and the best bit is these guys cost just 69 pounds 99 which makes them a whole lot more affordable than most leading Brands but it comes in six different flavors including raw charcoal black even Cosmic pink now if you're wondering these regular boo earphones are open fit but you also have the option of the boot tips and they have a more in-ear fit as they use silicone tips so if you're after a new pair of earphones definitely give the urban Air's Boo or the boot tips a try and I'll leave a link in the description below and for just under 70 quid I think they're a bit of a bargain okay enough waffling let's talk about performance because that is the main reason you might want to upgrade and I've had the chance to run a few tests and my results are pretty close actually to what Apple are claiming I'm going to run more tests over the coming days and weeks but to get started in geekbench 5 which tests the CPU we're looking at a 15 uptick in single core and a 20 boost in multi-core which actually is bang on what Apple claim then in the Premiere Pro Puget benchmark test similarly we're looking at a 20 boost now bear in mind the M2 Max has the same processor as the M2 Pro I don't know I'm pointing to that that has the old M1 Pro the difference again same as last time is primarily the graphics we get way more GPU cores up to 38. it also doubles the memory bandwidth and the M2 Max allows you to spec up to 96 gigs of their unified memory although in this guy I have 64 same as this so actually this is a perfect comparison M1 Max 64 M2 Max 64. so in terms of graphics and what I do appreciate these aren't really proper gaming machines let's boot up Old Faithful shadow of the Tomb Raider the M2 Max is 29 faster than the M1 Max which is really within the margin of error of exactly what Apple were claiming a 30 uptick in graphics performance which is pretty significant however in my couple of real world tests I didn't see quite the same Improvement in Premiere Pro exporting a 4K h.264 and also a 4K prores edit it was 9 and 13 quicker respectively which isn't that impressive and firing up blender and seeing how long it takes to render 500 frames of this Ripple demo the M2 Max was only 16 faster couple of thoughts firstly you could potentially get better performance out of this if you spec it with the 96 gigs of RAM which is very pricey this top size 64. so this isn't fully maxed out also the performance really does come down to your workflow are you editing prores in Final Cut Pro are you using Apple optimized software and are you really taking advantage of the GPU if you're not then the max is going to be a little bit wasted and in fact the performance between these to is not that significant that really it changes my workflow and I know some of you will shout at me for using Premiere Pro on this and not falca or more like a DaVinci Resolve actually I'm gonna have to learn that at some point it doesn't enable me to really do anything that I couldn't do on this it's all just a little bit quicker a little bit smoother it's sort of quality of life improvements not that revolutionary upgrade we saw going from Intel to M1 what I did notice though although again I've only had this for a few days is it does take longer for the fan to kick in on this than it does on this I was rendering a video side by side at the same time and this started whirring up much earlier than this in fact I barely heard it wrap up until the end of the export although that's not necessarily a good thing because this actually to the touch was cooler than the new model with the M2 Max and I don't know really why a little bit of fan noise is a problem obviously it's nice not hearing the fan but I would rather it kick in and I can hear it I don't really mind that much if I'm doing something intensive or you know a demanding workload and I want the best performance possible and also to stay cool I'd be happy for the fan to come on at least a little bit so while this in my experience so far seems to stay quieter for longer than this in my brief testing and it is brief I need to spend a lot more time with this it actually got hotter quicker and that is about it same design same screen same webcam keyboard trackpad same colors I'd kind of hope there'll be a new sort of midnight or Starlight version of this like we saw with the new air but alas no so simply it's a bit faster although it depends if you can really take advantage of that performance and that isn't really good enough for you HDMI 2.1 which is very nice for me and my setup although not everyone's going to be taking advantage of that if you're using a pro monitor generally thunderbolt's still a better option because it charges the laptop as well Bluetooth 5.3 an extra hour of battery life and that's your lot which is absolutely fine I mean this is already an incredible laptop and this is just a nice refinement but the problem is in the UK at least and some of the countries less so in the US the price has jumped significantly on the older 2021 models the UK prices were around 100 pounds less than the US prices but now there are 100 to 150 more in fact this 16-inch MacBook Pro just the base model versus the base model of the old MacBook Pro is 300 pounds more expensive now I get that's not really Apple's fault there's a lot of inflation our government messed up the country a little bit so so the power's not worth as much but that doesn't change the fact that for you and I if we're going to go out and buy one it's going to make us think twice about whether this is actually worth it so while this is objectively a better laptop it's not the best value for money and actually what you could do is go onto Apple's website and look at refurbished 14 and 16 2021 models and right now a 14-inch M1 Pro is about 1460 pounds and the 16 inch M1 Pro is 850 pounds cheaper than the new 16-inch M2 Pro alternatively if you're not married to the idea of buying a laptop I would definitely check out the new Mac Mini with an M2 Pro which I think is about 1400 pounds pair that with a nice Monitor and you've got a really nice system for quite a lot less money so let me wrap this up and I don't want this video to come across as too negative because this was almost the perfect laptop and this is even more almost the perfect laptop I love this thing it's gonna be my New Delhi driver I appreciate the extra performance on the HDMI 2.1 Port I love this thing and actually as it goes having them both side by side I do think I prefer the space gray although as I say other colors would have been nice the problem is in the UK it's just a lot more expensive I don't think it's fundamentally different from the old model which you can get refurbished or perhaps just from another website for a lot less money and I think this will do just as well for 98 of you but what do you reckon tempted to upgrade or stick with the old one or know the above let me know in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video and want to see my full comparisons and reviews coming very soon make sure you make sure you hit the like And subscribe button down there and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chathey guys I'm Donald Tech Chap and this is the brand new Macbook Pro 16. you'll be pleased to know that my MacBook was not actually in that box earlier uh you probably guessed that but I have actually had this for a couple of days now and I've got a few thoughts I am going to do a more extensive review and also some more comparisons with the rest of the Mac lineup soon but I also want to bring in this guy this is my old MacBook Pro 16. the one I've been using as my daily driver for the past just over a year this came out October 2021 and fortunately I have a slightly different color than new one this is silver this is space gray because from the outside these are physically identical the only difference is this gets a new color matching magsafe cable now I review an awful lot of laptops and for me at least this is or at least what's as close to the perfect laptop as I could get of course unless you want to play games in which case Mac's not really ideal so of course I was extremely excited for the new 2023 M2 versions We had the M2 air launched at WWDC last year we expected them to come out sort of at the end of the year but they didn't but here we are with the new 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros so what's new is it much faster and is it actually worth upgrading to and paying their new higher price for so headline upgrades both the new 14 and 16 can be specked with either an M2 Pro or an M2 Max chip which Apple claim will give you roughly 20 faster CPU 30 faster GPU and about a 40 boost in neural AI performance not too shabby although I put that to the test in a second according to Apple we also get an extra hour of battery life which I would test except because I've been using this a lot over the last year the battery capacity has actually gone down to 91 which is not ideal although I do use it a lot so for my full review I'm gonna have to get myself a new one of these to do a direct test so it's faster it lasts a little bit longer probably and also we have a bit of an upgrade to the connectivity we get Bluetooth 5.3 which isn't a huge deal it's a little bit more reliable and more power efficient we also get Wi-Fi 6E which gives you access to these six gigahertz Spectrum with up to two times the throughput it has much higher bandwidth than Wi-Fi 6 which we had before but it does require you to have a Wi-Fi 6E router or router so faster slight longer battery life Bluetooth Wi-Fi and HDMI 2.1 now most people are excited about the performance boost and how much faster everything is but for me it's actually this the HDMI 2.1 Port that I'm most excited about because let me show you my setup at the moment this is the old MacBook Pro 16 with the M1 Max I have it hooked up via HDMI to this Asus Rog pg48 uq a very nice gaming monitor really and if I bring up the settings menu you can see it is limited to 60 hertz 4K 60 which is fine but it's not as smooth as the one 120 Pro motion that you get on the actual main screen so it feels like a bit of a step down but now if we switch over to the new Macbook with its more advanced HDMI 2.1 Port you can see I get the full 138 Hertz or even a variable refresh if I want so now you can get up to 4K at 240 hertz this isn't even maxing it out or probably more likely if you are a Creator or a professional hooking up to an 8K display that is an 8K TV where you can get 8K at 60 as opposed to ak-30 before which is again a much smoother experience it's not exactly a run out and buy one of these kind of upgrade but it's definitely a nice quality of life upgrade in my little MacBook Pro 2023 wishlist video I had kind of hoped Apple might be able to shave a few grams off the weight the 16 in particular is a bit of a chunky boy although I can forgive it given how capable and Powerful this thing is but it does kind of make me think do I still need the 16-inch version the performance is basically the same between them although you do get about four hours less battery on the 14 but it's an awful lot more portable and with Thunderbolt and the new HDMI whenever I'm here in this studio I'll output to a big screen anyway so do I need the 16 and it's a lot more expensive now this video is very kindly sponsored by these the brand new Urban is boo what a great name and these guys are a little bit different because they're made from 97 recycled Plastics like bottles air conditioning units and other junk they're trash basically and the box is made of fully recyclable cardboard E-Waste is a huge problem and I have a lot of time for Brands who go the extra mile to help the environment so big points there for sustainability but we also get 30 hours of play time they sound great we get dual mics on each earbud so cool quality is really good as well Bluetooth 5.2 touch commands they're water resistant charged via USBC and the best bit is these guys cost just 69 pounds 99 which makes them a whole lot more affordable than most leading Brands but it comes in six different flavors including raw charcoal black even Cosmic pink now if you're wondering these regular boo earphones are open fit but you also have the option of the boot tips and they have a more in-ear fit as they use silicone tips so if you're after a new pair of earphones definitely give the urban Air's Boo or the boot tips a try and I'll leave a link in the description below and for just under 70 quid I think they're a bit of a bargain okay enough waffling let's talk about performance because that is the main reason you might want to upgrade and I've had the chance to run a few tests and my results are pretty close actually to what Apple are claiming I'm going to run more tests over the coming days and weeks but to get started in geekbench 5 which tests the CPU we're looking at a 15 uptick in single core and a 20 boost in multi-core which actually is bang on what Apple claim then in the Premiere Pro Puget benchmark test similarly we're looking at a 20 boost now bear in mind the M2 Max has the same processor as the M2 Pro I don't know I'm pointing to that that has the old M1 Pro the difference again same as last time is primarily the graphics we get way more GPU cores up to 38. it also doubles the memory bandwidth and the M2 Max allows you to spec up to 96 gigs of their unified memory although in this guy I have 64 same as this so actually this is a perfect comparison M1 Max 64 M2 Max 64. so in terms of graphics and what I do appreciate these aren't really proper gaming machines let's boot up Old Faithful shadow of the Tomb Raider the M2 Max is 29 faster than the M1 Max which is really within the margin of error of exactly what Apple were claiming a 30 uptick in graphics performance which is pretty significant however in my couple of real world tests I didn't see quite the same Improvement in Premiere Pro exporting a 4K h.264 and also a 4K prores edit it was 9 and 13 quicker respectively which isn't that impressive and firing up blender and seeing how long it takes to render 500 frames of this Ripple demo the M2 Max was only 16 faster couple of thoughts firstly you could potentially get better performance out of this if you spec it with the 96 gigs of RAM which is very pricey this top size 64. so this isn't fully maxed out also the performance really does come down to your workflow are you editing prores in Final Cut Pro are you using Apple optimized software and are you really taking advantage of the GPU if you're not then the max is going to be a little bit wasted and in fact the performance between these to is not that significant that really it changes my workflow and I know some of you will shout at me for using Premiere Pro on this and not falca or more like a DaVinci Resolve actually I'm gonna have to learn that at some point it doesn't enable me to really do anything that I couldn't do on this it's all just a little bit quicker a little bit smoother it's sort of quality of life improvements not that revolutionary upgrade we saw going from Intel to M1 what I did notice though although again I've only had this for a few days is it does take longer for the fan to kick in on this than it does on this I was rendering a video side by side at the same time and this started whirring up much earlier than this in fact I barely heard it wrap up until the end of the export although that's not necessarily a good thing because this actually to the touch was cooler than the new model with the M2 Max and I don't know really why a little bit of fan noise is a problem obviously it's nice not hearing the fan but I would rather it kick in and I can hear it I don't really mind that much if I'm doing something intensive or you know a demanding workload and I want the best performance possible and also to stay cool I'd be happy for the fan to come on at least a little bit so while this in my experience so far seems to stay quieter for longer than this in my brief testing and it is brief I need to spend a lot more time with this it actually got hotter quicker and that is about it same design same screen same webcam keyboard trackpad same colors I'd kind of hope there'll be a new sort of midnight or Starlight version of this like we saw with the new air but alas no so simply it's a bit faster although it depends if you can really take advantage of that performance and that isn't really good enough for you HDMI 2.1 which is very nice for me and my setup although not everyone's going to be taking advantage of that if you're using a pro monitor generally thunderbolt's still a better option because it charges the laptop as well Bluetooth 5.3 an extra hour of battery life and that's your lot which is absolutely fine I mean this is already an incredible laptop and this is just a nice refinement but the problem is in the UK at least and some of the countries less so in the US the price has jumped significantly on the older 2021 models the UK prices were around 100 pounds less than the US prices but now there are 100 to 150 more in fact this 16-inch MacBook Pro just the base model versus the base model of the old MacBook Pro is 300 pounds more expensive now I get that's not really Apple's fault there's a lot of inflation our government messed up the country a little bit so so the power's not worth as much but that doesn't change the fact that for you and I if we're going to go out and buy one it's going to make us think twice about whether this is actually worth it so while this is objectively a better laptop it's not the best value for money and actually what you could do is go onto Apple's website and look at refurbished 14 and 16 2021 models and right now a 14-inch M1 Pro is about 1460 pounds and the 16 inch M1 Pro is 850 pounds cheaper than the new 16-inch M2 Pro alternatively if you're not married to the idea of buying a laptop I would definitely check out the new Mac Mini with an M2 Pro which I think is about 1400 pounds pair that with a nice Monitor and you've got a really nice system for quite a lot less money so let me wrap this up and I don't want this video to come across as too negative because this was almost the perfect laptop and this is even more almost the perfect laptop I love this thing it's gonna be my New Delhi driver I appreciate the extra performance on the HDMI 2.1 Port I love this thing and actually as it goes having them both side by side I do think I prefer the space gray although as I say other colors would have been nice the problem is in the UK it's just a lot more expensive I don't think it's fundamentally different from the old model which you can get refurbished or perhaps just from another website for a lot less money and I think this will do just as well for 98 of you but what do you reckon tempted to upgrade or stick with the old one or know the above let me know in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video and want to see my full comparisons and reviews coming very soon make sure you make sure you hit the like And subscribe button down there and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat\n"