As I said, I’m conflicted. My current laptop is a 15" 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. It won’t be upgradable to Big Sur, so it’s stuck on Catalina forever. The 15" was a good choice for me when it was my primary machine, but these days I’ve got a 27" iMac so the laptop only gets used when I need a computer I can pick up and take somewhere. A smaller lighter computer would definitely be welcome.
On the flip side, given the current circumstances, I don’t really get a whole lot of use out of a laptop. I used to take the MacBook Pro into the office every day (so I could work on a Mac rather than a Windows desktop). I haven’t been going in to an office since March. Not doing much traveling, and what little traveling I am doing is road tripping rather than flying, so the size and weight of the 15" don’t matter as much.
I think I may have talked myself into holding off on an Apple Silicon laptop until after the pandemic.
(If Apple introduces an Apple Silicon 27" iMac, all bets are off, though)
A little over 10% (up to 20 hours on the Pro as opposed to 18 hours on the Air.) IMHO, that doesn’t seem significant enough to warrant picking the Pro over the Air.
I guess perhaps a major difference is that the Pro has a fan and the Air doesn’t.
Im tempted with a new Mini, but the drop to 2 thunderbolt is a little annoying ,and the max of 16mb of RAM, I think ill wait for the reviews before ordering…
The limit of 16GB RAM on the 13" Pro is disappointing. Hopefully there will be a higher end 13" with 4 ports and (at least) 32GB RAM available when they introduce the next CPU.
For me the mini is my primary computer. It’s connected to a 27 inch monitor and is on 24/7. I use a MacBook Air or my iPad Pro if I’m working in another room in my house or if I’m traveling (rare). I also use the air or the iPad if I have to do a video call, as the mini does not have a microphone and my monitor does not have a camera. I guess the question for you is: do you want a desktop or a laptop?
I have a 2019 iMac. I had been considering replacing my 2017 iPad Pro with a new iPad Pro.
Now though, I think I’m going to extend the life of the iPad and get a MacBook Pro. This will become my mobile machine while I will keep the iMac as my desktop battle station.
Been holidng off upgrading my MacMini but looking at the new one with 16GB of Ram, which should give me a few years usage so will go for it later this week.
I would just use a Macbook but the temperature here in summer 38+ regularly makes me nervous of running it connected to an external monitor for long periods so will probably hold on to my 2018 Macbook pro for a couple of years and then go for an air…
I am seriously thinking I do not need all this new computing power so can probably scale back both my Macs and iPads to base models (probably “air” versions) now which will save me money, and go for a higher end phone with the savings.
These are impressive but this is not the Pro I’m looking for, nor the Mini, and certainly not the iMac.
32GB and lots of ports (and preferably not fan) is what I’m looking for. So I think I’m waiting for Round 2. (And catching up in the phone aspect of our tech purchasing backlog.)
I have to admit being enticed by either the MBAir or the Mini. I have been considering replacing my desktop, although not quite ready to jump yet. One problem with using the Mini as a desktop: it looks like it will only support two external monitors, and while that is all I am driving now, I would like the option to power 3 monitors if I want to expand. Clearly the Mini does not do so as advertised, although I wonder if it would drive three monitors if two were connected to a TB/USB4 Dock and a third to the HDMI output? It may be awhile before anyone has one and reports on this.
It’s a bit surprising that they are delivering only 2 TB4 ports; while that might be enough for a laptop (although not necessarily a MBPro?), I suspect many users have enough connected to a desktop for that to be insufficient. It seems Apple is just assuming that many people will have to buy a TB4 dock…which is kind of a bummer compared to them just given more ports in the first place.
I wonder if there is a limitation on the M1 chip in this regard (well, presumably it has only one TB4 controller and if the TB4 controller is like the TB3 in this regard, it can only support two ports)…perhaps in the next chip from Apple we will see more TB4 ports.
I don’t expect a per-core speed bump to be stellar.
I expect a 12- or 16-core to suit Mac Pro. (12 would be in line with the industry but 16 makes more “adequate configuration” sense.
I’m a mainframe performance guy so I know all about multiprocessor ratios. (We’ve done very well with near-linear scaling so I expect Apple will do quite well, too. But don’t expect a 16-way to have double the multi core performance of a 8-way - in a single SOC package let alone a single chip.)
M2 probably will have more “fancy stuff” like more AI / GPU cores etc.
I would also think the SOC package would be substantially larger for Mac Pro and maybe Mac Mini and maybe iMac. That could allow:
More ports.
More memory. (My ideal 32GB+)
On “more ports” I wonder if Apple expect mobile (laptop) users to use a dock to get the extra ports.
Anyhow I have an excuse - with the speculation above - to keep saving up for another year.
I am waiting for the iMac (if my current iMac can keep running for another year). It is limping a little but I do not want to buy the last generation intel iMac. I am hoping that the Silicon iMac’s will basically combine the iMac Pro with the “regular” iMac. That they will fold the two lines into one.
Was anyone a little concerned listening to the recent Apple Event when they said that the entire transition would be complete in two years? They said that in June also! Shouldn’t it be a year and a half at this point?
I imagine the Desktops will be the last to move to Silicon and I do not want to wait more than a year for an iMac. I am hoping that it is the MacPro that really is responsible for the “two years” and the iMacs will come sooner than that.
mine