I plan to buy a MacBook Pro M1 (or maybe soon M1X). But I am afraid about the fan noise (which is not a problem with the MacBook Air, of course). For those of you who own a MBP M1, do you experience any issue with noise?
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I have a 13" and it’s incredible quiet, I’m really impressed with it. Of course, I’m comparing it with my 16" Intel machine (work) which sounds like a 747 trying to take off, so I may just be deaf to it 
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Thanks Rosemary. Which configuration did you choose?
Just the basic one, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, it’s what they had in the refurb store when I needed one!
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Mine is dead quiet, and for perspective, I hear everything, which is kind of annoying.
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Sorry John, but what do you mean?
I have this sensory thing where I’m really sensitive to all noises and sounds. So I usually compensate by wearing noise canceling headphones.
So if the MBP made any sound, I would be sure to hear it.
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I have the 13 inch M1 MacBook Pro, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it, I tend to use my desktop Mac for heavy duty things, though, so I might not have triggered the fan yet
One more vote for quiet. Never heard the fan.
Since you’re all here… what about heat? Do you ever feel it get hot?
I realize the lack of fan noise probably means it doesn’t really need to spin up the fans, so that bodes well. But lately I’ve been finding my iPad is getting real warm when I am doing a lot with it at once, so I am curious about how that maps to the laptops.
I can’t say I’ve ever paid attention, but I’ve never noticed heat with mine, and I use it on my lap quite a bit. But again, I haven’t used it for really intensive stuff yet. My 2017 15 inch MacBook Pro got noticeably warm using it on my lap — not painful, but to the point of making me too warm.
(If anyone is wondering why I went with the Pro instead of the Air, since I haven’t taxed the Pro yet — in addition to giving me the option to do more taxing work when/if I start traveling again, I’m also one of the freaks who uses the Touch Bar. I’ve configured the buttons on it to match the buttons on my Stream Deck)
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FWIW - even my M1 MacBook Air, without a fan, never seems to get hot.
Of course that somewhat depends what you’re doing with it. If you’re rendering 8k video for 12 hours, I’d expect it’ll warm up.
But in my regular usage, I can’t even remember it getting all that warm.
FWIW, YMMV. Use as directed. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
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It doesn’t get hot for me, either. The laptops can dissipate more heat than the iPad Pros since they don’t have to drive the screen with the same piece of metal that contains the processor.
If you want to ensure the fan doesn’t come on, or make the fan turn on, you can use an app like TG Pro - Temperature monitoring & fan control - I paid $10 for this awhile ago. If you force the fan to stay off and do processor-intense work, the Pro will behave like the Air and throttle after several minutes of warming.
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No, never.
My cat loved my 2015 MBP because it was like a space heater in my lap.
I’ve also wondered about the effects of Intel vs. M1 on fertility (heat lowers sperm count & quality).
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Evan, what software are you using to get the stream deck buttons on the Touch Bar? Great idea. BTW.
Paul
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Paul, I’m using a combination of BetterTouchTool and Keyboard Maestro. On the Stream Deck, my buttons mostly trigger Keyboard Maestro macros. In BetterTouchTool, I’ve set up buttons that each have one action (“Run Apple Script (async in background)”). Each Apple Script simply triggers the keyboard maestro macro. For example:
tell application "Keyboard Maestro Engine"
do script "Paste clipboard into VoiceEdge and dial"
end tell
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Sounds great. I would have never thought to try something that way. Thanks for the info. Definitely something to look into.
Paul
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No heat or noise from my M1.
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Not a laptop but the only way I can hear the fans in my M1 iMac is to put my ear against the case. Ran the Geekbench tests today and the cpu got to 180+F and I never heard the fans.
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Noise, what noise? I too have the MBP (13" M1). I have yet to hear the fan, although in fairness I don’t do video editing or high demand functions.
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