For the first time in my life, I’m in the market for a personal MBP. I had to get my ancient MBP for work replaced last week and they sent me one of the new 14" M2 Pro models and I absolutely love it. As I spent more time with it, I decided I think I want a piece of the new MBP line.
During the course of my initial belaboring of the options (primarily: 14 vs 16, M2 Pro vs Max) and the fact that I’m a manchild who doesn’t want to wait 3 weeks for a more customized build, I’ve kind of landed on the default configurations for the M2 Max in both 14 and 16 inch - this would allow me to simply pay for the thing online with my Apple card, get my monthly installments, and just leave the house and go push through the throngs of people at the Apple store to pick it up near instantly. I popped by an Apple store y esterday just to get some face-to-face time with a 16 inch to decide if I could stomach the size.
I have an old ThinkPad X1 Big Dong Xtreme Edition or whatever ridiculous marketing name it had and that thing is 17" and a bit too… I dont know. It feels like a lunch tray in the lap and it could heat a 2k sq. ft. house when it really gets going. If I had used it extensively (I didn’t) the heat probably would have sterilized me and cooked my legs with enough time.
But that doesn’t mean I’m 200% AGAINST a 16" MBP, just that a 14" would be somewhat preferable. The concerns I’m seeing about overheating and throttling of an M2 Max in the 14" form factor are somewhat concerning, but as I dig deeper, there seem to be two camps here. One who says they will NEVER buy a laptop where there is ANY compromise involved (which is frankly kind of silly) and they go on to really bash the 14" heating/throttling issue, and another - seemingly more sensible - camp that states that overheating and throttling is something that the vast majority of even professional users likely won’t experience often - if at all. They say that the benchmarks being run are putting excessive, incredible load on these chips that will rarely - if ever - be seen in anything but the most absolutely demanding use cases… which I understand is how benchmarks often work.
For the record, my intended uses for the laptop will be primarily writing code (mostly Python, maybe some Golang) and music production, primarily in FL Studio (post v20, where they added support for Apple Silicon - VSTs I like to use might be another issue here entirely in that regard, but I’m emotionally prepared for that fight).
So what’s the deal? Should I say “fuck it” and spring for the 16" with the Max chip? Or does the 14" sound fine for my uses/are the complaints totally overblown?
EDIT: I think I’m calling it here. The 14" Max model I’m looking at is $3099. If I was to take the Pro build and bump it to 32GB RAM, the price difference becomes only $200 - a difference I can stomach for the convenience of getting it as soon as I drag my lazy ass out of the chair and drive to the Apple store for same-day pickup. Everyone’s feedback is HIGHLY appreciated.
This might be a hot take but I have used both a 16” M1 Max and a 14” with a M2 Pro with very similar use cases to you and I would just get a 14 with a M2 Pro if it was me. You won’t need the Max and you will get better battery life with the Pro, I didn’t even notice the missing cores because apple silicon just feels so much faster overall. I didn’t notice any heat throttling on the 14” either, the fans barely ran at all.
For my money, the 14” MBP with an M2 Pro might be my favorite computer Apple has ever created that I have used (have used almost every generation of MBP since the titanium one). Just my 2c but hope it helps!
With this take, you (and others, from my research) are really making me lean towards putting on my big boy pants and maybe just ordering a 14" with an M2 Pro and 32GB RAM (the 32GB makes it a non-default build and jumps the wait time to about 3 weeks). I really wish there was a 14" Pro chip variant with 32GB as a default.
More RAM will always give you more longevity than more CPU. It is my policy to never buy the default configuration of any Mac, because they always have too little RAM.
I dont disagree with this fully, but the default 14" Max build has 32GB and that’s what i’d consider a sweet spot for having a DAW open with a bunch of synthesizers in there and a browser with a bunch of tabs open. The era of 16GB being more than enough is over.
You are absolutely right on that, both of those had 32GB of memory and I would call that my minimum these days as well, should have mentioned that too. I had to give the 14” back when I left a job and I still miss it haha. It’s worth the wait for the memory, it’s really annoying that they require a special build for that but I suppose they want people to spring for the Max.
Also, I have an M2 MBA with 16GB of memory currently as a personal/family machine because I didn’t want to wait for a custom build with 24 and I really should have, 16 just isn’t enough anymore for me anymore but it was useful to prove that to myself again (I guess, haha).
I sit here in my ivory tower, casting judgment on 16GB weaklings… while typing all of this from my old gaming desktop which has just 16GB. hahaha (all my gaming happens on a Steam Deck now which also only has 16… but all it does it run steam and video games, so it suffices)
HAH I just upgraded my gaming machine not too long ago, CitiesSkylines finally pushed it over the edge.