The M4 MacBook Pro doesn’t seduce me because the Apple Silicon Mac is almost too good

The new M4 MacBook Pro is a beast, offering an incredible combination of performance and battery life, offering center stage camera bonuses and options for Nano-Texture display.

But I have to say I am not seduced remotely. Honestly, my 2021 M1 Max MacBook Pro still feels like a brand new machine.

A quick history of purchasing a Mac

Historically, I tended to go to the biggest models and have kept them for at least five years. For example, the 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro was replaced in 2016 with a 15-inch Touchbar model.

Certainly, it was easy in a time when MacBook Pro models were user upgradeable. The 17-inch model has passed three specifications, from purchase to sale.

• Buy from Apple as 8GB RAM, 750GB hard drive, optical drive
• I quickly upgraded to 16GB RAM and 2x 1TB hard drive
• After that I upgraded to a 2x 1TB SSD

A few things have changed since then. One of them was Apple’s switch to designs that cannot be upgraded (or certainly not user-upgradeable). My 2019 upgrade was primarily for the wrong reasons. It is postponed by the reliability of 2016.

I usually kept it for a long time, but the switch to Apple silicon was impossible to resist, so I upgraded again after just two years.

But that pace isn’t something I will continue.

The M4 MacBook Pro is a beast

Don’t get me wrong, it really looks like a great machine, especially the M4 Max version. If your wallet is bulky enough, you can specify:

• 16 core CPU
• 40 core GPU
• 16 Core Neural Engine
• 128GB unified memory
• 8TB SSD
• Nano-Texture Display

Certainly you’ll leave for the store for $7,349 lightly. Most pros aren’t going that far, but they can do if they want.

It combines it with up to 24 hours of battery life, making it a truly amazing combination of performance and power efficiency.

But I still feel that my M1 Pro Max is brand new

But I am not tempted a bit. There was not a single day when the M1 Max MacBook Pro felt it needed more power or longer battery life.

I love being able to plug into a 49-inch monitor and use it for video editing on the Final Cut Pro, but I also love being able to use it all day on a plane without much risk of injury and without worrying about coffee shops or electricity.

Ah, I also really like the fact that it remains cool on my lap and rarely hear fans spin up.

My one concern was the fear of potential repair costs if it turned out to be as unreliable as the 2016 model. At one point I thought I would have to resign to sales every time AppleCare coverage runs out.

But fortunately, I had no problems with this. The company resolved AppleCare issues in 2021, allowing annual renewals of more than three years. In fact, I updated the cover yesterday.

So I’m definitely planning to go back to an approximately five year upgrade cycle, but it might be long.

Apple silicon Macs may be pretty much too good

And this could cause problems for Apple. The latest and best Apple Silicon Mac may be really impressive, but… the old ones still remain astounding machines.

The Intel MacBook was spinning fans like it did in 747. If they are stupid enough to do tough work on them while they are on our lap, burn your thighs. When you do anything other than email or the web, you eat the battery.

The M1 MacBooks are just day and night differences, and the enormous scale of their upgrades means that even the M4 MacBook Pro looks like something you buy when money isn’t an object, but there’s nothing to sell to me in real life.

Certainly, if I had bought it again today, I might have been tempted to opt for the MacBook Air because I know I am happy to know those who use them for reasonably complicated final cut pro projects. Probably not Many While onboard storage and air are at 2TB, this is a completely viable alternative for many people who have always purchased Intel MacBook Pro models.

Future design changes may be helpful

Of course, the specs are only part of the photo, and future design changes may be useful. The form factor for the Apple Silicon Mac has essentially remained unchanged since the first generation, but you need to wonder how long you can come up with valuable improvements to your design.

Of course, as soon as the OLED screen comes, I’m guessing the face ID (which makes it strange that it didn’t come to MacBook as part of Notch). The bezel is smaller, probably It’s enough to narrow down a 17-inch display to a 16-inch chassis or 16-inch to a 15-inch size. Apple will probably find a way to make them a bit writer. perhaps Get the cellular model. Further ahead, the OLED will be replaced by a microring.

So, Apple will come up with other reasons for upgrades, but I think it must work much more difficult than what it felt like a bad old Intel era.

Photo: 9to5 mac collage of images of Apple and Maxim Berg on Unsplash