Review of the 2021 MacBook Pro 14"

I have used the MacBook Pro 14” for a couple weeks now and I want to make a little review of it.

Long story short, it’s amazing.

It’s a 14” M1 Max MacBook Pro.

I’ve never had a computer this powerful.

I always got entry level computers, and for me going to max out the specs to get the most powerful portable Mac I could buy was a great stepping stone.

I might never do that again, who knows. But at this point in my career, I had the opportunity to invest money into a machine that will help me in the future to perform better at my job.

I also needed to spend money. If you have a business, in the modern western society you need to spend money otherwise you’ll basically send that money to the government in taxes.

If you buy with your money, you pay with already taxed money. If you buy with business money, you pay with untaxed (yet) money, you don’t pay 22% VAT (…) plus you can deduct the cost from the total you’ll pay taxes on.

In short, a 2000€ computer ends up costing 1000€, more or less.

I’m prone to having buyer’s remorse any time I do a purchase, but this time I didn’t get any. This is an absolute beast of a machine.

I got the version with 10 core CPU and 32 code GPU and 64GB of RAM. This is going to last me a long time.

What do I like about it? The observations I’ll do are of course influenced by the 3 Macs I had in the recent past: a 2010 13” MBP, a 2018 13” MBA and a 2019 16” MBP.

1. Much more portable and light than my old 2019 16” MBP. WAY more portable. I’ll take this thick Mac with me all the time.
2. Thicker and heavier than the MBA, but also WAY more powerful.
3. Reminds me of the 2010 MBP, a computer that lasted me 9 years with some RAM and SSD upgrades (in the good old days we could upgrade Mac laptops)
4. Video editing is absolutely fantastic and super fast compared to my 2019 MBP.
5. Doesn’t get hot at all, unlike my 2019 MBP and 2010 MBP. It stays super cool.
6. The battery runs for oh so many hours. I can’t believe it. The 2019 MBP battery could last 3 hours max?
7. I’ll take it with me a lot more compared to the 16”. It can fit in my backpack more easily, and won’t be a brick.
8. For 90% of my activities, I’ll just notice more battery and less hotness coming from the keyboard. Which is already HUGE.
9. But when video editing, that’s the main difference for me. As a “content creator” in the “creator economy” this machine is a competitive advantage. I don’t love doing video editing, so if the tools get in my way I get nervous. On the other hand if the tool makes things easy for me, I can work faster and happier.