14 inch MacBook M1 Pro Review - 1 Year Later

Vemuda Techno - The 14 inch Macbook Pro. I’ve been using it for over a year now, and over this time I have tested the M2 MacBook Air, 16 inch pro, even some old retinas. 

But time after time I was still coming back to THIS. I can describe this macbook with a saying – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It creates one impression at first, but the more you actually use it, the more you understand what a different breed it really is.

Source: CNET by Dan Ackerman

The 14 inch MacBook Pro may just be the strangest purchase you can make, and I will tell you why. This is my long-term review, so get yourself a can of coke, and let’s start!

To make things more interesting, I’ll analyze a few use cases and scenarios you may find yourself in with this MacBook.

Is this laptop a good choice for watching movies and a casual user? Yeah, for sure. And there are quite a few reasons to say that.

First – the screen. If you have never used a laptop like this, this will probably be the biggest revelation for you. This panel is something else. Bright, colorful, and so smooth.

The 14 inch Retina XDR screen will just blow you away with its 1000 nits brightness, P3 wide color gamut, and ProMotion.

Personally, I would say that the ProMotion alone is the best thing that has ever happened to MacBooks. 120 Hertz refresh rate makes every scroll you make, every animation so much more alive and fluid. 

And for my eye, coming down to an m2 macbook air is a challenge. 60 hertz screen is nowhere near as good as the 120 hertz one, and your eye will surely notice that.

Plus, the MiniLED technology makes this display phenomenal for watching movies in the dark, since you don’t get that dark-gray areas around the content you’re watching.

Pixels in those areas are not lit, which makes the whole watching experience much more unobtrusive.

The contrast is much better than on LCD screens, the blacks are as black as they can be, and the highlights really pop with those 1600 nits of HDR brightness.

Okay, the screen is great, but you can’t watch a movie without a sound. And this 14 inch laptop will not disappoint you in the slightest. I was really impressed by the quality of sound you can get from this thing.

Yes, it can be a bit flat sometimes, but the loudness just blows you out of the water.

These speakers are probably the best speakers you can get on a laptop this small. Of course, on the 16-inch model they will be even louder and sound even better, but for this size, the 14 inch macbook pro speakers are simply amazing.

The speaker grills are aimed right at you, unlike on the m2 macbook air, so the audio you hear is less distorted by the laptop’s body. So yes, if you are planning on watching movies with this thing – it’ll be worth every dollar.

What about that portability? Well, it’s great, but not ideal. Let me explain.

Size-wise, I have zero complaints. The laptop has a perfect balance between its thickness, height, and length. It’s a pure joy to carry because it weighs only 3.5 pounds or 1.6 kilograms. I can easily shove it into my backpack and go work in a restaurant or outdoors.

And the battery life allows me to even do some complex work. But that doesn’t mean that I love this battery life – it’s impressive for such power, but when you compare it to the M2 MacBook Air, this 14 inch pro will hold charge much less when under the same load.

Apple claims “up to 17 hours” of battery life, but realistically it’s much closer to 6 hours when doing something power-intensive.

But sure, if you want to watch videos outdoors, it will give you around 12-13 hours, which is plenty. I still wish the battery life was better, but not because it is bad, but because the sky's the limit.

The M1 Pro inside is very efficient with its 2 efficiency cores, but I feel like it can do better if Apple would’ve embedded 4 efficiency cores instead.

This way the laptop could’ve stayed on efficient cores longer, without utilizing the power of power-hungry 6 performance cores. There’s still room for improvement, right?

What should be improved is its dustiness. This laptop accumulated dust like crazy, especially under the hinge. It’s not a huge deal, but it would be a problem for those of you who like to keep their devices squeaky clean. I, personally, can deal with that, so not a big deal for me.

Okay, it’s great for movies, working outdoors, but what about a home office? Does it fit in? Well, not without some caveats.

Setting a MacBook Pro 14 inch for a home office is all about ports. And oh boy, it has plenty. Especially if you compare it to the 2019 MacBooks.

Any 2015 model will still crush this thing, but still. The 14 inch MacBook Pro has three thunderbolt 4 usb-c ports, one headphone jack, one HDMI port, and an SD card reader. And for me it is barely enough. Barely, right on the edge of “I’m satisfied” and “I need dongles.”

Luckily, you can use all thunderbolt ports because this macbook has a magsafe charger, which is magnetic and doesn’t take up any ports. I am really, really happy to see the magsafe again, because it makes charging so much more convenient.

But back to ports. I understand that the majority of you are not creative professionals, you don’t edit videos daily, but even a casual user will notice how versatile this laptop is with existing ports.

And that SD card reader makes a huge difference for me, really streaming my workflow, eliminating the need for dongles and adapters. Finally I can just stick a card in, and work with files comfortably.

What I also liked is the external display support. And this laptop supports up to two Pro display XDRs that I, of course, don’t have.

But… the HDMI allows me to connect one external display comfortably and without dongles. Macs are surely the device to get things done. But sometimes it can be less productive than you want it to be.

How can you make the experience more productive? With some clever app selection you can turn your MacBook into a worthy companion.

Let’s take Xnapper for example. This app allows you to create shareable screenshots. This feature has existed on iPhones for years already, but on Macs we still don’t have that.

Being able to take a screenshot and instantly send it to someone frees so much time. The full functionality of this app is paid, but with a Setapp subscription on your Mac, you can activate this app in literally two clicks.

In addition to this app, you get access to many more Mac apps, as well as 230+ any-task apps at a reasonable price in one place - this is the primary advantage of the Setapp.

One of my favorite apps that helps with work is CloudMounter. It allows you to easily connect cloud storage to finder, without entering any console commands or fighting cloud restrictions.

We use Google drive to store project files, and using a browser to manage them isn’t very convenient. With CloudMounter I can interact with my google drive like with a regular folder. Very comfy.

But the largest selection of apps is available for MacOS: education, personal finance, productivity, writing - all this and much more is available on Setapp.

Another app I use regularly is Speeko. Speeko helps me get better at speaking, presenting materials. That’s all thanks to Speeko.

Another app is kind of a lifehack. Modern MacBook pros can go up to 1000 nits of brightness, but it’s limited to 500 by default.

When working outdoors it may be a problem. Vivid allows you to hack the brightness levels and really makes the screen two times brighter.

The app fools the display to ting it is in the right conditions for the full brightness, giving you a brighter, more comfortable to work with image.

And you can access these and 230+ any-task apps at a reasonable price in one place! If you’re a student or teacher, you can get 50% off the regular Setapp pricing!

So, basically, Setapp is filling the macOS and iOS gaps in certain contexts, and it provides good alternatives to default apps.

I think it’s an essential toolbox for macOS and iOS, and to learn more about Setapp, check out the link in the description below.

But how’s the keyboard? Is it worn? Well, the keyboard for me is a controversial thing. After over a year I still can’t say whether I like this full-black keyboard, or the older design like on the MacBook air.

On one hand it helps separate visually the keyboard, but on the other hand it can be hard to type on if you are not particularly good at blind typing. But all and all, I am very satisfied with this keyboard.

It’s miles better than the butterfly keyboard we had before. The keys feel better, they travel more, and the clickiness is much more pleasant. Keys are all backlit, and typing in the night is trouble-free. There’s not much to say about the keyboard and typing, so let’s move on.

You are not here to listen to me bragging about screens and keyboard, right? You want POWER! And this Mac delivers it in full. Over this year I have seen small performance improvements with this thing.

First, when it was launched, the majority of apps were working through a Rosetta transition layer.

But after a year, almost all apps got updated and now support the Apple silicon natively. This means the performance is up, and believe me, this thing is a serious powerhouse.

You know me, you know what I do, so this review would be incomplete without talking about video and photo editing.

A couple of months ago we tested this laptop in every scenario possible. We tested editing, encoding, photo editing, some music, 3D rendering, even coding, so if you want numbers and detailed comparisons – that will be the video for you.

But has anything changed for me? Well, this year of using this laptop was fantastic. I had no issues with video editing and constantly pushed this thing to its max potential, loading the cpu and gpu to 100 percent.

And what really struck me was the comfort of working. Even with a fully loaded processor, the laptop stayed cool and comfortable to touch.

Previously, with Intel-based macs, I was not able to even go near the laptop during rendering, simply because it was almost melting the table underneath.

This 14 inch MacBook is twice as powerful, and still manages to keep cool and almost silent.

If I render a 4K 60 FPS video in ProRES, this laptop not just powers through it thanks to hardware acceleration, but it allows me to edit previews, type texts, and watch videos without a hiccup.

I can’t say with absolute confidence, but I am pretty sure that Apple has done something with the ram management, because it sometimes feels even more responsive than it was before.

And what I especially liked about the performance is the headroom you get. The power of even a baseline 14 inch is enough to easily deal with everything you throw at it and still leave space for doing more demanding tasks.

It can easily edit 4K videos in proRes, but you can edit 8K if you want. And it will power through that. It is so liberating to have a laptop that can do more, that doesn’t limit your potential with its performance.

3D? Not a problem.

Music creation? Not a problem.

Programming? Not a problem.

The headroom you get is probably the best thing about this MacBook. But was there an unexpected discovery for me? Yes, and that was the camera and microphones.

In the recent year I have found myself regularly calling someone, facetime people, shooting video messages, etc. And it is hard to overestimate what an improvement this camera was for me.

It shoots 1080p with all those smart algorithms from Apple. My face is finally lit correctly, with high-quality background blur.

Those three microphones this laptop has are great for video calls, but they are nowhere near the studio-quality Apple advertises. The sound is good, but not good enough for me to replace my studio mic.

However, it saved me a couple of times while I was shooting on location and simply didn’t have my studio mic with me. So, a nice extra option that’s always good to have.

So, what is my verdict after a year of use? Should you buy it? Or should you wait for the M2 Pro?

Well – don’t wait. The Apple silicon is so great, that the generational leap will be minuscule.

Now, for the price, this laptop is a no-brainer. Apple sells it for 2000 dollars, but on Amazon it can be found refurbished for 15 hundred dollars. And for that price it simply becomes the best way to spend money.

Why can it be a strange purchase? Well, because people mostly buy computers without headroom. Their computers are almost always a master of one trade.

But this laptop is definitely a jack of all trades and a master of all of them. It is very rare to see a device that is worth much more than it costs. Even for 2 thousand dollars it is a great deal, but for 15 hundred. 

I think Apple has created the best laptop on the market, and I did not regret buying it for a second.

What do you think? Have you used this laptop? Are you planning on buying one?

Share your thoughts and experience in the comments. Thank you for reading, and see you in the next one!

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