M1 Pro Macbook Photography Review - 16GB Ram Mistake?

After a month of using the new M1 Pro MacBook everyday, I can tell you that this machine is a total game-changer. In this video, I'm reviewing the new M1 Pro MacBook Pro from the perspective of a professional photographer. The performance is insane; the screen is beautiful; and the SD card slot is back. I've used this in the office, in the studio and at coffee shops. Let's see how this laptop has changed my creative process over the past month.

Today, we're reviewing the new M1 Pro MacBook Pro after a month of daily use. I went with a 16-inch model with a 10-Core CPU, 16-Core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage for about $2,699 (prices may change).

My professional uses for this laptop are photo editing in Lightroom, video editing in Final Cut Pro and tethered shooting through Sony's Imaging Edge app. I also organize my life and business through Notion, write emails, use Slack to talk to my team, take Zoom calls with clients, and watch a lot of YouTube videos.

This review will focus on the pro uses I personally have for this laptop. I know a lot of you will be able to find this really valuable. I've already made a first-look video as well as an extensive Lightroom stress-test video, writing a bunch of tests, comparing the latest MacBook Pro to last year's model. Go check that out if you want to see some detailed testing.

The bottom of the case also feels a bit more hollow. I don't know if that makes sense, but when I tap it, it feels like there's more room for airflow down there.

Apple brought back MagSafe, which is fun, but personally, I haven't even used it once over the past month. When I'm in the office, the M1 Pro MacBook Pro is hooked up to my LG 5K external display, which constantly charges it. When I'm not my desk, the battery life of this thing is so good that I don't even ever need to worry about charging it unless I'm going on a multiple day trip.

I've used the M1 Pro MacBook Pro in coffee shops for half a day and even tethered in a studio shoot on a battery, and I've had zero complaints about the battery life.

Touch ID has its own key now, and it feels faster than ever. Unlocking this laptop from sleep always feels immediate. I'm glad Touch ID is here to stay.

The reason there is a notch is because there's an extra third of an inch of screen real estate space. It's not like Apple took the screen we already had and made it smaller by adding a notch. They took the screen; they made it bigger, and they had to include a notch to fit the webcam. Now, for the notch be a bit smaller, sure, definitely. Right now, there's only a webcam in it. I have a good feeling that Apple is going to introduce Face ID into these, so that might be why it's so big right now.

As for usability, when your mouse goes over the notch, the M1 Pro MacBook Pro just pretends it's not there, and it's just some more screen. This is also visible if you take screenshots of your screen. Alright, enough about this silly notch. What about the rest of the display?

Apple brought its Liquid Retina XDR display to the MacBook, and oh boy, it's amazing. This display gives new life to all of my photos. The blacks are super rich on the screen, and it gives my really contrasty photos this awesome look to them. The colors just look beautiful. The dark parts look amazing, and it just makes the photos pop off the screen. Really cool stuff, Apple.

Like all Apple displays, this is a color-accurate display with P3 color gamut. It's also got 1000 nits of sustained brightness and 1600 nits of peak brightness when you're watching HDR content. One thing I've heard with people that print their work is they need to recalibrate this display to match their printers, so if you're someone who prints off your photos or design work, just keep that in mind about the M1 Pro MacBook Pro.

Apple also brought Pro Motion to these MacBooks. I honestly haven't noticed it apart from sliding through different workspaces. It's a nice feature I have, I guess, but I haven't really noticed it that much at all.

There's one last thing I want to mention about this screen that I love. In older models of MacBooks, my screen would get dirty whenever I closed it. The screen ended up touching the keyboard and all the oils from my fingers would transfer from the keyboard to the screen. You'd be able to see this because some of the keyboard buttons would be outlined on the screen.

Well, that problem is gone now. There must be some more space between the screen and the keys because I haven't really run into a dirty screen yet. It's really nice if you're a photographer because when you're editing a photo, you might not know if your photo has an imperfection in it, or if it's just some dirt on your screen. Big thumbs-up to apps on this one.

The new MacBook Pros have updated their speakers, their microphones, and their webcam. MacBook speakers are already so far ahead of any other laptops out there. These sound a little bit better than the previous generations, but I actually don't know if I'd be able to tell them apart in a blind test. MacBook speakers are just a wonderful experience.

The microphones have also been updated. I'm actually recording this part on the M1 Pro MacBook Pro mic, and it sounds pretty good. If you're using these mics for Zoom calls, then your voice will come across nice and clear. Maybe, if you get really close up to them, you'd even be able to use them as a voice-over on a video if you don't have a proper external mic.

Finally, the webcam. It's been finally upgraded to 1080p after what feels like five years of just being behind all the other competition. I've used it on some Zoom calls. I guess it looks better. It's still not, I think phenomenal. If you want to livestream or anything like that, I recommend you just get a proper webcam or use a real camera.

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I've never been happy with Lightroom performance until I used it on this computer. Everything is buttery-smooth, importing, building previews, and exporting all, that happens really fast. I'll get into some numbers in a second, but more importantly to me is the editing performance.

The new M1 Pro chip, more CPU and GPU cores, and the faster SSDs all come together to give this laptop speed as out of this world.

The new M1 Pro MacBook Pro imported all 100 photos in 49 seconds, finished building previews in 1 minute and 56 seconds. The 2019 midrange MacBook completed all imports in 2 minutes and 26 seconds and finished building all previews in 2 minutes and 59 seconds.

These times are drastically different, and we can really see the new SSD and M1 Pro chip working twice as fast on the import and about 50% faster for building previews, crazy speed tier. With the export times, we had similar speed bumps. Exporting 100 photos took about 4 minutes on the M1 Pro MacBook Pro and about 6 minutes and 30 seconds on the older laptop. Again, we're seeing about 50% to 60% difference in speed here.

This workflow that I just demonstrated here is one that I actually go through a lot. I do a lot of stop motion videos for clients, so importing and exporting 100 photos is a pretty common thing that I do. I've done a number of these stop motions over the past month and saved me loads of time. By investing to this new laptop, I'm able to deliver the same high quality content to my clients at the same price, but it takes me less time. Time is money.

Let's talk Photoshop.

I personally don't use Photoshop that often anymore. Most of my extensive Photoshop work in my business is done by one of my editors. That being said, my main use case for Photoshop is a little dodge and burn here and there, and then some spot healing.

For this use case, the new M1 Pro chip was just flawless. In my line of work, I do a lot of tethered shooting. For prop photography, it's great because I can quickly review the photos and rate them immediately, so it saves me time during the culling process.

Final Cut is made by Apple, so it's really optimized to take full advantage of these new chips. Grubbing through 4K footage is buttery smooth as expected and export times are just ridiculously fast. I tested a ten-minute-long, 4K YouTube video on the new M1 Pro MacBook Pro as well as on my older 16-inch MacBook to see how they performed.

This past month of use, I never heard the fans turn on once. If I'm exporting something and I put my ear really close to a laptop and I try to hear them, I can hear something, but these fans are just so quiet that I never noticed them.

I'm curious to know if M1 Max has the fans going more often than the M1 Pro. This laptop doesn't get hot either. When I'm on the couch, I can just have them on my legs and it feels fine. If I want to do this with my older laptop, I would need to put a book or something underneath so that my legs wouldn't burn.

Battery life on this thing is phenomenal. The new M1 Pro chip is just so efficient. I found myself editing off of the battery in my living room and in coffee shops, and there's no drop in performance. This is pretty remarkable in itself. As far as real world testing is concerned, if I'm doing light work, light email, web browsing, that kind of stuff, then my battery has lasted the entire day.

When I edited in Lightroom, I've been able to get about four hours, which is three more than I could get with my old laptop. I mentioned earlier that I took this laptop on a studio shoot where I tethered it with my camera. My photos were importing to Lightroom as I was taking them.

At the end of the two-hour shoot, my battery was at 50%. I also realized that my laptop was charging my camera throughout the entire process. The battery life of this M1 Pro MacBook Pro just gives you so much peace of mind. So, which configuration should you get?

Intel MacBooks are just going to lose their value really rapidly, so the sooner you can sell yours, the better. Now, whether you're an M1 Pro, M1 Max, or just even an M1 chip is another question. If you're making any money from your creative endeavors, I'd say, just go for the M1 Pro or Max. If you're not making money, then the M1 chip could be something to look at. But, if you've got money to spend, then get the M1 Pro.

In my latest videos on these laptops, I had a lot of people saying they're coming from a 2015, 2016, 2017 MacBook, and they don't know which one is right for them. If you're going from a five year old laptop to the M1 Pro, your mind will be blown at the speed of this thing.

The M1 Pro is twice as fast as my laptop from last year, so just imagine how much faster is going to be over your old MacBook. Give yourself a peace of mind and just grab the M1 Pro. If you're shooting 8K video, then yeah, probably go with the M1 Max. Unless you actually have a use case for it, stick with M1 Pro.

As far as configurations go, should you get the 16GB brand version or 32GB? What about the SSD, 14-inch or 16-inch? You definitely want to get the screen size that you're more comfortable with.

I personally like the 16-inch one, but if you want more portability, 14-inch is a great option. I also went with 16GB of RAM on this thing. I wanted this laptop as soon as it came out, so that was my only option there. I don't regret that choice at all. 16GB has been plenty for all the uses I talked about earlier. If money is an issue for you, then I would say stick with 16GB, and put the rest of the money towards a bigger SSD.

The biggest complaint I hear about the 16GB model is people saying the M1 Pro MacBook Pro going to up a lot of swap memory and destroy their SSD. All the tests people are claiming are from the early days of SSDs, and SSDs have gone way better over the years.

I really don't think that this will be an issue. The speed of SSDs also makes a swap memory here really fast. You saw the test that I did. If 16GB wasn't an issue there, I don't think it's going to be an issue down the road for me. I could be completely wrong about this and I'll eat my words, but right, now I'm confident that I made the right choice.

If you're a working professional, which one is right for you? If you don't have that much money to spend, the base level 14-inch MacBook Pro for about $2,000 (prices may change) is a fantastic choice. If you have some cash to invest in business, then I would go for the 10-Core CPU, 16-Core GPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB option.

With this, you can either do it in the 14-inch or 16-inch model. It really depends what form factor you prefer. The 14-inch model goes for about $2,499 (prices may change), and the 16-inch goes for about $2,699 (prices may change). These laptops will last you years and years.

As a special thank you for watching till the end, I want to share with you a free creative business checklist that I made here. If you're a photographer, a filmmaker, or any creative trying to make money in this industry, go download this free simple checklist. It'll jumpstart your business in less than 30 days, and you'll be making money doing something you love.

I appreciate you watching. Your time is valuable, and I'm grateful you spent it watching this video. If you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up and I'll see you on the next one. Bye.