One year ago, I made a crazy investment. One that had to be worth it and then some. Did that happen? This is the M4 MacBook Pro one year later. Let’s talk about it.
My Configuration and Specs
On your screen right now are the raw stats of my laptop with personalized upgrades in the processor, storage, and RAM departments from the base configuration, leading to a total of approximately $3,000.
This is the space black 14-inch model sporting a beautiful display, a great tactile keyboard, and a large trackpad for excellent ease of usability. This MacBook consists of a full metal thin chassis that manages to be light and portable while also powerful.
Workflow and Daily Use
My laptop is used mainly for my YouTube channels, for editing, exporting, and uploading videos, thumbnail creation, and motion graphics like the ones on your screen here.
Videos per channel varies with different quality standards for each production from 5 to 10 minute videos on this channel to 1 to two hour videos on another and even 30-hour ones. So, I cast a wide net in regard to pushing this laptop to its limits.
On top of that, because it’s a laptop, I’ve taken this MacBook Pro all over. So, I’ve seen how it performs in a variety of different locations, temperatures, and of course, with different tasks.
Performance Review
So, how well does it do? Well, let’s move on to the performance section. Without a doubt, this thing is fast. Incredibly so. I jumped from a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro that is still relatively powerful, but for my workflow, it was in dire need of an upgrade.
The main programs I use are fairly streamlined, but I get a lot out of them. Most often, I use Final Cut Pro for editing, PowerPoint for motion templates and icons, and Canva for my thumbnails. But now, I’ve delved into Keynote ever since graduating from my university, and the performance bumps just keep on coming.
Editing and Creative Tasks
Firstly, let’s talk about editing. Then, I’ll delve into more of the creative work. Editing on this laptop is incredibly fast. Rarely do I ever see a slowdown or freezing. It does still happen. Very rare, of course.
You can’t get everything to be absolutely perfect, but for 99% of the time, it just works. Even with the rare freezing, that only lasts a second at most, unless I do something in particular, which we’ll discuss momentarily.
Now, Final Cut Pro is one of Apple’s native softwares, so naturally, it’s going to run buttery smooth with the M4 Pro chip found in this computer. I don’t think that this laptop is just powerful in its own realm. There are so many different benchmarks that show the power of the M chips compared to the alternatives. It’s pretty shocking how well Apple is able to keep up and even beat the competition.
Making motion templates and small animations on Keynote with this laptop has admittedly been a bit of a transition for me coming from Microsoft PowerPoint. But despite the relatively new program to me, there have been zero performance drops at all with it. This laptop is so fast. So processing power-wise, I can’t find any qualms with this laptop from my perspective.
Hardware Upgrades: Storage and RAM
Now going into the upgrades I made for the storage and RAM, storage firstly was an absolute must for me. Do note that with Max, you cannot internally upgrade your storage. So you unfortunately need to configure it ahead of time.
I went from the 512 GB of base storage to 1 TBTE. And being someone who bought the base storage with his last MacBook Pro originally, I found that it’s better to bump that up even just a tad if you want to keep your laptop for a while.
Because once you hit that storage ceiling, your Mac will constantly remind you that you were low and there will be so many different tasks that you won’t be able to do. Something that was especially frustrating for me when I was a grad student. So getting that 1 TBTE upgrade was an absolute necessity based on experience for me. No more worrying about storage all of the time like with my old laptop.
But with that said, I still keep everything saved in my external SSD for ease of data transfer and consolidation. So for instance, I have this SSD solely dedicated to my YouTube videos, which allows me to offload storage from my laptop to something that’s far cheaper to buy and I can always use it with my other devices and even future laptops. So storage in a nutshell for me has been painless and I intend to keep it that way.
Analyzing RAM
For RAM or random access memory, which is essentially hyperfast storage that’s used to keep your programs running on your computer simultaneously, I have not had any issues with it at all. And that’s because I upgraded from the base 18 GB to the whopping 48 GB, which I honestly feel as though I might have went overkill on the RAM and probably should have upgraded to the M4 Max chip with 36 GB instead because many folks, myself included, may honestly only need the base 18 GB or 24 GB of RAM with this thing.
48 just put it above everything I have ever used before. And coming from a laptop that constantly wind about being low on RAM, I was determined to not experience that again. So, absolutely zero issues with multiple open tabs, programs, and tasks running at the same time. None. If there are any suggestions you have for things I should do to further utilize this RAM more, leave them in the comment section down below.
So bringing these three main components together, the processor, the storage, and the RAM, this laptop is an absolute monstrous productivity machine that is rarely bogged down.
The Bluetooth Editing Issue
But I have found its maker. This is the AirPods 4. Amazing earphones that I use for nearly everything, but not editing. You see, with these headphones, and commonly with other Bluetooth headphones, due to the nature of them being wireless, these things make my MacBook lag so incredibly bad when editing.
I don’t just mean that the sound is off by a millisecond or something only a keen eye would be able to tell. I mean that there is significant slowdown when editing with these things on. There are constant freezes. Doing anything takes forever just to load on Final Cut Pro, and I simply cannot get a video done in a reasonable amount of time because of how much lag there is.
After reading about this online, I learned that it is a common issue to experience a bit of lag while editing with Bluetooth headphones on and AirPods. But for other things, such as listening to music while completing other work, there’s no trouble at all. It’s just editing. And so I can’t really use my AirPods with this thing to get my work done, which is honestly a super big bummer for me and negates one of the main reasons why I use laptops over desktops.
I like the portability aspect. I don’t like to sit in one place all day long doing something, especially for my hobby. It’s just not how I want to enjoy my time. I’m sure there’s a solution to this issue, one that I just haven’t found yet. Maybe even I got the biggest lemon laptop for this one specific issue, but for everything else, it just outperforms literally everyone.
I mean, seriously, I feel as though I got incredibly lucky with how this laptop has had no problems with anything. Just this one issue that I can’t seem to resolve just yet. So, if you do similar work to me and want to do it with your Bluetooth headphones, really keep that in mind. You might not be able to do so without a bit of a slowdown, if not a significant slowdown.
But my way to circumvent this issue is simply just to not edit with my wireless earbuds. Either using wired headphones or just editing in a more private space had made this a non-issue for me for the most part. It’s something I’m glad has a workaround, but I wish I didn’t need to use it.
Resilience and Portability
So, with the performance of claims and criticisms out of the way, let’s talk about what else I’ve experienced with this laptop. Like I said, overall, I’ve been incredibly impressed with this device. One year into using it, I’ve been able to pump out so many videos with record speed.
It’s been incredible. The laptop overall has shown amazing resilience in different weather conditions, including some pretty extreme cold in the winter. We have a bad where I went to university, and also some extreme heat because in my last year of university, I lived in a dorm with no AC.
So, it hit some super high temps with no hope for colder air. In both situations, the laptop ran completely fine, though, with no loud fan noise and no noticeable performance dips whatsoever. In fact, I honestly don’t usually hear its fans turn on, even in some extreme heat conditions. It’s pretty impressive.
There’s a lot of advanced cooling technology packed into this thing, so it’s no wonder why it’s able to do what it does under certain conditions, but it’s not water resistant, and it’s still prone to bruising if you bump it into things. So, I always pack my laptop into a protective sleeve so it doesn’t get damaged when I move around.
Battery and Display
Battery wise, the laptop lasts a full day with general use, even more if I don’t do too much with it. When editing though, of course, its battery time will fluctuate with it generally needing a charge after editing for a few hours. So, it’s still a laptop after all. But there are a lot of battery saving measures you can implement. In addition to the MagSafe to USBC charger being so incredibly fast at recharging the laptop and repowering that gorgeous display.
And that screen, yeah, it’s good. Even better from what I thought was the peak of laptop screens with my previous laptop. It’s amazing. Liquid Retina XDR display with prootion. So, a 120 Hz buttery smooth and fast-l lookinging screen.
The laptop does have the option for you to upgrade its screen to the nano texture option which helps with reducing the glare on the display when the sun hits it. But I found that to look a bit too grainy for my taste and so I just kept the native screen and it looks perfect. No complaints there and that’s generally how I would describe this device.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Despite one hiccup that I’m still researching a workaround for, this laptop has been an absolute lifesaver for me. Coming from the device I used before, which lagged when I did anything on Final Cut Pro, the M4 MacBook Pro has truly finally shown me the power of the M processors.
They do have their quirks, but they get a lot right. In terms of my recommendation for you, as always, I recommend focusing on your needs first with a device that you want. This M4 MacBook Pro configuration is very extreme, maybe a bit too extreme for you.
In that case, I check out the YouTuber Artist Wright, who delves into detail on upgrades you should be looking for with your device. Otherwise, if you’re looking for a great laptop for your creative workflow, look no further than the M4 MacBook Pro. An incredible buy even one year later.
So, what do you think of the M4 MacBook Pro? Do you like it? Will you be picking it up on sale, especially with the new Mchip MacBooks coming out?
Without further ado, my name is Cirus. It’s spelled like Cyrus, not like Se rooster. Just take on the terror. Thank you very much for reading and have a wonderful day. Peace.
