My family went to Westfield having lunch together. While we wait our dishes, I took a quick detour to Apple store to experience the new Macbook Pro. I had watched couple of reports and video reviews, but I’d like to experience them in person. I only have about 5 mins to experience them.
The 16 inches feels really heavy! The previous 16 inches is also heavy, I just don’t lift them up very often. My work computer is a 2019 16 inches (last gen before the 2021 Macbook Pro), which also feels cold and heavy. I will just type MBP instead of Macbook Pro. The new MBP feels heavier and thicker, and it’s not just a feeling, the did. But that’s totally OK. The new rounded corner body is really good, I really don’t know why you need to create the sharp corner on previous unibody MBP. I mean the square corner looks professional and cool, but they feels pretty bad in hand or on lap. I’m glad MBP’s shape is back to “a good feel” and friendly again.
And then I feel the keyboard, they feels as good as the previous “upgraded” keyboard. The worst keyboard is those on Macbook “lovely”, the shallowest version. And the infamous butterfly keyboard is bad. Current version is totally OK. I have a wrong impression that the arrow key’s layout is changed to something like a normal keyboard (which have same size for every key). But unfortunately those arrow keys still have 1/2 size for up/down arrow. I really hate that design! So that disappointment is still there. But maybe that’s an industry’s problem now, I think all laptop’s arrows are just using 3 keycaps’ spaces instead of 4.
And then I checked the screen. The apple store is very bright, and the 1600 nits brightness screen does stand out. But the light condition in apple store has glamour, last time I experienced the 24 inches M1 iMac its screen are also very impressive. I tried a HDR 4k video on YouTube, which looks just OK. I don’t have HDR monitors at home, so I can’t compare. Also the HDR content eco-system on YouTube is hard to trust. So maybe I just choose a SDR video which mark itself as HDR, I should check the video info (but I forgot). And then I used the “Photos.app” checked the photos, they looks gorgeous. Interesting thing is that all the photos are taken either on iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro Max. A lot of those photos are taken in California, mostly mountains of Santa Monica Coast. Maybe instead of those gorgeous screen maybe we should use the phones in our hand to capture some good photos. I feel not all the light are natural in those photos, at least some of them have reflector boards used?
And then I used the 14 inches MBP. This one feels like the one I may get. (NO, I will not buy it this generation) It feels much lighter than the 16 inches, the screen is definitely in the same league of the 16 inches screen. Keyboard size and layout are the same. I didn’t test the speakers in both 14 and 16 MBP, the reviews saying they are great. If the only difference is the size and weight, then I will definitely go with the lighter one. That’s one of the benefit of owing the M1 chip Macs. I need to cut through my materialism desire, I should use what ever I have to entertain myself. And for work, I should just use what company gives.
Then I try to test the 3D capability. I don’t know what’s the best thing to try. So I just open the ocean horn 2 on the MBP. But this game used a blur rendering powered by Unreal. I expect Unreal’s rendering quality should be better. But this grain and blur 3D rendering is not impressive at all, I don’t know how to change resolution too. So I didn’t get any sense how the 3D rendering capability of the MBPs.
Next time.