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(shapes springing)
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(electrical warbling)
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- So I have been using
this M1 Max MacBook Pro
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for the past three
years since it came out,
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and it's been great.
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I have felt absolutely no
compulsion to upgrade since,
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haven't needed to.
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It's funny, most of my
work is pretty light,
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but occasionally I will have
to edit a video on the go,
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which is then when, you
know, the extra horsepower
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and the screen and everything
about this comes in handy,
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and it's great.
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If I didn't have to do that ever,
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I would just have, like,
an Air or a Surface Laptop,
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something like that.
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But that range of work is why
this has been great for me,
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and it's been awesome so far.
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(light groovy electronic music)
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So along comes this M4
generation of MacBook Pros,
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and it's the first generation
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that I have actually been
tempted to maybe upgrade to.
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You know, they've stacked a couple
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of the right upgrades in the right places
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for things that actually
make a difference to me.
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So let's just get right
into it. Nuts and bolts.
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'Cause the first big
pillar is performance.
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And the main reason why this
new laptop matters at all
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is that it's got the new
generation of M4 chips inside.
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And we all know the leap from Intel chips
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to Apple silicon chips
for M1 was generational.
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But since then, it's been
a sort of more reasonable
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incremental upgrade, going
from M1 to M2, then M3,
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and then M4.
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So I think it's pretty
obvious that nobody with an M2
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or M3 needs to upgrade,
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but there have been
enough improvements now
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stacking up upon each other from M1 to M4
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that the numbers are now
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starting to get kind of interesting.
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So just to set the stage, this
laptop that I've been using
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is the M1 Max maxed out.
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Basically, the best you
could get at the time.
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64 gigs of unified memory on this system.
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And this unit I've been
testing of the M4 Max
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is also maxed out.
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It's the best you can get now;
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faster, stronger on the new one:
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Three nanometers versus five,
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546 gigs per second
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of memory bandwidth versus 400.
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Just the hardware
improvements to get to M4 Max
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are clearly there.
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So, to keep the apples-to-apples
comparison going,
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Apple, in their own presentation,
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said up to 2.2 times faster
CPU performance than M1 Max
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and 1.9 times faster GPU performance.
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So we're looking at around twice as fast,
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and the synthetic benchmarks
I've run back this up.
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I got over 4,000 in
Geekbench 6 CPU single core,
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which is the highest single
core score ever in a Mac
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by a while.
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And the multi-core score
was incredible, too.
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Tops the chart.
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And then, GPU has improved a lot
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to the point where it's
bumping up against M2 Ultra.
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Not M2 Max, M2 Ultra chips,
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the one that's currently in the Mac Pro.
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So it's pretty clear that on paper,
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yeah, these M4 chips are
blazing; they're incredible.
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But that's just on paper.
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What about in real life?
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What about real workflow stuff?
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So, on YouTube, you might have noticed
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a lot of the benchmarking and
real-world stuff that you see
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is video editing benchmarks,
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just because that's the
most intensive thing
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most YouTubers do on their computers.
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It's the most intensive thing I do.
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But yeah, that's what's gonna
drive my purchase decision,
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so that's the first thing I looked into.
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So my own benchmark is
literally loading up
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a video project in Final Cut Pro,
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moving things around, messing
with clips, cutting, effects,
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tracking, and then, of
course, export times.
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This project here is a
mix of 8K RED raw footage
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and action camera footage
with comped graphics
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and smaller video files
from the Snapchat glasses.
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And not only did this laptop
open and flip through Final Cut
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faster than any other
machine I've ever used,
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but it also exported the final
video roughly twice as fast
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as my M1 Max laptop,
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which is really exciting
for me. (chuckles)
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So a pretty prime example
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of the performance unlocking something new
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is Final Cut Pro 11 just came out,
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and I've been messing
with it for a little bit,
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and there's a new headlining
feature called Magnetic Mask.
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And my theory is that it's taking
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pretty heavy advantage of Apple silicon,
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specifically the neural engine,
'cause it's "AI-powered,"
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but I had to prove it. So
previously, to cut a subject
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out of a background in a video,
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it was this painstaking
process called rotoscoping,
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where you're essentially
manually drawing the mask
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for every single frame.
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Now, this one works even better
than some plugins I've used,
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like mRotoAI, and it's even faster.
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Basically, all you do is click the subject
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and sort of refine your selection,
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and then once you're good to go,
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you just analyze forward
for the entire clip
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and just let it do its thing,
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and it just continues for the whole clip.
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So, I ran through this on the M4 Max.
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I ran through this on the M1 Max,
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but I did some other machines as well.
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And the results, well, the M1
Max was able to pull this off
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in two minutes, 56 seconds.
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The M4 Max got it down to
two minutes and 13 seconds.
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But then M2 Ultra got it
down to a minute and a half.
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But then the Intel Xeon Mac Pro,
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super expensive with the
dual Radeon Pro GPUs,
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took six minutes for the
same 45-second clip here.
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So, the leap is crazy, and
it just keeps getting better.
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I'm thinking M4 Ultra is
gonna be, as a video editor,
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pretty sick.
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But of course, you might
not be a video editor;
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you might be something else;
you might be a photographer.
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I just watched Tyler Stalman's
video on his M4 Max laptop.
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It's really good.
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The second half of his video,
he does a lot of testing
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against the M1 generation
with Lightroom and Resolve,
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and not only does it
continue to crush M1 Max,
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but sometimes it actually gets close to
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or it beats the newest
Mac Studio with M2 Ultra,
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which is pretty insane.
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So I'll link his whole video
below; it's really good.
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Now, obviously, we expect
Mac Studio and Mac Pro
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to eventually get their
own M4 generation updates
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with the M4 Ultra chip.
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I'm sure that'll be immense.
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But even so, with this, it's
crazy to see Apple silicon
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is still improving fast enough
that this new laptop chip
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is outperforming some of the desktop chips
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from earlier years of Apple silicon.
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There's a bunch of other
real-world benchmarks out there.
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I'll link some more below
that are really good.
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But I think the bottom
line from my testing
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and from other tests that
I've watched and read
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is, yeah, there is now a
significant bump up in performance
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from M1 to M4.
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Not just 30 or 40%, but, like,
200%, which is pretty crazy.
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But that by itself
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might not be enough to
convince you to upgrade,
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so there's more.
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Luckily, several other things
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are updated about this laptop as well.
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So, first of all, this
laptop is Space Black,
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as you may have noticed,
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which the M1 generation didn't have,
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but it's not exactly new.
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It's actually had the
same two colors as M3,
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Space Black or silver.
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I do love me some Space Black,
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but anyone who has one already knows
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it looks really good new,
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but then (sighs) it kind
of collects fingerprints
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and starts to wear over time.
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Still, the best solution I
found is a skin over a case,
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just as that little bit
of scratch protection,
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and you'll never see fingerprints again.
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So I'll leave a link below
to channel-sponsored dbrand's
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Glitch skin if you wanna check that out.
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It's much more interesting
than black or silver.
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But there is another visual
improvement here too,
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and you've probably noticed
it watching this video.
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It looks so good.
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That is the nano-texture display option.
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It is new, and I love it.
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It's incredible.
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And the thing is, I
have slight reservations
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about how it might wear over time,
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but on a laptop like this,
it just looks so good.
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Nano-texture started
out as a $1,000 option
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on the Pro Display XDR,
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and this is the hardest one to recommend.
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Like, it's stupid expensive,
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and then it's also so
delicate to maintain.
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It just picked up fingerprints so easily.
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You'd have to have the right
low-pile soft microfiber
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to actually clean it.
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Like, it is tough.
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I wouldn't recommend it to most.
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But it seems like it improved since then
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because now it's a $300
option on the Studio Display
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that a lot of people have.
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Then they offered it as a
$100 option on the iPad Pro,
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which obviously that's something
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people are touching
constantly with their fingers,
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and we haven't really seen
too many issues with it.
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And so I think on a laptop like
this, like, if it can be...
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Geez.
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If it can be, like, maintenance pain-free,
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then it feels like a kind of no-brainer.
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Like, this is my favorite
option on this laptop.
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Like, you're gonna take
it all over the place
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in all sorts of different lighting,
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and just the way this matte
finish just eats reflections
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and completely removes any
lighting environment distractions
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from anything from an office
building to a coffee shop
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to an airplane with a window next to you.
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Like, it's actually incredible.
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It's awesome.
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All laptops should have
something like this.
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It's 100 bucks more
than the glossy version
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for the MacBook Pro, and
I'll take it every time.
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The fact that this is new to
the M4 generation by itself,
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honestly, is very compelling to me.
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So then the only other
big thing that's new here
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is Thunderbolt 5, which is funny;
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it's kind of overrated and
underrated at the same time.
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So the outgoing laptops
all have perfectly great,
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very fast Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports.
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Love that.
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Almost every new high-end laptop has that.
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These new ones here are
getting Thunderbolt 5,
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which a lot of other
machines don't have yet.
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And actually, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro
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gets one more port, too, which is great.
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So now they all have the
three Thunderbolt 5 ports.
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It feels a bit underrated,
maybe because it is so new
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and it's in so few laptops,
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but it is actually a genuine
capability improvement.
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Like, we love more bandwidth,
we love faster I/O.
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You can do three 6K
displays from this laptop
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instead of two.
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So that's awesome.
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But there are so few
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Thunderbolt 5 accessories out right now,
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and the ones that do start to come out
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you also notice are pretty expensive.
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So my favorite accessory
in the world right now,
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for example, I think, is the Samsung X5,
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the Thunderbolt 3 drive.
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It's incredible.
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2,800 megabyte per second read speeds.
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They don't sell them anymore,
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but you can get a nearly equivalent
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two-terabyte SanDisk drive
for about 275 bucks, right?
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Then there's the new
OWC Thunderbolt 5 drive,
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and it'll read and write at
6,000 megabytes per second.
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Damn!
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But it's also two terabytes for 400 bucks.
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So, you know, as a video editor
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who's passing around really large files,
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like, I'm gonna want one
of these at some point.
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I'm gonna wait for more
options; it's gonna be great.
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But I think the point of
Thunderbolt 5 on these computers
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is that ecosystem of
Thunderbolt 5 accessories,
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drives, docks, interfaces,
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that's gonna be built up over time.
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This is great for
future-proofing the thing,
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but it doesn't actually
affect most people right away.
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Unless you're literally gonna plug in
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three Pro Displays right off the bat.
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So then there's a couple of
other little, smaller things.
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You know, the new Center
Stage ultra-wide webcam
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that will follow you around.
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I actually think it looks
better, which is nice.
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The battery life is also
rated to be slightly better,
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thanks to the M4's improved efficiency.
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So I think this is mostly
gonna come into effect
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under lighter workloads,
but you'd love to see it.
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Same size battery, better battery life.
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And then, the screen has a
higher SDR max brightness
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of 1,000 nits over the previous;
I think it was 500 or 600.
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So, if you're in a brighter space,
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whether you have nano-texture or not,
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everything is more readable.
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And it turns out Apple quietly updated
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all these MacBook Pros
to quantum dot displays
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and didn't tell anybody. (chuckles)
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They're probably still
on their way to OLED.
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But yeah, these
improvements to quantum dot
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and efficiency and
especially responsiveness,
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it might just be confirmation bias,
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but I feel like the responsiveness
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is actually noticeable to my eye.
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So you might not upgrade
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just for the performance improvements,
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but they are pretty good.
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You might not upgrade just for
the new nano-texture finish,
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but it is really good.
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And you definitely won't
upgrade just for Thunderbolt 5
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or just for the slightly brighter display
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or the ultra-wide webcam.
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But I think all of these things
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stacked on top of each
other combined is...
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I think you actually can
justify an upgrade this year.
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If you are regularly pushing
this laptop to its limits,
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you can justify this improvement,
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or at least that's what I'm
telling myself. (laughs)
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M1 Max is gonna be perfectly
fine for another year though,
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no question about that.
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I also think it's really
interesting that we basically have
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Apple Intelligence to thank
for all of these new Macs
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basically having a new minimum
of 16 gigs of unified memory.
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It just makes all of the base Macs
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feel like a better deal now.
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And the Mac Mini is amazing,
and there's more to come.
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We know there's gonna be
more M4 chips on the horizon.
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But it was a really good new laptop.
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Thanks for watching.
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Catch you in the next one.
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Peace.
00:12:26
(upbeat electronic music)
(singer vocalizing)
