Mac Pro What Is It Good For
A recent post (opens in new tab) by Sheffield-based company Lunar Animation, highlights this perfectly: in working conditions, where the Mac Pro is placed in a high end situation performing at peak efficiency for long periods of time, the advantages shine through. These are not situations most computer users face, but was what this machine was built for. Lunar Animation have been using the Mac Pro for a little over a year, and have seen first hand what this computer offers.
Mac Pro What Is It Good For
Cons: So, what's wrong with the laptop? Well, there is a notch. Yes, much like the iPhone 13, the MacBook Pro has a cutout at the top center of the display. It isn't too distracting, though, because of how much larger the panel is. Also, there is no Face ID despite the size of that cutout. Another unquestionable con with the 14-inch MacBook Pro is its $1,999 starting price, and that's without a USB-A port. Ouch.
We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. We consider everything over the category average (8 hours and 36 minutes) to be a good result. Of course, these tests are complemented with hands-on testing from our reviewers.
The upgraded configuration adds two more high-performance CPU cores and two additional graphics cores (for a total of 16). This is what we recommend for most people. Meanwhile, the only noteworthy differences between the top-end M1 Max and the top-end M1 Pro are a heap of extra graphics cores (a maximum of 32) and a doubling of the memory bandwidth to 400GBps.
The Mac Pro is one of the oldest Macs in Apple's lineup and is reaching the end of its product cycle. An all-new Mac Pro with Apple silicon chips is expected to launch in the next few months, meaning that now is not a good time to buy the Mac Pro and most customers should wait for a new model to launch.
The new MacBook Pros now have a clear focus on design and function. It's a change from 2016 when, in the name of a cleaner design, Apple angered some customers by removing the ports many still found useful. And it required those customers to buy adapters to plug their cameras and card readers into the ports. Worse, the keyboard wasn't very good and broke for many until it was updated last year. Now, Apple customers have a MacBook Pro without any design compromises. There are plenty of ports and a great keyboard.
Then there's the new M1 Pro chip. It's way more powerful than what I need in a laptop, which is why it's really marketed toward professionals. I tested out some demos where I was able to test six iOS apps running side by side in Xcode, like a developer might if they were trying to see how well their new app ran on different models of iPhones. You can edit multiple 8K HDR video scenes (or Apple's brighter XDR content) in real time within apps like Final Cut Pro, or render and tweak how the sun falls on 3D models in Cinema 4D, all without waiting for the computer to render. Professionals will likely appreciate being able to do these tasks from a laptop with a screen and processors that enable them to. Lastly, you can add up to two additional displays with the M1 Pro or three screens if you upgrade to the M1 Max chip. That's up from a single external monitor with the M1 chips last year, and it's a big deal for folks like me who prefer to run several screens at once.
Finally, the battery life is good considering all the power you get. Apple promises up to 17 hours of battery life for HD video playback with the screen at eight notches of brightness, and I got close to that in my video playback tests, losing about 23% of battery life every four hours of video playback. Of course, your mileage is going to vary. Video rendering will cut that down, for example. But anyone who needs this for web browsing and document editing should get through a workday just fine.
You won't notice it if you have the laptop on dark mode, which is what I did, since everything around the notch is dark anyway. And I prefer the trade-off: you get slimmer bezels on the top of the screen instead of big borders like on earlier models. You'll see the notch if you have a bright background and menus but it fades into the background even better than it does on an iPhone, where it cuts into video content, for example. But, I wish the notch also had Face ID, the facial recognition feature that unlocks iPhones and some iPad models.
I'm fine with the Touch ID fingerprint reader since it's what I've been used to on other Macs. Face ID would allow the laptop to boot right to your desktop in a split second as you sit down, though. And some Windows laptops, like Microsoft's Surface products, have a similar facial recognition option with Windows Hello.
If you find that only using your screen on your MacBook Pro doesn't give you enough screen space, then getting a monitor is a good alternative. You'll want one that supports USB-C with power delivery, which allows you to connect your MacBook Pro to the display and charge it using a single cable. However USB-C connections are still limited to mainly higher-end monitors, so if you want something on a budget, you can easily connect over HDMI, but you'll still need a separate cable for charging.
If you aren't a fan of ultrawide displays or you simply prefer something cheaper, check out the Dell U2723QE. With a much smaller screen than the LG 40WP95C-W, it isn't as good for multitasking, and while its 4k resolution is still lower than the 5k Apple Studio Display, you won't have issues reading fine text. It has many features, like a massive USB hub that includes three USB-C ports. One of them supports DisplayPort Alt Mode with 90W of power delivery, which is enough to charge most MacBooks or at least keep the battery going on the power-hungry models. Another USB-C port is used for the KVM switch, allowing you to connect two sources with the same keyboard and mouse, which is helpful if you have another computer alongside your MacBook.
For the most part, there aren't any issues using this monitor with a MacBook, but in certain picture modes, there are flicker issues, so you have to ensure you don't use those modes. It has a few extra features usually found on higher-end models, like its KVM switch and Picture-by-Picture and Picture-in-Picture modes, making it a great choice for productivity and providing good value for a budget monitor.
If you want something cheap and don't want to spend much money, consider a cheaper entry-level model like the ASUS VG246H. It has fewer features than the Gigabyte M27Q as it doesn't have a USB hub or Picture-by-Picture modes, but that's what you have to expect for getting a cheaper model. It also has a smaller screen and lower resolution, so it isn't ideal for multitasking, but the pixel density and text clarity are decent. Despite its price, it's still well-built with an incredibly ergonomic stand, making it easy to adjust to an ideal viewing position. It also has wide viewing angles that make the image remain accurate from the sides.
Our recommendations are based on what we think are the best external monitors for MacBook Pro and the best MacBook Air monitors that are currently available. They are adapted to be valid for most people, in each price range. Rating is based on our review, factoring in price, and feedback from our visitors.
If you would prefer to make your own decision, here is the list of all of our monitor reviews, except Dell monitors. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. Most monitors are good enough to please most people, and the things we fault monitors on are often not noticeable unless you really look for them.
Along the side, there are three side buttons and a gesture button integrated into the thumb rest, which by default is used to perform movement-based gesture commands while held. Logitech advertises a battery life of up to 24 months with a single AA battery and has companion software that offers a good range of customization options, including button remapping and custom profile settings. There's also a compartment where you can store the USB receiver when it's not in use.
Our recommendations above are what we think are currently the best mice for Mac for most people. We factor in the price (a cheaper mouse wins over a pricier one if the difference isn't worth it), feedback from our visitors, and availability (no mice that are difficult to find or almost out of stock everywhere).
It's a sad ending for what was actually a strong computer. The 2013 Mac Pro was top of Apple's range, it was the most powerful Mac, it was in so many ways exactly the machine that had been clamored for.
If you watched the presentation then, you went through the same sequence of reactions as that audience did. Starting with how you peered at the screen, trying to figure out what this new machine looked like through all of Apple's marketing photography.
Then as it had with the 2013 Mac Pro, Apple gave us a sneak peek. It wasn't quite the same, we wouldn't actually see the new machine until WWDC 2019, but in 2017, Apple openly talked about what it was planning.
It's a curious fact that people obsess over every detail of what Apple says, and yet they can still get it wrong. Practically every news report about Apple saying they were redesigning the Mac Pro said that it was coming out in 2018.
That's not surprising, given how good the new machine looks, but what was perhaps unexpected was just how soon Apple would stop selling the 2013 model. Usually Apple keeps its machines available on the online store until the day they're replaced and retired, but this time it pulled the 2013 Mac Pro months ahead of time.
If you managed to buy a discontinued MacBook today, you'd be getting an excellent machine and probably at a very good, discounted price. If you bought one of the original cheese grater Mac Pro models from 2006 onwards, well, you'd definitely get a good price. And you might well be able to make something pretty powerful out of it. Whereas, if you buy a 2013 Mac Pro today, all you really get is the gorgeous trashcan design. 350c69d7ab