2021 Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M1 Pro chip with 10‑core CPU and 16‑core GPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) - Silver

Been using since 2022. Best laptop I have used so far.

These are still nice machines to work on. I use it mostly for Lightroom on large photo jobs, with some smaller jobs in between, and occasionally to do some lighter teaching work and administration. I've swiched my old machine over to doing most of that. This is still a pleasure to work on. Maybe the denoise will take a little less time on a newer machine, but it's not enough for me to care. It never seems to choke and it's always responsive, despite Adobe's bloat.I'm coming from a 13" retina i7 machine. This is an order of magnitude better. For smaller jobs, it's nice to just stick the SD card in and ingest a set of pictures. Bigger jobs, I still like to use the CF Express reader with the Thunderbolt ports for the speed, and this has one more on the other side, so I can be more flexible in whatever random workspace I happen to be in. For me, portability is my main concern. This fits in the same bag, so it's not very noticeably larger. I have a portable monitor, so I can make more screen space when needed. There's an HDMI port, so I don't need to carry that dongle. Not to mention that it's an order of magnitude faster. This is the new equivalent of the 15' Macbook pro, but it fits in the same bag as the 13". This is excellent for me.Moving from the Retina 13", the keyboard is a lot better. Just make the change. At this point, this is a bargain way into Apple Silicon. I did the very hard job of replacing the keyboard on the 13" with an aftermarket one. That repair is not recommended for casual tinkerers, but it fixed all the usual complaints about the butterfly keyboard. I also replaced the battery, twice now. I actually like working on the retina now, but before it was always such a struggle between battery life and the keyboard. The 14" is better on all levels and probably the best in the industry. The keyboard has excellent accuracy and feedback. The touch pad is the best in the industry. The color rendering is excellent out of the box with a setting for photographic work. I don't need a custom profile like I did with previous generation machines. If you need a relative bargain, these M1 Pro machines are still very good to work on, and I don't plan to upgrade for a long time.

The box was a little scuffed up on the outside but “damaged packaging” WAS in the description, but other than that irrelevant damage it seems like a brand new MacBook Pro with the battery at 100% capacity and as advertised when new battery life with absolutely zero signs of use. I’ve had my 2017 MacBook Pro for 7 years and the upgrade to the 2021 model with the M1 is exactly what I needed for the next 7.

Let me start by saying I'm an Apple user all the way, iphone, ipads, and my last former PC was an 8 year old Macbook Air 13, mid-2013, 1.5GHZ dual-core Intel i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB Flash drive. That laptop still today is in great working order for what it is, I find that quite amazing since most of the PC products of recent are junk, designed to last less than one year. You may think me biased, but I'm not, just read the competitor's reviews for yourself which I did extensively before buying my next Macbook Pro. I used to be a Windows user, and still am, but not on a Windows based system with Intel silicon. Those systems are unstable, more hackable, and the hardware that is made even from manufacturers like HP today do not live up to the standards they lived up to in the past. Reading most of the different Apple product reviews, the biggest complaint was price. Well, the old adage still applies, you basically get what you pay for and I was thrilled to wait it out for their September event when I saw this going for $400 off at $1599!. Regarding all the hyperbole about the notch, I honestly do not know it is even there. As far as this new Macbook Pro 14" is concerned, well I cannot express how beautiful this laptop is. The display and sound are to die for, the speed of the m1 silicon is amazing. Yes, it's a little heavier than my previous Macbook Air 13, but the body of the Pro is actually a smaller footprint than it's predecessor, but with a larger display! What more can you ask for.Now it's just a matter of how well this product survives the test of time. From it's solid construction and feel, I'm not at all worried I will not get another 8 years from this machine.Update November 23, 2022: I am still very much in love with this laptop. It still amazes me how responsive it is and has not seen one glitch. I am also running Parallels Desktop VM along with Windows 11 Pro as a virtual desktop so that I might run my windows based programs. This also has been smooth as silk providing a seamless gateway from Mac ios to Windows and reverse. Lastly, months later, I still have not heard the internal fan!Update October 30 2024: Well, I am now 2 solid years into this laptop and am still loving it. The battery still last a solid 8 hours after all this time and I still have not heard to fan. Say what you want about Apple products, but they are designed to last and are built solid.