The 2021 MacBook Pros have arrived to mark a before and after in the Mac family. There are many points in which these computers represent a true revolution: screen, chips, design, ports … they are several pieces of a whole that, seen in a global way, makes these the best Macs to date.
In Applesfera we have already analyzed the 16-inch MacBook Pro, we have also talked about the M1 Pro and M1 Max processors in detail. Now, then, it is the turn of talk about the smallest of the family, the 14-inch MacBook Pro.
Back to my first Mac, back to power
I clearly remember the feeling I had when I opened the box of my first 15-inch MacBook Pro just over 10 years ago. I was about to start my architecture degree and, seeing what I was going to have to do with my computer, I decided to get a Mac. The feeling when taking that impressive machine out of the box was that of be in front of something industrial, very powerful, of a computer capable of coping with everything you throw at it.
After this first MacBook Pro, I renewed my computer in 2016. Again, because of my preference for notebooks, the choice was a 15-inch MacBook Pro, the model with TouchBar. Now in hindsight I remember that the first impression on that Mac was focused almost exclusively on the design. I really appreciated the simplicity of the ports, the disappearance of the CD drive, the lightness, the thinness.
A design that transmits the power of this machine from the first moment.
When I released the 14 “MacBook Pro a little over a week ago, I once again had a similar feeling to the one I experienced when I released my first Mac, a feeling that I did not experience during the keynote of its presentation: I was in front of a very, very capable machine.
Something in its design, more square, more industrial, less “design” and more “practical” makes me feel that I am sitting in front of a keyboard and screen connected to a huge machinery, a supercomputer, a Mac that I will never run out of power. Even its very weight reinforces the feeling that we are facing something that we have not seen in Apple’s portable range for a long time.
Hello new keyboard, bye TouchBar
Once we open the computer, the first thing that stands out is the impressive new screen and the finish of the keyboard. We will talk about the screen in a few paragraphs, about the keyboard I can only say that i didn’t know i wanted to go back to scissor keyboard until i got back to it. For me it is much more comfortable, it is not only that I type faster, or more silently, it is that the touch of pressing the key is more complete, more natural.
I’ve always loved the TouchBar on my old Mac. I’ve used it every day since I first turned it on, and not just to turn up the volume. In this sense, he was not very convinced that he had to abandon her. Now yes. The touch of pressing a button, of knowing that you have given the command to the Mac without having to look at the keyboard, is something to consider. For me, however, the biggest difference is that I now have all function keys available, going beyond the four that were always visible on the TouchBar.
As for the keyboard, we must talk about the black finish in the area of the same keys. Although in the photos this can attract a lot of attention, I have to say that in person it looks very natural. In the end, the keys stand out more for their letter or number, especially if they are backlit, than for their outline. An approach that helps to focus our eyes if we look at the keyboard at some point and gives uniformity to the entire upper part of the computer.
Oh, the display: mini-LEDs in all their glory
The display on this new 14-inch MacBook Pro is impressive. Thanks to mini-LED backlight technology, the contrast reaches, for the first time on a Mac, real blacks. And this is not a change that we are only going to notice while we watch an episode of Fundación, it is something we appreciate on a day-to-day basis.
Along with this great contrast, we must talk about brightness. It’s something we can overlook too many times, but not on this laptop. The Liquid Retina XDR display achieves up to 1,000 nits of sustained brightness (full screen) and 1,600 nits of peak brightness. Impressive values that, put in context, represent that in a well-lit room the ambient sensor will only have to set the brightness to half so that we can work more than comfortably.
Bright enough to work on video editing, photography without missing a single detail.
Two important facts emerge from this, in turn. On the one hand, the consumption of the screen is notably lower than in computers with traditional screens and, on the other, there is the knowledge that, in bright sunlight, the screen looks beautiful.
As for the notch, which has caused mixed opinions, I have to say, after almost two weeks of use, that getting used to it takes a few days. After the initial novelty, as I mentioned recently, the focus is on the fact that the screen reaches the physical extremes of the Mac and that the edges are practically non-existent. A feat that allows us to enjoy an extra inch of screen without increasing the physical size of the computer.
And how good it sounds: powerful bass without any distortion
The 14-inch MacBook Pro, like its bigger brother, features a six-speaker system: two tweeters, two large-diameter speakers, and two force-canceling speakers. Thanks to this combination, the highest sounds have a clear and precise definition. At the same time, the bass is much deeper, with more resonance and, thanks to force cancellation, sound flows without any distortion, not even at full volume.
I was personally struck by the fact that the vibration of the Mac itself during music playback is minimal. It is not zero, of course, but it is much less than in other models. It may seem like just a detail, but, in addition to being a sample of the good engineering work behind this sound equipment, it makes typing on the computer more comfortable while listening to music.
A studio quality sound system, both in speakers and in the microphone system.
It is true that the resonance box of the 14-inch model is, due to the same physical size of the computer, somewhat smaller than in the 16-inch model. It is also true that in both it is smaller than in the iMac M1, but there is something about how the chip processes the sound signal that makes you have hardly noticed any difference between the sound emitted by the 16-inch and 14-inch model.
As for the sound, we also have to talk about the microphones. A set of three studio-quality microphones and a high signal-to-noise ratio that, thanks to directional beamforming technology, is able to filter the voice over other sounds and noises.
Uncompromising power – active ventilation, but like it’s not there
In addition to the aesthetic factor, one of the key points that will lead us to appreciate the design of the new MacBook Pro is heat dissipation. Thanks to the larger size and a redesigned cooling system, these computers can tolerate a higher temperature on the chip without compromising its integrity. This translates into higher sustained performance over time.
The impression that this Mac leaves, however, is that it is completely devoid of fans. It hasn’t been until I have pulled terminal commands to turn on the fans specifically that I have managed to hear them. Nothing, no evidence, has made the computer feel the need to fan itself a bit.
Fans? What fans? The magic of a good thermal design.
In my tests I have used various video conversion apps to encode video files up to 9GB in H.265 at maximum quality, I have run demanding games and apps, I have processed panoramas with up to 47 photos in Affinity Photo and I have not heard the fans.
The system responded with great agility, everything moved smoothly, as if it were doing nothing. And you know what? It was not doing anything, at least the main CPU. Video encoding, like many other tasks, for example, It is carried out by a specific component within the SoC of the M1 Pro. Meanwhile, the computer is completely free to attend to other tasks.
Battery, more battery and even more battery: a workday without a charger
I received the 14-inch MacBook Pro around 11 a.m. on a Tuesday. I set it up, I tried it, I tried it again. I installed all kinds of applications, ran performance tests, played videos, wrote articles, surfed the internet, played music at full volume and the battery, at eleven o’clock at night, it was 43%. And not only that, it is that the Mac did not arrive fully charged.
Determined to test the battery life, I fully charged the computer and started the day at seven in the morning. At 9:00 p.m. the computer was at 32%. Measurements can fluctuate based on how we use the computer, of course, but for a day of an average duration we can almost always forget about the charger.
A whole day’s work without remembering the charger.
And if we need to charge the Mac, we can do it as quickly as possible. As long as we have a 96 W charger and we use MagSafe, the Mac will fill half its battery in just half an hour, something that I have been able to verify experimentally and that gives the peace of mind that, In just half an hour, you can be ready for most of the day of work.
In short: a Mac for professionals
It is clear that Apple has managed to focus on the professional sector with this Mac. A Mac that goes far beyond gestures, such as recovering the HDMI port, the SD card reader or the MagSafe connector. A Mac that makes its design concessions to become much more capable, versatile, powerful and practically redefine what we thought a laptop was capable of.
A Mac that exudes power in every detail. Designed around this same power. Designed based on what Apple silicon processors are capable of and adapting their characteristics to, in short, offer a round product.
A Mac we could only dream of a few years ago. A Mac that, without getting messy, can outrun professional computers like the Mac Pro in many tasks. A Mac of which, I am clear: it offers us power at all levels.