Apple’s new M1-based MacBook Pro has promise and pitfalls


    Apple’s new computer with its homegrown M1 processor has shaken up the personal computer world with its remarkable speed, impressive battery life and ability to seamlessly run most macOS apps written for older systems with Intel chips. Indeed, most of the early reviewers and initial buyers have been blown away.

    I finally got the chance last week to try one when Apple shipped a 13-inch MacBook Pro review unit. (I’d requested an M1 MacBook Air, but it wasn’t available, and hey, I’m not complaining.) It has the maximum 16 gigabytes of memory and 1 terabyte of storage, pricing out at $1,800.

    All the new M1 Macs — the Pro, the Air and the Mac mini — have the same processor, and Apple doesn’t break out the M1 models based on chip speed (though the GeekBench benchmarking program puts my review Pro at 3.19 GHz).

    One of the reasons the Pro is more powerful than the Air is that it has a fan, which allows it to handle more compute-intensive tasks than the Air, which has none. The Pro can run harder and faster because the fan keeps it cool. On the Air, the processor’s speed is throttled if it gets too hot — though that’s reportedly not easy to do.

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    This version of the Pro also comes with the TouchBar, the narrow screen above the keyboard where function keys used to be. It only has two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports — if you need more than that with the M1 notebooks, you’ll need to buy a dock or a hub. Apple still sells higher-priced, Intel-based Pros with more ports and more memory, but benchmark results indicate the M1 Macs are faster.

    So, how speedy is this machine in real life?

    Pretty speedy! In terms of the way it it feels — doing day-to-day tasks such as opening apps, editing images, copying files — it seems as zippy as my 2020 27-inch iMac, which I reviewed earlier this year. I don’t think I’ve ever used a notebook computer that felt just as fast as a high-end desktop.

    And in some ways, it feels faster. For example, the MacBook Pro wakes from sleep instantly. You open the lid and the computer is ready to use immediately. Even my iMac takes several seconds to wake up when I tap the keyboard.

    By the numbers, this MacBook Pro is indeed faster than the iMac. I ran the aforementioned GeekBench program on both, and the notebook’s results were far better than the desktop.

    I’ve installed most of the software I use regularly, and nothing so far has stressed it. That said, most of what I use are Mac apps written to run on systems with Intel-based chips. Most of these programs run just fine on M1 Macs, which use a chip architecture licensed by Arm Ltd., with a built-in emulator Apple calls Rosetta 2. The first time you install an Intel-based app — which in my case was Microsoft’s Office 365 — the Mac’s Big Sur operating system asks if you want to install Rosetta; you only need to do this once.

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    The Office install behaved normally, except for a long delay in the middle that made me think it was locking up. But after about 3 or 4 minutes, the process completed. I’ve heard this from other M1 Mac owners, so it wasn’t just me.

    I went looking for something besides a game or graphics program that would provide some real stress to the M1 chip. I found it, and it illustrates both the promise and the pitfalls of buying an early M1 MacBook Pro.

    My lovely wife owns a 2016 MacBook Pro, and for a while was running Folding@Home on it. This application runs compute-intensive models simulating the folding of proteins, research used in finding cures for disease, including COVID-19. On her older Pro, it doesn’t take long before the bottom is almost too hot to keep in her lap and the fans roar like jet engines.

    But on this M1 system, there’s none of that nonsense. The bottom gets just a tad warm; the fans never kick in, even when you crank the Folding@Home app up to full power, almost pinning the CPU. I even participated in a Zoom teleconferencing session with about a dozen participants, and while the MacBook Pro got warmer, the fans never started up; all the apps active on the computer ran normally without slowdowns.

    The Folding@Home server sends chunks of data to a participating computer to be worked on. They vary in size, but typically each work unit takes a good while to complete. On my old 2012 Mac mini, most work units took at least 4-6 hours, sometimes longer. But I’ve run several on the M1 system, and the longest took about 3 hours, and the least about 45 minutes.

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    Impressive, yes. But this same app also illustrates compatibility issues with these new Macs. Its control panel app won’t run; fortunately Folding@Home has a subset control screen that runs in a browser. This will be fixed once there’s a native M1 version of the app, but it’s not here now.

    And I could not use an M1 Mac as the computer I use for working at the Chronicle. That’s because the software we use to write stories for the print edition won’t run on Big Sur, which is the only version of the macOS that works on M1 systems.

    Normally, I’d get around this by firing up Parallels, the software that lets you run Windows and other operating systems (including older versions of macOS) on the Mac to handle the Chronicle’s application. But the latest release of Parallels doesn’t work at all on M1 Macs. There’s a new, compatible version coming in the near future — but again, it’s not here now.

    And that pretty much sums up the experience of the initial M1 Macs. They’re incredibly powerful, but they remain a work in progress. I would love to own one, but it doesn’t makes sense to do so now because key software I need doesn’t work. If you’re interested in owning one, check first to see if your critical apps will run on it and, if they don’t, when the software developer will release a version that will.

    Or just wait for the second wave of Apple Silicon Macs, which should come some time next year. Those should be even faster — and more compatible.

    dwight.silverman@chron.com

    twitter.com/dsilverman

    houstonchronicle.com/techburger





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