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Ask HN: To those who bought a 2021 M1 MacBook Pro, how do you like it so far?

7 points by thih9 ↗ HN
The 2021 MacBook Pro models have been pretty much universally praised by the reviewers.

Some time has passed and I assume more people had a chance to work with them for a couple of weeks. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

How do you like them in your daily work? Do you see a big difference? Did you notice any problems?

6 comments

[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 24.0 ms ] thread
kingkongjaffa
It’s been great.

All my tooling just works fine no issues now with M1 compatibility.

Battery is amazing. Speakers sound clear and loud. Light gaming with steam works really well.

I use plenty of standard tools, iterm2 as my terminal, emacs, org-mode, vscode, pycharm. All working as intended.

I have had modern pcs and laptops and they work equally well just not as fast.

The 2021mbp is like being in the future.

From an OSX POV I went from a 2012mbp to a 2021mbp and it’s night and day.

kingkongjaffa
Problems - the screen is a matte surface that is really hard to clean, the surface absorbs fingerprint oil and smears instead of being wipeable.

I don’t like how it feels always-on, if I hit shutdown and close the lid, when I open the lid up it comes back on immediately instead of me having to press the power button. I want a clearer distinction of on/off.

Jtsummers
Other than having to unlock it, my 2017 MBP does the same with respect to turning on when I open it. For me, that's a feature. It makes using it, closing it, writing, opening it to type or read something, and putting it away again frictionless (other than unlocking). That's both a pro and a con. As a pro, it makes it easier to put it away (I don't leave it open just to avoid the friction of bringing it back up). As a con, it encourages reaching for it once it's put away (because there's no friction). Net, though, it's better for me as I spend less time on the computer total unless I'm doing things that need to be done on the computer (still browse HN too much, though).
starwind
Very happy

* I can do whatever and everything I want without the fans kicking on

* Snappy start up

* Great screen

* Solid keyboard with the actual function keys

* I’ve only run into 2 software issues—Dropbox and SciPy and the latter is apparently fixable I just haven’t done it yet

* Speakers sound awesome

* I’ve never noticed the notch and I never got used to the iPhone notch

* I really like the squared off design

Complaints:

* I wish I could control the backlighting of the keyboard beyond it being “on” or “off”

* They should have included a USB A port and put in an ethernet port somewhere

* I feel like the mag safe cable isn’t as safe as my mid-2012 mbp but haven’t tried to knock it off a table

* I can’t see the camera in the notch under normal light so covering that up isn’t easy

raihansaputra
You should be able to control the keyboard backlight brightness through the Control Center under Keyboard Brightness. I have mine sitting at on but minimum brightness.
foobarbaz33
I have a big Ubuntu desktop from 2015. With a graphics card. Playing Unity video games on it make the fans sound like an airplane is taking off.

My M1 plays the same Unity games with 0 fan noise. With the same performance.

I haven't had any hiccups on the M1. It just works.

Only pain point with the mac is the UI for window management and file management. But that's more personal preference and having been spoiled by the variety of options on Linux.