Apple M3

[sh1209]

I’ve been a long time Apple user, probably close to 15 years now and I’ve always enjoyed the Mac experience. I currently own a 27 inch iMac, which is one of the last Intel machines. Up until a few days ago, I also had a M1 MacBook Air 13 inch that I used for traveling and doing most other things other than photo editing. I decided I wanted a little larger screen so I purchased an M3 15 inch MacBook Air this week and all I have to say is wow! The one I got has 16 GB of Ram 512 GB SSD so nothing super fancy but I am absolutely astonished how well this machine will handle 4K video and photo editing. It is really made me rethink my path forward for whenever my iMac dies. Honestly, someone could use this machine with a second monitor as a primary editing rig, or at least that’s my opinion. I most likely will go back to a laptop once the desktop dies and use a second monitor, which is what I did for many years prior to buying the iMac. Point of the post is if you can contemplated buying one of the new M3 machines, I don’t think you will regret it.

 

[abc123brian]

I have been really impressed with the M1 MacBook Air. My only complaint would be the thermal throttling since it doesn’t have a fan which is why I got a MacBook Pro with the M2Pro chip. It was most noticeable when exporting video files or large numbers of RAW photos. I heard the M3 runs cooler but haven’t looked into how it handles the heat on longer tasks. Have you noticed a difference between the two?

 

[sh1209]

I have been really impressed with the M1 MacBook Air. My only complaint would be the thermal throttling since it doesn’t have a fan which is why I got a MacBook Pro with the M2Pro chip. It was most noticeable when exporting video files or large numbers of RAW photos. I heard the M3 runs cooler but haven’t looked into how it handles the heat on longer tasks. Have you noticed a difference between the two?

Seems much better in every regard to me but my last one was the M1 with only 8GB of ram

 

[jeffnles1]

I have a M1 13" MacBook Pro attached to a 27" external monitor.

I've been debating getting one with the M3 chip (probably 14"). for the time being the M1 is meeting my needs mainly because I don't do any long form video or even a whole lot of video.

With that said, your post may end up costing me a lot of money.

Jeff

 

[sh1209]

I have a M1 13" MacBook Pro attached to a 27" external monitor.

I've been debating getting one with the M3 chip (probably 14"). for the time being the M1 is meeting my needs mainly because I don't do any long form video or even a whole lot of video.

With that said, your post may end up costing me a lot of money.

Jeff

lol it’s a stark difference over my m1 but it was also only 8gb as opposed to 16

 

[Whiskeyman]

If I were to purchase a new desktop today, it most likely would be a M2 Ultra Mac Studio with a BenQ monitor.

Then again, if I absolutely had to purchase a new laptop today, I'd get that monitor and use it with my M1 MBP for the time being.

For purely financial purposes, I hope I won't have to do either in the short term.

 

[sh1209]

If I were to purchase a new desktop today, it most likely would be a M2 Ultra Mac Studio with a BenQ monitor.

Then again, if I absolutely had to purchase a new laptop today, I'd get that monitor and use it with my M1 MBP for the time being.

For purely financial purposes, I hope I won't have to do either in the short term.

Yeah I hear ya on that. I spent $5k on my iMac in late 2020 but had it custom built with 96GB ram, updated graphics card and 4TB ssd. I won’t do that again and will most likely go with a base MBP and external monitor. My iMac still works great for photo editing so I plan on using it at least two more years.

 

[Mal Paso]

Come on people, I need to fit a lens and camera in before I upgrade the computer although I'm looking at a BenQ monitor. I have a M1 16" MBP with extra ram and 1TB drive. No problems with hardware and I tolerate the software. lol

 

[MatthewK]

Similar story: earlier this year I traded in my 2019 iMac 27” for a 16” MacBook Pro M3 + Apple 27” 5k Studio display as external monitor. Having the ability to work anywhere besides my home office is a breath of fresh air, the newer M3 chip is a substantial upgrade over the Intel; my only regret is that the new monitor(s) aren’t as bright and gorgeous as the iMac’s was, but aside from that I’ve been very happy.

 

[Whiskeyman]

Yeah I hear ya on that. I spent $5k on my iMac in late 2020 but had it custom built with 96GB ram, updated graphics card and 4TB ssd. I won’t do that again and will most likely go with a base MBP and external monitor. My iMac still works great for photo editing so I plan on using it at least two more years.

I hope to get more than two more years from my iMacs. However, with the ever present threat of possible price increases, it is sometimes tempting to go ahead with an unneeded purchase.

 

[Whiskeyman]

Similar story: earlier this year I traded in my 2019 iMac 27” for a 16” MacBook Pro M3 + Apple 27” 5k Studio display as external monitor. Having the ability to work anywhere besides my home office is a breath of fresh air, the newer M3 chip is a substantial upgrade over the Intel; my only regret is that the new monitor(s) aren’t as bright and gorgeous as the iMac’s was, but aside from that I’ve been very happy.

Is the new monitor not 5k Retina?

 

[MatthewK]

Is the new monitor not 5k Retina?

It is, but it’s not as bright. It’s still nice, don’t get me wrong, you just have to max the brightness in order to march the iMac, and even then it’s missing a bit of the punch.

 

[sh1209]

I hope to get more than two more years from my iMacs. However, with the ever present threat of possible price increases, it is sometimes tempting to go ahead with an unneeded purchase.

Yeah my plan is to get at least 7 years total unless there’s a hardware issue. Unfortunately it looks like they’re going to stop supporting the software later this year, but like I said, I normally only use that machine for photo editing and do all the high-risk things on the laptop.

 

[FB101]

Running with a 2020 M1 MB Pro with 16GB memory for the last 4 years with an external 5k monitor. Best "home and on the go" system I've ever had. When I am not home I just run with a pair of external SSD, a new catalog for the trip, load every picture on the external drives and new catalog. When I get home I just merge the catalogs with transfer of the files to the main storage drives.
Now I am thinking about an upgrade only because running DxO pure Raw 4 on the A1 files is a bit of a hassle but when I do, it will be another MBP because of the heat management - the fans do come on when I run batch processes, but if I work a single file, they hardly ever do.

 

[JamesFarrell]

When Apple announced in late 2021 and made available the line of M1 14“ & 16” MacBook Pros (MBP) I was at that time using a mid 2015 Intel MBP as my primary (and only) Mac computer. While it worked OK it became too slow - actually the machine didn’t change. Rather, as cameras megapixel resolution sizes jumped, my aging Intel MBP was not getting things done very efficiently - thus judged by me to be too slow.

When the new MBP M1’s hit the market, I was an immediate potential customer. Fortunately for me I spent a lot of time listening to and taking notes from “ArtIsRight” - https://www.youtube.com/@ArtIsRight/videos - who is a real Mac guru who was testing the new Apple Silicon MBP. Art’s testing showed that increasing RAM but not going overboard and totally ’maxing’ out a new machine which can costs thousands of dollars made great sense. So, I ordered a 14” M1 MBP (wanted the smaller size for travel too) with 32gb of RAM and a 2 TB internal SSD (because I wanted internal file capacity when I traveled and not be totally dependent on external SSDs while traveling if I needed the space). But I settled for just the base processor. With a good Apple trade in allowance, my net cost was about $2600. The money I saved I used to replace an aging NEC monitor with a 27” Eizo CS2731 monitor. The M1 MBP speed is fantastic; 45mp Z7 raw files exported as TIFFs from Capture One to Topaz DeNoise took about 15 seconds instead of few minutes with the Intel machine. Big Z9 NEF raws sent from Capture One to Photolab DeepPrime XD for noise reduction took about 56 seconds consistently.

Those of you shopping for a new Apple Silicon Mac can now get even faster machines with the M3 chip (or save some money and shop for an M2 model). My “old” LOL M1 is still humming alone nicely. One thing that really surprises me is I have never heard the fans run on my M1 MBP.

The only suggestion I can make to someone interested in one of these Apple Silicon Macs is to not break the bank and totally ’max’ out a new Mac unless you really, really need it for your livelihood. I read about folks spending a fortune on these new machines when they really don’t need the totally top of the line add-ons as hobbyists. That said, In my opinion the best add-on option is to increase the RAM before spending a lot more on faster processor options. More RAM does make a difference, and in some ways helps to possibly help future-proof your investment somewhat as mega-pixel numbers increase with new cameras coming down the road with crazy resolutions.

 

[sh1209]

When Apple announced in late 2021 and made available the line of M1 14“ & 16” MacBook Pros (MBP) I was at that time using a mid 2015 Intel MBP as my primary (and only) Mac computer. While it worked OK it became too slow - actually the machine didn’t change. Rather, as cameras megapixel resolution sizes jumped, my aging Intel MBP was not getting things done very efficiently - thus judged by me to be too slow.

When the new MBP M1’s hit the market, I was an immediate potential customer. Fortunately for me I spent a lot of time listening to and taking notes from “ArtIsRight” - https://www.youtube.com/@ArtIsRight/videos - who is a real Mac guru who was testing the new Apple Silicon MBP. Art’s testing showed that increasing RAM but not going overboard and totally ’maxing’ out a new machine which can costs thousands of dollars made great sense. So, I ordered a 14” M1 MBP (wanted the smaller size for travel too) with 32gb of RAM and a 2 TB internal SSD (because I wanted internal file capacity when I traveled and not be totally dependent on external SSDs while traveling if I needed the space). But I settled for just the base processor. With a good Apple trade in allowance, my net cost was about $2600. The money I saved I used to replace an aging NEC monitor with a 27” Eizo CS2731 monitor. The M1 MBP speed is fantastic; 45mp Z7 raw files exported as TIFFs from Capture One to Topaz DeNoise took about 15 seconds instead of few minutes with the Intel machine. Big Z9 NEF raws sent from Capture One to Photolab DeepPrime XD for noise reduction took about 56 seconds consistently.

Those of you shopping for a new Apple Silicon Mac can now get even faster machines with the M3 chip (or save some money and shop for an M2 model). My “old” LOL M1 is still humming alone nicely. One thing that really surprises me is I have never heard the fans run on my M1 MBP.

The only suggestion I can make to someone interested in one of these Apple Silicon Macs is to not break the bank and totally ’max’ out a new Mac unless you really, really need it for your livelihood. I read about folks spending a fortune on these new machines when they really don’t need the totally top of the line add-ons as hobbyists. That said, In my opinion the best add-on option is to increase the RAM before spending a lot more on faster processor options. More RAM does make a difference, and in some ways helps to possibly help future-proof your investment somewhat as mega-pixel numbers increase with new cameras coming down the road with crazy resolutions.

I agree with maxing out the specs and will most likely just get one step above a base model. Most likely up the ram to 32GB and 1TB ssd would be great for me. Like I said earlier, if my iMac were to die today, I could easily use this new air for some time.

 

[JamesFarrell]

I agree with maxing out the specs and will most likely just get one step above a base model. Most likely up the ram to 32GB and 1TB ssd would be great for me. Like I said earlier, if my iMac were to die today, I could easily use this new air for some time.

If you haven’t ordered yet, check out the ports available on each model. One of the major attractions for me back when I was looking for an M1 Mac was that the new 14” and 16” MBPs had more ports than the first generation 13” M1’s. I was, and still am, loathe to the idea of any kind of hub that I might have to always deal with Or travel with. The 14” MBP had what I needed (moreover the new Eizo monitor also serves as a hub). Bottom line: I don’t know whether the ’Air’ or the ‘Pro’ have different numbers of ports.

 

[sh1209]

If you haven’t ordered yet, check out the ports available on each model. One of the major attractions for me back when I was looking for an M1 Mac was that the new 14” and 16” MBPs had more ports than the first generation 13” M1’s. I was, and still am, loathe to the idea of any kind of hub that I might have to deal with. The 14” MBP had what I needed ( and the new Eizo monitor also serves as a hub). Bottom line: I don’t know whether the ’Air’ or the ‘Pro’ have different numbers of ports.

I already purchased the air this week but will certainly keep that in mind when the iMac dies. This M3 air will run circles around previous MacBook pros I’ve had in the past for $1500 lol. I’m pretty disappointed my iMac will lose support later this year because I bought it just 3 years ago but I suppose it isn’t the end of the world.

 

[wotan1]

I went with an m2 Mac Studio earlier this year base model but 1TB drive. It works flawlessly I added the 5k studio monitor added to my older Dell monitor. I then added the iPad Pro larger screen for portable use.

I have my eye on the m3 air with larger screen and plan to go there to round things out. I recently transitioned to MAC but I still have learning issues and have to pull out the pc laptop to get some things done.

thanks tor the m3 air report,

 

[sh1209]

I went with an m2 Mac Studio earlier this year base model but 1TB drive. It works flawlessly I added the 5k studio monitor added to my older Dell monitor. I then added the iPad Pro larger screen for portable use.

I have my eye on the m3 air with larger screen and plan to go there to round things out. I recently transitioned to MAC but I still have learning issues and have to pull out the pc laptop to get some things done.

thanks tor the m3 air report,

No problem. I can’t believe the difference over the M1.

 

[Whiskeyman]

Come on people, I need to fit a lens and camera in before I upgrade the computer although I'm looking at a BenQ monitor. I have a M1 16" MBP with extra ram and 1TB drive. No problems with hardware and I tolerate the software. lol

... just tryin' to help!

 

[Whiskeyman]

I already purchased the air this week but will certainly keep that in mind when the iMac dies. This M3 air will run circles around previous MacBook pros I’ve had in the past for $1500 lol. I’m pretty disappointed my iMac will lose support later this year because I bought it just 3 years ago but I suppose it isn’t the end of the world.

Apple could help themselves out a lot by continuing to provide a base level of support for their iMacs, such as security updates, for longer than they do. Planned, designed and manufactured obsolescence are my biggest beefs with Apple. I understand that it costs money to continue support, but a lot of people, me included, paid a lot of money to go with Apple products.

 

[sh1209]

Apple could help themselves out a lot by providing a base level of support for their iMacs, such as security updates, for longer than they do. Planned, designed and manufactured obsolescense are my biggest beefs with Apple. I understand that it costs money to continue support, but a lot of people, me included, paid a lot of money to go with Apple products.

I absolutely agree!

 

[Mal Paso]

Apple could help themselves out a lot by continuing to provide a base level of support for their iMacs, such as security updates, for longer than they do. Planned, designed and manufactured obsolescence are my biggest beefs with Apple. I understand that it costs money to continue support, but a lot of people, me included, paid a lot of money to go with Apple products.

Apple says 6 year design life but that starts the second the product is announced. The practice devalues products purchased later. Buy soon after release or look for a Deep Discount!

 

[sh1209]

Apple says 6 year design life but that starts the second the product is announced. The practice devalues products purchased later. Buy soon after release or look for a Deep Discount!

Yeah it’s sorta disheartening considering what I paid for the iMac, but it still works perfectly. I’ll just do anything at risk as far as banking and things of that nature on my new laptop until the iMac finally dies. I’ve definitely learned her lesson and will never spend that much on one again because I think the base model desktop or laptop at this point will do more than enough for photo editing.