I ended up purchasing the base model of the 14 inch MacBook Pro. As I detailed in my guide to the MacBook lineup, Apple’s upgrade options are great for specific customers, but aren’t universally necessary. Not to mention that, at the time I bought it, choosing a custom order option would have pushed the delivery date out for months.
The default specs, including 16GB of memory, a 512GB SSD, and an 8 core CPU, aren’t particularly impressive on a raw-number basis, particularly for a $2,000 laptop. The basic numbers aren’t the whole story, however, as I’ll explain in the benchmarking section. In fact, I’ve been very happy with the base model and am glad I didn’t spend more for the upgrades.
Part of this is because the upgrade options don’t necessarily offer huge benefits for photographers, which is my main use for this laptop. While more RAM is always nice, I don’t plan on stitching massive panoramas on this device. Plus, the speedy SSD enables memory swapping with little performance impact in real-world situations, should the need arise.
The base 14″ MacBook Pro’s 512GB SSD is small, but Apple’s upgraded options are so expensive that it’s cheaper to purchase two larger external SSDs, which also lets you reap the benefit of a spare drive and easier offloading to another computer. As for upgrading the processor, it offers little improvement for photo editing, although it’s a different story for heavy video use.
Another factor that pushed me to choose the base model is that this is the first generation of Apple’s M1-powered Pros. If past generations of Apple products are anything to go by, the second generation will offer some significant improvements and quality of life fixes – not to mention the performance leap expected from the M2 chips. Whether the next generation moves to a smaller node from TSMC, or the design just improves performance for desktop-style workloads, I think it’s unwise to over-spec a first generation MacBook.
Beyond the upgradeable specs, all 14 inch MacBook Pro models offer 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, an SDXC card slot, and the long-awaited return of MagSafe charging via MagSafe 3 port. The keyboard features a standard set of function keys (in lieu of the divisive TouchBar), while the trackpad is a large slab of glass, offering the typically wonderful performance of a Mac trackpad.
The MacBook Pro’s screen is probably another major selling point for visual media professionals. Referred to as Liquid Retina XDR, in reality this display is a 14 inch, 3024 by 1964 resolution display that can produce 1000 nits of brightness across the whole screen. Between the shocking brightness, IPS display, support for both the P3 color gamut, and refresh rates up to 120hz, the display is one of the best in show for in a laptop today.
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