Laptop Guide Q3 2024 (and other things)
Earlier today, my brother was asking me for a laptop recommendation. This is a relatively normal interaction, however upon recommending the 2021 14" MacBook Pro again, for perhaps the sixth time since its release, it made me reflect upon the laptop landscape.
To qualify my statements below, please read My Computer History.
Despite new offerings and yearly refreshes by Apple, I can confidently say that, in Q3 2024, the 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro is the best value laptop on the market.
In <current year>, if you live in the US of A and are under the age of 40, you likely use an iPhone. I would imagine most people would want to take advantagse of Apple’s walled garden, which includes:
- iMessage
- FaceTime
- AirDrop
- Apple Pay
- iCloud Photos
and more. To many, this certainly will be an incentive to lean towards a MacBook.
The introduction of the M-series chips is what really sells me on MacBooks.
These chips offer equivalent performance to some desktop platforms with the power draw of a tablet. This addresses two of my biggest issues with Windows laptops: battery life, and overheating.
When you close your laptop lid, you expect your laptop to sleep, right? I can’t count how many times I’ve packed my laptop – fully charged – into my bag for class, only to find it at 50% just from the walk. I’ve felt heat radiating from my laptop sleeve into my back, just from the laptop, doing nothing? Relevant Linus Tech Tips video
I’ve certainly felt laptop chassis warm enough to fry an egg.
Disregarding sleep state shenanigans, I would expect previous laptops to get me through class with conservative usage, and I mean conservative; no browsing reddit or online shopping, no YouTube, just my notes app and paying attention to the lecture. To this day, I habitually carry a laptop charger in my bag, expecting that I’d run out of juice while on the go (USB-C charging has made this much less painful in current_year).
Having used my MacBook Pro as a daily driver since late 2022, I can confidently say that I’ve experienced neither of these issues. Granted, I don’t (can’t) use intensive programs like SolidWorks, Ansys, etc., but I’ll run DaVinci Resolve, Blender, and Ollama. The chassis get’s noticeably warm during heavy use, but not worryingly so. The standby battery life is wonderful as well. I’ve never been surprised after checking battery life after extended idle periods.
While Apple’s silicon is really good, it is not the sole reason why I like this laptop.
Next I have to talk about the display.
3024x1964, 120 Hz. Gets really dim and really bright. No color banding, the whole panel lookds uniform. It is glossy, but gets bright enough to combat this. No, I don’t notice the notch. All in all, this is likely the best laptop display I’ve used.
Both the keyboard and the trackpad are spacious and nice to use. From my understanding, MacBook trackpads have been superior since at least 2015. It does use the “Force Touch” haptic feedback system, which I wouldn’t blame anyone for not liking, but I honestly don’t care enough. Sure, I would prefer if the trackpad “click” had actual travel, but the size, smoothness, and accuracy more than make up for the lack of travel.