MacBook Pro 14 M1: Reddit's Verdict After Years of Real Use

I mean… a lot.

The fact it can sustain the performance like the 16 inch version is impressive. You will certainly hear the fans spin up but as most reviews point to it seems the fans don't get as loud as past Intel Macs which is a plus.

Also keep in mind these tests you see are for insane situations that 99.9% of people will never be in. I have yet to hear my fans kick on in my 14" editing hundreds of large RAW files with many layers and 4K 10 bit footage.

Score: 93% (Very Good). Pros: high-quality and sturdy chassis, great display with accurate colors. They're one of the best laptop review sites over there, that goes in-depth on display, noise, temperature which many reviews gloss over on.

I think the 14" base model will be perfect for many average users. It's more than enough. Size/specs are very appealing.

The M1 14" MacBook Pro, even though it's a couple generations old now, is still a beast of a machine. That M1 chip is really solid, especially if you're doing normal productivity stuff, coding or even some light video/photo editing. It'll handle almost anything without breaking a sweat.

I've used a MBP 14 and went back to MBA 13. I still miss the beautiful screen and amazing sound. But performance wise, I don't see much difference at all.

PWM is really disappointing, do the current Pros use PWM as well?

16" M1 MacBook Pro user here. Bought it new and it's still churning out work for me. I still feel like I can't tax this machine to a level where it makes sense to upgrade. And I do some pretty heavy work on it. M1 Pro machines are still a great option even now.

I have personally bought and used about 4, second hand 14" MacBook Pros with the M1 Pro chip. They are still awesome laptops. Personally, I'm taking one of these with their far better screen, speakers, cooling etc over a new MacBook air. One issue that i've encountered on 3 of 4 that i've owned, is dead pixels on the screens (just a couple, but still a pain).

Any m1 mac is more than good enough to start.

Most machines (even the much derided Intel Macs) are perfectly performant after two years and perfectly serviceable for a good few years after that.

It's what I've been using at work for almost 4 years. Still going strong.

It's pretty pro honestly. The base M1 Pro is already more powerful than the i9 in the 2019 MacBook Pro. Also, the graphics performance is not too far behind for the price difference. The battery life and cooling and display and keyboard are so much better which makes the 14 inch a real pro device.

For casual use the M1 Mac is still plenty powerful.

Yes. That's an excellent laptop for a beginner. Go for it!

That's an absolutely horrible price considering you're in America. You can buy a brand new open-box Macbook base model open box M5 from Best Buy for $1268.

I have M1 pro. I do 4K video editing, 3D modelling. More on the basic side but still it manages it without a hiccup.

I've just crossed the 2yr mark also. It's a fantastic machine!

My 14" M1 is still a beast.

I anticipate my M1 Max will be the gift that keeps on giving until the early 2030s at least - Apple's problem right now is that they made a class of laptop that is too good to want to upgrade from.

I'm a pro iOS developer. For personal development tasks an M1 Pro MBP should still be fine. I use an M1 Air as my personal machine and the only thing I've ever found to be unusable development-wise was the Vision Pro simulator. Otherwise, I continually do iOS development with Xcode, and other dev work and it's never slowed me down. Still works great.

The 14" is a powerhouse for the average user. Yes the cost is high, but it's packed with so much. This is the best Mac we have seen for years. This will last for years to come…

I'm on the other side of the coin. Spent a week with an Air, a 14" and a 16". Ultimately chose 14" for the portability while sacrificing a bit of screen real estate. The Air was really nice, light and compact, but for a tiny bit more weight and dimensions, I got a much, much nicer, really fluid screen (I cannot use 60Hz and below anymore!), more ports, better speakers, longer battery life, and better internals.

I had a M2 Air for a bit and now have a 2021 MBP 14". Compared to the 14" MBP, the M2 Air is a bit slimmer and lighter but only by 0.5lb. Besides the more vivid screen, the speakers on the 14" MBP are significantly fuller and much more immersive. The M2 Air speakers sounded much more tinny and unsatisfying in comparison.

Man I still use my 16G RAM M1 Pro 14" for pretty much everything I did with my Legion Slim 7. Coding, unity, logic pro, you name it — the MBP still handles it like a champ. If you can find a 32GB RAM version of that laptop then even better. Bottom line — yes, it's 5 years old, but no it won't feel it's age, and yes if you can find a great deal for it it's 100% worth it.

I still edit videos, photos, do all of my college coursework, on a M1 Pro. So yeah it's a great machine.

I actually just went from a 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro to an M4 Pro Mac Mini & tbh the difference wasn't as noticeable as I thought it'd be. The M1 Pro still holds up very well.

Still rocking an M1 Max 14". Compared to my M4 Max, the M1 Max still does 70-80% of the tasks without any issues (editing 100mp photos and dense video files). Slower at those tasks of course, but for a machine with this much performance from 2021 - it's hard to fault.

I'm still happily using my 2021 MacBook Pro 16 inch with M1 Max and 64GB of RAM - 5 years old and it's still an absolute speed demon with everything I throw at it.

I bought a 16gb M1 Macbook pro in Canada for 750$. It's a very capable machine and I'm a heavy user. That price is atrocious.

That macbook is worth around 800$. If you're not doing anything intense, get the m4 air for 750$..

Wow that price.... I was selling my 16" M1 pro 32gb 500gb drive for $500 and no one wanted it. And the power cycle was less than 200.

Fuck yeah. Mine's 2021 M1 pro and i haven't found the limit yet. It's the best laptop i've ever had.

As others have said, this machine is an absolute beast. I don't plan on replacing it until I can afford an M4 pro. Not anytime soon haha.

It works just fine for everyday tasks and development. I have Jetbrains IDE with github copilot. Copilot works fine, up until you try to use the Github Copilot Chat, that consumes a lot of memory and my poor 16gb can't cope. But other than that, it is a great computer. I'm using docker with multiple containers and it handles that like a champ.

Yes. These things don't get slower with time, you know. The trade-offs are the obvious one: remaining battery life, guarantee vs price.

I got a used 2021 m1 max 14" this jan 2025 and have zero regrets. Big thing for me was lots of ram and storage and the best bang for the buck imo is the m1 max w/said specs. The m1 max cpu is still a beast.

I crossed the 3 year mark in November with my M1 Pro 14". My 3 year AppleCare also ran out then and I extended it for $100 for the year. Fantastic machine that still flies through anything I throw at it. My previous machine was a 2016 15" MBP that crapped out with the 'Flexgate' issue in early 2021. I hope the reliability of this machine will give me a solid 6+ years.

Yeah me too. M1 Pro 16". nary a thought of upgrading. It only has 16GB, and I do some heavy video lifting with this thing.

I use a 16 inch with the same chip and 32gb ram. No issues at all. Honestly this might be the best laptop I have ever owned. Previous laptops really started to show their age 4 years in. But I often forget how long I have had this.

I have the same model and it still rocks. It can manage huge projects, tons of plugins and overall has great performances. 512 gb of storage maybe are not that much, but you can easily use external storage if needed.

I have the 14 inch 2021 Pro Max and it's a beast for music production. The Pro isn't that far off, it'll work great.