MacBook Pro 14 M4: What Real Users Actually Think

Pretty good deal for an amazing laptop imo. Ended up getting the M4 Pro version with the same specs for about $250 more from Microcenter a couple of weeks back.

Display response time on the new model is still 70ms :(

It's a great machine with a terribly slow panel. Working on OLEDs otherwise and boy do you notice the difference. Also crazy that the four finger swipes between different desktops still stutter and they don't care to fix it on a machine THIS powerful.

Tbf unless you're rendering animation for Pixar you're probably not stressing an M4 chip all that much.

Sad to see this! AppleCare+ plan is a must for a MacBook. The repair for these beasts is pretty expensive compared to an iPhone or other Apple devices.

Same, also went base. Meets and exceeds all my current needs, and it'll be better to upgrade to M9 or whatever all that much sooner than maxing out an M4 and having to stick it out more years with what'll be an outdated machine by then.

The display still has absurdly bad pixel response times. The amount of motion blur on my M2 Max MBP is straight up terrible. I cannot believe they can't get this down to even a baseline that is enough for 60 Hz, let alone 120 Hz.

Non-pros are bad at graphics. This m4 will lose to an m1 pro, that's really my only consideration. If all you want is CPU then better to go with an M3 for the savings.

It's a trade off since they want an extremely bright screen with high pixel density and HDR. Brightness goes up to 1000 nits sustained in the outdoors which is unmatched by any other screen. Given that they don't target competitive gamers, there is no high demand for low response screen.

I recently replaced my screen 2 weeks ago at the Apple Store. For what it's worth the screen is $650 and labor is $100. So with tax and everything costed me just under $800.

I'm using an M4 Mac Mini daily now and haven't looked back. Windows 11 was so bad it got me to switch back to Mac and I now only use my windows PC for gaming exclusively.

So sorry this happened to you. Sadly, it will probably be around $800, at least that's the estimate Apple gave me for my M2 MacBook Pro 16" last year.

Haven't heard fan noise so far. The heaviest workload for me has been data processing, and to be honest, not a sound. This thing is a beast.

More RAM always. The difference between M3 and M4 is negligible but the increased RAM with the M3 Pro is always worth it.

I want one so bad, if I had even a sliver of justification I'd get one. Got to use my buddies base M4 Mac Mini, and it was just ridiculously fast for the price. Used to be a Mac guy, completely lost interest until they switched to their own chips. They actually seem special again.

I purchased the space black. It's super sexy, doesn't really show fingerprints and seems incredibly durable. It's anodized aluminum not paint. You can't chip it. You could possibly scratch it but even that seems like it would take some effort to do.

Honestly, this is a good deal. I dig the 24GB SKUs myself. I have an M2 MacBook Air 15" and I check RAM usage often to see if memory pressure is getting high. Even with multiple Excel, Word, Outlook, Safari tabs, Notes, WhatsApp, Photos, Notes, Discord, etc. all open at once, it rarely ever goes above 24GB of RAM usage and rarely ever uses swap memory.

I had a Dell XPS 15 that had such a bad response time on its (otherwise very nice) screen that I didn't even like watching video on it, the motion blur was so distracting. This Macbook has a ~30% worse response time than that, which is absolutely insane.

I have a similar set up with a powerful desktop. Ended up speccing out my desktop pc and just buying the base m4 MBP.

I purchased the base model 14 MBP in space black. Absolutely love this thing. It has retired my windows laptop definitively and that was a very powerful laptop. The screen is great. Very clear and very bright. The battery life is just insane. I've used this thing a lot and have rarely ever even seen below 50%. That is also after disabling all of the battery saving features and setting the screen to its brightest possible setting without dimming.

The base model is a good value now that it has 16GB RAM, and surely is enough for most people including you, and probably even me...but I buy computers with the intent of keeping them a long time, and I don't think 16GB is gonna be enough years into the future.

I got MBP 24/512 M4 pro silver model and it's an absolute beast in performance… probably an overkill for basic browsing excel and light coding kind of work with some streaming and a little heavier than my expectations but the battery life, premium looks and buttery smooth functioning with seamless iCloud sync has just won me over!

Just upgraded from my 2020 13inch mbp. 16/512 i7. This new mbp is phenomenal. More than enough for my data entry, 10 chrome tabs, and video editing. Haven't skipped a beat.

Upgraded from my beloved 2019 16" intel mbp to the 14" base mbp.. the size took some adjusting but overall im obsessed, its so cute and powerful, epic battery life, never heard the fan.

You're paying extra for essentially the best laptop in the world. The display panel used in the M4 pro series is better than the 5000$ Pro Display XDR. Even in terms of gaming, it will have no issues with titles that are native and you'll get to play that game on battery, without fan noise, on essentially a reference monitor with the best speakers in a laptop.

Better screen, better speakers, more ports thus eliminating the need for a dongle. You cannot go wrong with the M4.

I've only had my M4 for a couple days now but this is still a MacBook PRO with the latest M4 processor. It IS A BEAST on its own right. And compared to previous models, the base M4 is a significant step up. I bought this mac solely for its portability.

This upgrade for me finally ended up being worth going for a Pro instead of an Air. 16 GB RAM base model with double the storage was such an easy sell. Plus a nicer screen? Stoked to have an MBP again!!!

AppleCare isn't that expensive especially now with AppleCare One, I pay $25.99 for my iPhone (with theft), Ultra Watch, AirPods Max and MacBook Pro. It is a small price to pay for peace of mind in my opinion.

$839 to fix. Went through this.

Can confirm after testing two MacBooks that space black is not a fingerprint magnet, but midnight on the air absolutely is.

I don't think you can point to a Windows laptop that beats the M4 MBA on performance and battery life and build quality. Not for $850. That makes it the value king right now.

The machines are amazing for everything other than gaming. Great screen, great form factor, great keyboard, and no lag with common tasks. I don't push my hardware with work, they're very capable machines.

I like my 14" pro. Had it for about a year now, had an m2 air before. It's about as large as I'd want to carry around every day, I rarely hear the fans, and the extra ports come in handy. Even having the extra C port on the right has been a good thing.

When you install the entire Adobe suite and then fill it up with files you might run out of space for Adobe to use its scratch disks so if you're not carrying around an external hard drive you might want to go for 1TB but Apple charges absolutely ridiculous prices for upgrades. The base models are good deals but once you upgrade them they become expensive.

The 10 core M4 has faster single core performance than the 11 core M3 Pro and faster multicore performance. The M3 Pro has a slightly faster GPU, but the difference is only around 25%. The M3 Pro has better cooling if that is important to you.

I just built a gaming rig with a 4080 and 64gb ram. got me base pro strictly for work/productivity. 16GB is more than enough for a non gaming Mac.

I do some hobby video editing using Premiere Pro and After Effects. Nothing fancy. Maybe some color enhancement, video stabilization. M3 Pro handles it fine. I think M4 Pro is the way to go though. Every bit of RAM helps.

At this point was it worth it? You could have purchased an M3 Air with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. Which would be brilliant in all the mentioned tasks. Although, you would save an extra 300$.

My fans spin a lot while gaming and charging.

I have found the M4 worse than expected in many ways. Gaming is harder to set up because you cannot create a PC Partition. You can only run parallels. I bought my M4 intending to use it for music production but have found it no faster when processing audio exports.