MacBook Pro M1 Real Users Weigh In: Still Worth It?

Me, a Firefox and Excel user: 16" Max it is.

Is this a question? I still have my M1 Max 64gb 2TB, it doesn't miss a beat with xcode, visual studio and android studio running multiple projects at once. Not to mention final cut pro and Lightroom as needed. It barely gets warm. Absolute trooper.

Absolutely. I have the 14" version of this, and it runs faster and smoother than nearly anything I've ever touched. If you've never used an Apple Silicon Mac before, this is going to be a giant step forward in performance and battery life. And the screen and speakers are something you have to witness to realize how far we've come.

Top notch review. That juicy large screen is certainly a major selling point to people who need screen real estate.

Finally someone is talking about the horrendous response time of the screen.

It all comes down to price. It's still a solid machine, but I've seen some crazy good deals on M2 and M3 models.

Black to white is 90ms?! That's so high.

16GB of RAM will become a weak point of this laptop, but other than that, it should last until 2030 or longer.

8 years is a big ask. Also, the 16" screen is extremely expensive to replace and can't be easily swapped.

Yeah totally! My stepbrother was looking for a Macbook for Ableton Live production and he said he wanted a "big one" so I got him a 2021 16" M1 Pro 1TB 16GB for $850. Now he could've spent almost twice that for an M3 Pro which would've had worse Ableton Live performance — M1 has 2 more performance cores and 2 less efficiency cores than M3 Pro.

Yes. The M1 and M1 Pro chips are still great.

You can web browse on the M1 at 100mph or 130mph with the M3. When all you need to do is 70mph? Like saying I want to cruise in town in GT Rally or F1 when all you need is a standard decent car.

Hard to say if it's "worth" buying if you don't list a price. $500 = yes. $1500 = no.

Two weeks ago I bought a 2021 M1 Pro 16Gb/1Tb. Holy moley - I'm LOVING the battery life. Previous: 2015 MacBook Pro 15" Retina. With a near new battery.

I just picked up the same laptop (but 1TB) and I couldn't agree more. Outside of some speed improvements and a few less/less powerful CPU cores the M1 Max absolutely holds its own against the M4 Pro line. Super impressive for a 4 year old laptop.

I myself wouldn't pay more than $700-850 for the base M1 Pro 16".

I'm still of the opinion that most people generally don't need anything more than what the m1/m2 lineup has to offer.

App compatibility won't be an issue for a very long time. To take it in perspective, I have seen a lot of people working with their older MacBooks (even pre-2015 models) pretty well. My guess is that M series chips will be supported longer than Intel chips since Apple owns the architecture.

The M1 pro is still more than enough for 95% of users, and you will see a significant performance and battery life increase over any other windows laptop so yes it's still a good choice.

Bought one a few months ago. Paid a few hundred more.... no regrets whatsoever. Plan to have it for 6+ years.

My M1 Max is still working well — I haven't noticed any deterioration in performance. I think it's more likely that MacOS (and third party software) just gets more demanding over time.

I've had mine for 2 weeks now. Exactly the same machine. 16gb seems fine for me now (Photoshop and Lightroom). I mostly wanted it for in 5 years from now when I will definitely still be running this laptop.

My plain Jane M1 is still killing it with FCP and any other heavy load I throw at it. This will be just fine.

I've got the 32 gb version and it's still a flawless machine.

Most people with an M1 are going to be totally fine for many years. Is Firefox opening in 0.2 seconds vs 0.15 seconds on an M4 worth the upgrade? Is a docker container building in 10 seconds vs 15 seconds worth it? Probably not.

I love the bigger screen. Not needing to connect to a secondary monitor is amazing. Speakers are awesome too! When I had the M1 Air connected to a monitor it drained the battery faster — with the M1 Pro 16 I rarely need to charge. Also not needing a dongle/hub for SD Card and HDMI is great.

Great laptop, that's what I had! I was unlucky — I put a cover on it and the display died before 3 years were up, then the replacement display died (aftermarket). No AppleCare. Still chugging along as a desktop tethered to an external monitor. I do miss the portability though.

I genuinely feel that the usual 7-year cycle simply won't apply to the M Generation of Apple laptops — it's still extremely capable for everything I throw at it. I'm a photographer and edit large files with no slowdowns.

I am using a 16" M1 Pro for work. I always have to lug it around in a rucksack or big bag because it's so heavy and doesn't fit in a smart handbag. It's a beautiful machine but the portability is a real issue for travel.

M1s are still rapid as hell! In fact, I got an M4 Max and there's no real noticeable speed difference between my M1 and M4. Hard to tell, mainly because the latest release of all Adobe software seems chuggy as fuck and I've had to downgrade them all to get it back to the speed it was once at!

Just got my 16" M1 Pro with 32gb ram 1TB and it's a huge upgrade to my 16" MBP retina i7 quad from 2014 that still works.

Sure, mine's holding up well. I also have an M4 Mini — but the M1 is no slouch.

I have the same exact model Mac as you. I didn't upgrade to Sequoia for this exact reason.

This happened to me too so I traded it in for a Best Buy open box 16" m3 pro max with 36gb of ram and now we flying again. Disappointed that the M1 Pro got slower so quickly.

I got a "good" condition 32GB M1 16" a few weeks ago for ~$700 on Back Market. Would definitely recommend going that route. You don't need 1TB storage as much as you'll want that extra RAM.

I have a M1 Pro 16 GB with the 1 TB SSD and it is amazing. Still can do everything and anything I'd even think of at this point. It is slower than the M4 chips but for day to day it isn't that noticeable. I think for the next 5+ years you will be fine.

It's completely usable and I use one myself. The downside to the M1 is that it will likely receive another five years of macOS and security updates. A new model would get nine years.

I just bought one for $980 on Back Market and it's running amazing! I used an M4 air for a bit to test it out and they're so similar. The M4 is a little snappier but the M1 with 32gb RAM has not gotten warm ONCE — and I'm running MATLAB, ESA SNAP, with YouTube perpetually in the background plus 20 Safari tabs minimum.

MacBooks have 7yrs of support life, this laptop is a 2021 model so has around 3yrs of life left. I personally think M1 is too old now to comfortably recommend. For that money I'd get a M4 MacBook Air — they're constantly on offer for €750-800 and you get full 7yr service life.

I wouldn't spend that much on any M1 Mac at this point.

They sell them on eBay for around $675 USD. $850 is too high. I just bought one for around $675, M1 with 32GB in great shape.

I traded my base model 16 inch for $555 earlier this week — amazing machine but I needed more ram and storage. The speed was amazing for 5 years of owning it.

I got the same laptop in space grey and I love it. Does everything I need to and can even emulate Windows 11. If this lasts me at least 5 years I'll consider it worth it.

I have an M1 base running in my house with 16GB RAM. Got it 3 days after launch so it's 5 years old. It's gonna be fine till 2028-29 by a stretch, but anything post-2030 is going to be lucky. M2/M3 Macs around the same price might last you a little longer.

Maybe 5 more years at max. Also before choosing a 16" MacBook consider going to an Apple store and lifting one — I have a 16" and I can say the weight is quite noticeable if you are carrying it throughout the day at school.

I re-ran Geekbench 6 and compared my results on my M1 Pro 14" MBP on macOS 13.2.1 with the same machine on macOS 15.2. The score on macOS 13 was 1714/7467 versus on macOS 15 just now which was 2415/10832. So at least nominally the performance has actually improved.