Matte space black laptops are cool, but we got M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max chips as well.
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Hey, what's up y'all MKBHD here. Welcome back to another video. this one a little bit outside of the usual Studio element as you can immediately tell uh that of course usually means I'm in a hotel room and that's true again this time I'm in California Um, and I'm out here because this week is the Ultimate Frisbee! Beach World Championships It's like a 5day long tournament. It's super countries all over the world flying in here to compete and I will be competing I'm playing on mixed Team USA So pretty incredible.

Actually, this is a opportunity of a lifetime and it's been one of my goals for basically my entire Ultimate Frisbee career to play on a Team USA and represent the country in a World championship. So pretty awesome that it's happening. so shout out to that team uh and also for letting me get over here to this hotel to also talk a little bit of tech because you know I couldn't resist. There's a random Apple event this week.

it's the Night Before Halloween and they're talking new Max new M3 Max and uh, well we got to talk about it. See, the thing is in the tech. World A lot of times you know obviously these product announcement events are super exciting, but sometimes the story behind like leading up to the event is just as exciting as the actual thing being announced. So in the in the Arc of technological progress, hopefully I'm doing this on the right side.

Usually there's a little bit of an arc like a really, really fast explosive beginning adoption phase and then things sort of even out and become mature and stable. and every every piece of tech goes through this Arc at different times, you know with the smartphone World we're at like the flat part most of the time iPhone 15 is just a little bit better than iPhone 14, which was a little bit better than 13. but we did have to go through that explosive growth to get here. And then there's other stuff like folding phones maybe that are just at the beginning or electric cars.

We see all kinds of first and second gen electric cars now, so those are clearly at the beginning of that Arc where all the early adopter and bleeding edge Tech stuff is going on. And so I bring all this up because with our computers, it's actually not quite as straightforward as we think they've actually kind of had an interesting curve. I Think we all agree that computers laptops very mature. but what Apple did with Apple Silicon when they announced Apple Silic their own integrated chips that they would be making and designing in-house to replace the Intel stuff that was in MacBook Pros and Macs before they made this really big dent in the graph, they made a big leap that you don't usually see.

so they're very, very stable with all these Intel machines for a while and then this big jump up to Apple silicon Max and these things were a hit. I I Love mine I'm I'm in this hotel right now with my M1 Max MacBook Pro and you would think this is one of those things that I usually like to stay on the bleeding edge and keep the latest and greatest stuff in my Arsenal but I haven't upgraded this in years because I haven't needed to. It's been amazing. A lot of creators that I know use these laptops M2 came out after it was an Improvement but kind of back to being like a reasonable 30% Still a big jump but like a 30 to 40% bump in CPU and GPU.
So we had this stability for a while, a huge bump and then sort of leveling back off. But then on top of all of that, there's actually been a couple other announcements that have been sort of intriguing of other silicon manufacturers actually catching up. This is all I'm speculating a little bit because I haven't tried some of this stuff, but there was a recent Qualcomm announcement where they showed off some new Chips they're working on that they are claiming has performance. that's Way Beyond what M2 already offers.

So all of that is the backdrop for this event that I'm about to watch where we kind of wonder if Apple's going to be able to give us some reasons to continue to buy new Macs new Mac Sales have not been growing as much of they' as they've wanted and they really want to give us new: reasons to. So I'm curious. Not just about the actual products that they're about to announce, but the story and the convincing that they have to do around the new products. I'm very confident that they'll be very technically impressive 3 nmet chips Etc But I'm about to sit down and watch the event.

but that's just the backdrop to what we're about to get. Let's see: Good evening and welcome to Apple Park All right, so that event was interesting. It it was. It was about what we expected.

but again, sometimes the stuff around the event is more interesting the event itself. So uh, we got what we expected. It was a pretty short event. They got right to the Chase and M3 M3 Pro and M3 Max are the new Chips.

They're all 3 nanometer chips too, which is awesome. And then we got the machines that they're in. So there is a new Macbook Pro 14in and 16in which have these new chips and they refresh the new iMac. Now there are some new abilities with these chips, right? There are some subtle things that you may or may not take advantage of like improved mesh shading or now there's Hardware accelerated R chasing for applications that take advantage of that.

Maybe you're generating three new models or you're doing after effects work or working in Maya or something like that. but something sneaky that they did was in the general broad performance stuff that they talked about. They of course showed their usual graphs, but they almost always verbally compared the M3 family to the M1 family of chips not M2 and you know that obviously makes sense. They're trying to make the improvements look as large as possible M2 Chip is only 2 years old, so the fact that they're 50% better in some stuff 60% better than M1 is amazing.
But if you look at comp comped to M2 most of the numbers were more in the 10 to 15 to 20, 25% range better than M2 as far as raw performance, but again, it's going to depend on your workflow. I'm just thinking all right, this is about what we expected: I'm going to have to test the machines to figure out what battery life is like and what general performance and the stuff I do is like I do video editing. They showed other workflows like DNA sequencing and like building applications and coding and all all kinds of stuff I don't do, but generally modest. Update: Now this whole time I'm watching this event I'm thinking okay I probably don't need to upgrade, right? I mean I have this M1 Max MacBook Pro It's been great.

So what machines are they going to put this new M3 family of chips in? So they introduced them to us and there are some new Macbook Pros and a new iMac The iMac is easy and probably actually where that M1 comparison makes the most sense. It's the same thin, colorful iMac just with the new M3 same price. Beautiful, easy, simple upgrade. but MacBook Pros uh, a little bit different.

They first of all got rid of the 13-in MacBook Pro with touch bar. Totally fine with me. Good riddance. Honestly, it's now just a 14-in and 16-in MacBook Pros The 14-in you can get the base M3 or M3 Pro or M3 Max and then the 16 in you can get M3 Pro or M3 Max.

And they also introduced a new color uh called space Black, a matte anodized aluminum black MacBook Pro and uh, well. I might I might want to upgrade I don't I don't need it though I don't need it but I kind of I might want to upgrade I don't need it I don't need it I definitely don't need it. You know clearly Apple's very clever about this stuff. They know that if they just do the new chip then maybe not as many people will upgrade.

But if you want to know that you have the new one, it's the most classic Apple thing is they give it a new look and then you know you have the new one just by looking at it. and so this this black one. it speaks to me. They talked about it in the event as having a special anodized coding to prevent getting lots of fingerprints.

I'm very curious about seeing that in person. We have some footage here. ideally that I'm I'm showing you right now of actual inperson looks at that new matte black MacBook Pro I'm calling it matte Black. It's supposed to be Space Space black or whatever, but I'm calling it matte black and you know I have a black Dbrand skin on my MacBook Pro Right now, it does pick up a little bit of fingerprints and you can see that, so I'm very interested if that will actually hide fingerprints we'll see.

And the other thing that I was actually curious about is, uh, they're going to ship a new iMac but they just sent the iPhone to USB type-c So are they also going to switch all these silly accessories like the trackpad and the keyboard to finally be USB type-c so we can slowly start getting rid of lightning everywhere? But they didn't It's still lightning trackpad, lightning keyboard. so that upgrade will have to see another day. So those are just some nuggets for you. But I think generally the thought here is what Apple's trying to do is make this upgrade seem as large as possible.
even though really people who have M1 and M2 likely won't have to upgrade if you have an M1 Max how big of an upgrade is M3 Max really going to be? It will depend on if you're pushing your current M1 Max to its limit limit and most people aren't. you know who you are if You are pushing it to its limit. I'll put it that way. um I am.

Currently you know I'm going to edit this video. This 4K video from the Canon R5 I'm going to chop it up on Final Cut Pro on the laptops and it's going to break a sweat a little bit. I already know, but it's going to export in a a handful maybe 25 minutes and then it's down to my internet connection. That's usually my biggest obstacle.

So I don't actually need to upgrade. But the really impressive part is for the people who are actually maxing out these machines lighting up all the cores. you know they have a new maximum of 128 gigs of unified memory on the M3 Max So people who are really pushing these machines to their limits are going to have even more amazing machines to go out and do their 3D rendering their DNA sequencing all the stuff that they're doing and pack that machine up and take it on the go which is ultimately what this is about. Also, this was so random.

but at the very end at the very end did you catch at the end of the key keynote that little message with text. The keynote ends they fade to black and on a black background with white text. They say this event was shot on an iPhone and wow I did not see that coming I Watched the event fully believing that this this was probably shot on regular cameras cuz there's also like drone shots and CGI and all sorts of added effects and it's colored beautifully and I don't know where the microphones are again I Have so many questions I Want I've wanted to see behind the scenes of an Apple keynote so badly for years but more than any other one I've wanted I Want to see the behind the scenes of this one so that I just I'm just putting that out into the universe. Amazing Amazing production! I'll say stay tuned for a review of these machines if you want to see real footage of the matte black MacBook Pro and all this new stuff get subscribed below I Do plan on getting my hands on that stuff and reviewing it when it comes out, but this just been my uh, first look and impression.

Thanks for watching Catch you in the next one. Go! USA Peace.

By MKBHD

12 thoughts on “M3 macbook pro impressions: is it enough?”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Cisvânyo Silveira says:

    @marques brownlee can you please make a video of the best gaming laptops and monitors with ps5 and which one is better laptop or monitor?? Especially for people who are always traveling around and want to have fun

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Account-number-3587 says:

    Genuinely asking, pls don’t throw stones at me. I’m still using the 2013 macbook pro (majority after effects and minor 3D) and thinking of changing to a new one. Should i change to the newest M3 MBP or the M1 MBP still enough?

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars wp K says:

    So If the MacBook Pros also get/have an m3 basic option now. With what kind of chip will they upgrade the MacBook Air in 2024? …and how will the MacBook Air compete against the MacBook Pro m3 (basic)?

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Nikki M says:

    I could see your excitement when you talked about the color LOL!! Great videos.. Keep up the good work! Matte black all day!

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars boxysquare says:

    Coming from my 6 year old $500 HP… WORTH IT!

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Sohan says:

    im waiting to see how they do with ipad pro m3

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Neelam OP says:

    very nice video on this topic. I wait for in new your video. Thanks

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars fberczi says:

    Hi guys! I hade a 16" M1 Pro Max and I love it. But I have 2 reasons why I was thinking to sell it. The first is the price gap between the M1 and the new M3. So now you can sell your M1 Pro Max with a very good price and you need add a little more to buy the new M4. I don't need the new M3,..but this is a good reason I think. The second reason is the future. Let's say Apple will present the new M4 Pro Max with a much better performance. Everybody will buy it, or buy a used M2 or M3. So we couldn't sell our M1 with a good price. What is your opinion?

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Natalia_SatreXx69 says:

    I have the base M1 Mac with 8 gigs of Ram and 256 gigs of SSD only, so honestly I think the M3 Pro with 36 gigs of Ram and 1TB of storage seems to be a huge improvement to me 😀

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Natalia_SatreXx69 says:

    Crazy how mkbhd doesn’t need a good studio setup to make a great video. Just takes up his Canon R5, starts shooting and speaking like a pro. Love it.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Simak Naveed Akther says:

    Yo marques congrats for playing for usa on the other note im still surprised that you still love the m1 max macbook pro props to you for not buying the m3 max one cause its not really worth the upgrade im sure this is targeted for intel users

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Luke Bannon says:

    This laptop is hot!

    No, literally. It's overheating.

    For anyone who wants to know, I have a MBP 14" M2 and a Mac mini M1 – I don't notice any difference between them, even with heavy audio workloads.

    If you have M1, you're fine for the next three years, friends. M1 is king.

    If you don't have a laptop I'd buy certified refurbished M1 and completely max out the specs. That thing will run arctic cold.

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