- All right,? So there are two new things about this new laptop from Apple. The New color and the new chip. Everything That was already great about the outside of Apple's laptop. redesign is still great.

It still has a bunch of ports. The Full size HDMI, the MagSafe is still here, still has that high quality build, the boxy design, the super bright display. Also Everything that was awkward about it is also still awkward about it. Still has this nice big notch at the top with just a webcam and no face unlock.

But It comes in black now, kind of. It looked a lot darker in Apple's announcement video. Like the color is literally called Space Black, right? So I'm expecting a really, really black laptop. And in the commercial, it looks awesome.

They Talk about this fancy new anodization process for the aluminum, So it's not a coating, it's an actual new chemistry process that is a part of the anodization itself.. It's supposed to be extra fingerprint resistant. But Now that we actually have it here,, in reality, I mean, it's darker, but like, it's just a little bit darker than the other Space Gray from before. If You wanna see a black laptop,? this is a black laptop, like they make black laptops already.

So Apple's here is just, it's a darker gray. I Think it's basically the darkest that Apple could get without showing a ton of fingerprints. I Mean,, it still does show some fingerprints a little bit. It's definitely not completely immune.

But Compared to some other black laptops I've tried, it is better than those. So It's somewhere in the middle of not so many fingerprints,, but also darker than normal. It's fine,, it's darker, which is nice. Like Some camera angles it hits, it really looks dark, but you get the idea.

It Also,, if you're curious,, it also comes with black apple stickers, and it also comes with a black MagSafe charging cable, but also, that braided cable is darker than the end. And It also comes with a brick that's still white. So I Wouldn't say they fully committed to the Space Black theme quite yet. I'll give 'em partial credit.

But Then let's talk about the chip inside. So The new three nanometer M3 family of chips gets announced, and it does offer some nice improvements over the M2 family, definitely. It Almost feels weird to compare it to the M2 stuff because almost nobody with an M2 should be upgrading to this,, but at least it's a good frame of reference. So I've been testing the absolute highest end M3 Max in this laptop,, which from the M2 Max goes from a 38 core GPU to a 40 core GPU.

And from 96 gigs of shared memory to now up to 128 gigs. CPU Wise,, Apple's claims were about right. Somewhere in the 20 sometimes 30% improvement range over last year, which is very respectable. And Actually,, it's a bigger jump in single core performance than I was expecting, which is awesome for just the daily use, the quick, snappy,, everyday computing, browsing type stuff.

And Then GPU wise, this is where more people were hoping for a little bit of a bigger improvement. And Again,, it is a respectable bump. Not Quite leapfrogging the big discreet GPUs, but still putting M3 Max's GPU up at the level of M1 Ultra. So That's pretty impressive.

And matching somewhere around AMD Radeon RX 6800 on benchmarks or about an RTX 3070, which is,, you know,, we're talking a fairly mid-range card at this point. But That's the thing about all this new GPU performance and the benchmarks and all that is great,. But what's actually more interesting, at least to me, is what you're actually going to do with that extra performance, that extra graphics power. And For a laptop like this, that's typically games or high powered graphics related applications.

So Yeah,, when you see that powerful new GPU in a laptop with new hardware accelerated ray tracing for the first time in a Mac and the mesh shading and all that,, probably the first thing you think is gaming. But then you realize it's a Mac. So Probably not gaming. But Really? I Think the reason, at least in my head, that most people don't associate gaming with Macs is not because they're not powerful.

I Mean,, they're not as powerful as the highest industry GPUs, but they're not bad. It's just because the games that people play and are enthusiastic about are often not available on the Mac. Like, I'm not even a big PC gamer, but you already know, if you want to play "The Witcher," the new "Fallout," "Skyrim," "Crysis," "Apex Legends," there's a long list. And If you want to throw maximum GPU power at that game to play it in the best possible quality,, you're looking to optimize a PC, not buy a Mac.

So I Actually think, and I think it's maybe worth an entire separate video, maybe let me know if you're interested, but I think gaming on the Mac is in an all time interesting place right now, because again,, lots of games are not available on the Mac, but this is the most powerful Mac that's ever been made. And I've been playing with some of the games that Apple likes to show off, like in the app store. They're like, "Guys, we have games. There's lots of games and they're really good and they take advantage of the new stuff." I've been playing this game called "Lies of P." It's one of the ones they talked about in the keynote and it takes advantage of the hardware accelerated ray tracing..

You can see it in the reflections and on the floor and in the sword and everything. It plays amazing. Like it looks great. Frame rates stay high.

I'm playing at 4K resolution. There's a visual depth and detail that's beautiful. Plus, macOS Sonoma has the gaming mode, which is allocating as much power as possible to this game. It also lets you use a Bluetooth controller with way faster sampling and lower latency.

And So just maxing out everything works great. It's an awesome playing experience. I was very impressed. I Just don't care about this game.

I'm not invested in that particular game at all. It was fun to play the demo, and I was impressed with the actual moment of the computing. It would get a little warm and the fans would spin up, but the fact that it would work on those Mac settings is amazing. I Just don't, I'm not invested in that game at all.

And I Think that sort of encapsulates the way I feel about all this extra GPU power, is like, you could use it for gaming, but if you're gonna buy a computer for this much money to game, you're not buying a Mac. But Then again,, of course, this is a Pro laptop, it's a MacBook Pro. And So there are lots of other non-games that take advantage of this extra GPU power and of this new hardware. accelerated ray tracing and the mesh shading and all of that.

Things like Cinema 4D and this laptop with this chip is better than ever at all. That stuff too. And I Think we're actually gonna slowly start seeing even more apps on the Mac Take advantage of this stuff as time goes on. But My conclusion was, okay, look, when the event happened, I watched it and that last video you can see in that hotel room, and I was very excited about it.

It got announced, I saw a new matte black MacBook with a new chip, and I thought that that new color on top of that new chip would be enough for me to go, "All right, you know what? It's finally time, I'm gonna upgrade." So I did, I clicked the order button and I purchased a new maxed out M3 Max MacBook Pro in matte black. But Now that I've actually had this review unit here, and I've gone through my testing and I've experienced it,, the color is kind of nice, but it's not quite as impressive and new as I was maybe hoping. And then the new chip, it's great and everything,, but it's not actually going to make a meaningful difference to my workflow. With A couple of videos I edit on the go on my laptop from the M1 Max laptop that I've been using.

So I canceled. I logged in and I canceled my order and I will continue to daily. What? I have for the past, I guess, three years now, with the M1 Max 16 inch MacBook Pro. Turns out, it's not for me.

Well, I mean, I guess it is a high-end matte black laptop. So maybe it is kind of for me. But I Think the point I'm trying to make is if you already have an M family chip MacBook in the tier that you want, meaning if you have an M2 Pro or an M1 Pro, M3 Pro is not gonna be the huge difference for you. If you have M2 Max or M1 Max, M3 Max is not really for you.

This is like any other spec bump far more for people with older machines. You Didn't need to hear me say this, but it's true for people with older machines, with Intel machines, or with machines in a different tier, where this would really unlock something new in their workflow.. And That's what's great about 'em, is you're gonna get a better machine than ever. For me, I'm gonna keep using M1 Max.

That's a testament to how good that thing is. Maybe I'll do a two years later, three years later review or something like that. But For now,, I'm glad there's a new darker color available. But Yeah,, you know, it's weirdly not for me.

Still A great laptop, still great displays, amazing speakers,, awesome build quality, battery life's still awesome. But Maybe my upgrade will come when they really commit to the matte black thing or there's another huge upgrade somewhere down the line.. That's my conclusion. Take It away, sponsor.

All right,? there's no easy way to say this, but your phone might not be what you think it is. See, every time one of those fancy new phones comes out and there's all these ads everywhere about free phones, Beware of that stuff. There's basically no such thing as a free phone. You're gonna pay for it one way or another.

Typically, those free phones are tied to the most expensive plans, or at least have some sort of strings attached, whether it's a three or two year contract that you have to pay to get out of. Like I Said,, these phones are never free. It's smoke and mirrors. But There is one company that doesn't use those annoying free phone tricks, that's Visible Wireless.

They Keep things visible. It's in the name, it's handy. But They don't have any of those hidden fees. So Basically you pay one flat rate, so you always know what you're paying every single month.

Oh, and they don't lock you into a long-term contract. So Visible is just 25 bucks a month and you pay that month to month. So If you're over the whole free phone bait and switch, maybe just go right to the switch.