Photographer Austin Mann Reviews New MacBook Pro With M1 Max Chip

Photographer Austin Mann has posted a review of the new MacBook Pro with an M1 Max chip, 64GB of RAM, and 8TB of storage.

Right off the bat, Mann answers the question, "Is the upgrade just for pros or is it for everyone, too?"

My resounding answer is: the upgrade in the M1 MacBook Pros will substantially affect absolutely everyone… the battery life is not just slightly better, it's on a radically different planet. This machine stays cool and handles whatever you can throw at it, whether that's making a family photo album in Photos or rendering an animation in After Effects.




As expected, Mann is happy about the return of MagSafe, fast charging, HDMI, the SD card slot, and full size function keys; however, he would have preferred a slot that also took CF Express.

Battery life was a top feature with Mann detailing how much effort it took just to reduce battery life by 1%.

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I charged the 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max to 100% and then disconnected from power.


First, I ran an image stack in Starry Landscape Stacker on 100 TIFF files (150MB each)… it took 4m24s to render and battery life was still at 100% (the fan remained inaudible.)

Second, I ran a Cinebench test, which finished in just a few minutes and still the battery was 100%.

Third, I went back the 100 TIFF image files and opened them into StarStax and processed a "Gap Filling" blend of all 100 TIFF files. This intensive process took another 2m36s and still the battery was at 100%.

So I opened 8 images into Adobe Camera Raw and used Photomerge to create a giant panorama… this happened quickly and guess what, the battery life still showed 100%.

At this point I kind of ran out of options so I went back to Cinebench to run the test again on loop… about 2.5 minutes into that test, the battery life FINALLY dropped down to 99%.
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In comparison, a previous gen 16-inch MacBook Pro with 85% battery health dropped to 71% by step three.

Mann also was impressed with the new display calling it "vibrant but not oversaturated"; however, he wishes there was a matte/non-glare screen option.

Check out the full review at the link below.

You can order the new MacBook Pros here:
● 14-inch MacBook Pro ($49.01 off)
● 16-inch MacBook Pro ($49.01 off)

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