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I just got rid of a 10 month old 16" MacBook Pro for an M1 Air. I wasn't unhappy with the performance of the 16", but the heat and noise were just misery induci

I just got rid of a 10 month old 16" MacBook Pro for an M1 Air. I wasn't unhappy with the performance of the 16", but the heat and noise were just misery inducing. The thing was unusable on my lap. After 30 minutes or so just coding, it would get so hot I had to put something between it and my legs. My partner could hear the fans from the next room. And to cap it off, since Big Sur I've been unable to get more than 4 hours off the battery—usually more like 3. Compare that to the Air: I'm losing two USB ports which is annoying, the speakers are nowhere near as good, I miss the bigger screen, and I'm down 16GB RAM (although in retrospect, I never needed 32GB for my workloads anyway). But in return, I get almost no heat, zero noise, nuts performance (my test suites run 2x faster on average, despite running on two fewer cores), and so far 10-12 hours off a charge easy. And I get real function keys instead of the Touch Bar. Happiest I've been with a computer in a long long time.

eru 6y ago
My machine says `MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)`. It doesn't get too hot from just coding for me. What are you doing? (It does get hot when watching the highest resolutions youtube has to offer these days, though.)
- netcraft 6y ago
  My same model does when coding running docker, any video 720p or above, or zoom calls.
  - chin7an 6y ago
    Docker for mac is ridiculously bad to use. We use build containers at work, and Big Sur definitely gets mad at the VM activity & the high disk activity. My 2019 15" i9 MBP sounds like a jet engine half the time.
- matwood 6y ago
  You have what many would consider the last 'good' mbp. After that one, Apple pushed to make them thinner and try to make them faster, but really went too far with the thermal envelop. It's 100% Apple's fault for the thinness, but Intel didn't do them any favors with their delays either.
  - eru 6y ago
    Interesting! I had a newer MBP for work at a recent job. I liked it well enough, and it was faster (just thanks to newer processors).
  - brandall10 6y ago
    I had a 2008 15" MBP, the original retina 15", and currently have a work issued 16" i9. The 16" gets toasty, but those first two could get scalding hot. And I was concerned about that as I only had 13" in the intervening years, but the 16" is nothing like those at all. Never once had a situation where it was so hot that I had to remove it from my lap but regularly had those situations with the others. And I'm pushing it super hard, it rarely gets better than 3-4 hours on a charge. I don't think people are remembering just how bad those earlier MBPs were.
    - matwood 6y ago
      Interesting. I have a 2015, 2017 mbp and m1 MBA sitting here. The 2017 is the worst of the bunch in terms of fan noise and heat. It is faster than the 2015, and both are 15". I don't have a 16", so maybe they fixed some of the issues on that one.
- mirsadm 6y ago
  I have the same laptop and the fans are on more than they're not. Not exactly a great experience.
- deergomoo 6y ago
  Mostly just WebStorm and/or VS Code. Neither are particularly light applications I know, but they shouldn't be taxing on a machine of that spec. For comparison, my previous machine (an entry spec 2015 13" Pro) would only spin the fans up when I was actually pushing it. Throw in some horribly unoptimised crap like Teams and it was like sitting next to a tiny little aeroplane all day long.
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>The thing was unusable on my lap Just out of curiosity, why do so many people use them on their lap? I know "lap" is in the name, but damn, that posture is just terrible for your spine, neck and shoulders. Do you not have a table or some flat surface around the house/office to place it on? Outside of a few crowded meetings that lacked table space for everyone, I never in my life used my laptop in my lap.
- deergomoo 6y ago
  I'm at a desk the majority of the time. But, sometimes I want to work on something casually while I'm watching TV. Or sometimes my partner is on an important call so I have to vacate our shared home office. I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation to be able to comfortably use a laptop on your lap for short periods.
matwood 6y ago
> (my test suites run 2x faster on average, despite running on two fewer cores) I replaced a 2017 i7 mbp with a m1 MBA, and see the same results running my java test suites. I ran them a bunch of times thinking there had to be some error.
tomaskafka 6y ago
> the speakers are nowhere near as good Wow, I need to go listen to 16 inch, when I listened to new Air for the first time, I thought 'wow, those are surprisingly capable speakers for such a lightweight machine'
- deergomoo 6y ago
  They are probably its best feature I'd say (aside from being the first Apple laptop in 4 years with a reliable keyboard).
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  The speakers on my 16” are good enough that I don’t much miss my old school stereo with bookshelf speakers which I parted with in a move a couple years ago. They certainly aren’t as capable of that volume, but they’re loud enough to fill my small 1br house, and with excellent audio quality (probably comparable to my old setup). Apple has consistently provided good audio iterations on its laptops, so I’d assume the same will be true on the inevitable M-series 16” replacement.
pmarreck 6y ago
I'm upgrading when the M1X MBP comes out, which (rumors say) will be another large performance jump
nr2x 6y ago
I use logic to make music and the noise from the fan on my 15" MBP goes beyond annoyance to making it hard to perform my task as I can't hear subtleties without cranking up the volume to compensate for the fan. As soon as the 14" drops later this year I'm on it.

eru 6y ago

My machine says `MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)`. It doesn't get too hot from just coding for me. What are you doing? (It does get hot when watching the highest resolutions youtube has to offer these days, though.)

netcraft 6y ago
My same model does when coding running docker, any video 720p or above, or zoom calls.
- chin7an 6y ago
  Docker for mac is ridiculously bad to use. We use build containers at work, and Big Sur definitely gets mad at the VM activity & the high disk activity. My 2019 15" i9 MBP sounds like a jet engine half the time.
matwood 6y ago
You have what many would consider the last 'good' mbp. After that one, Apple pushed to make them thinner and try to make them faster, but really went too far with the thermal envelop. It's 100% Apple's fault for the thinness, but Intel didn't do them any favors with their delays either.
- eru 6y ago
  Interesting! I had a newer MBP for work at a recent job. I liked it well enough, and it was faster (just thanks to newer processors).
- brandall10 6y ago
  I had a 2008 15" MBP, the original retina 15", and currently have a work issued 16" i9. The 16" gets toasty, but those first two could get scalding hot. And I was concerned about that as I only had 13" in the intervening years, but the 16" is nothing like those at all. Never once had a situation where it was so hot that I had to remove it from my lap but regularly had those situations with the others. And I'm pushing it super hard, it rarely gets better than 3-4 hours on a charge. I don't think people are remembering just how bad those earlier MBPs were.
  - matwood 6y ago
    Interesting. I have a 2015, 2017 mbp and m1 MBA sitting here. The 2017 is the worst of the bunch in terms of fan noise and heat. It is faster than the 2015, and both are 15". I don't have a 16", so maybe they fixed some of the issues on that one.
mirsadm 6y ago
I have the same laptop and the fans are on more than they're not. Not exactly a great experience.
deergomoo 6y ago
Mostly just WebStorm and/or VS Code. Neither are particularly light applications I know, but they shouldn't be taxing on a machine of that spec. For comparison, my previous machine (an entry spec 2015 13" Pro) would only spin the fans up when I was actually pushing it. Throw in some horribly unoptimised crap like Teams and it was like sitting next to a tiny little aeroplane all day long.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

>The thing was unusable on my lap Just out of curiosity, why do so many people use them on their lap? I know "lap" is in the name, but damn, that posture is just terrible for your spine, neck and shoulders. Do you not have a table or some flat surface around the house/office to place it on? Outside of a few crowded meetings that lacked table space for everyone, I never in my life used my laptop in my lap.

deergomoo 6y ago
I'm at a desk the majority of the time. But, sometimes I want to work on something casually while I'm watching TV. Or sometimes my partner is on an important call so I have to vacate our shared home office. I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation to be able to comfortably use a laptop on your lap for short periods.

matwood 6y ago

> (my test suites run 2x faster on average, despite running on two fewer cores) I replaced a 2017 i7 mbp with a m1 MBA, and see the same results running my java test suites. I ran them a bunch of times thinking there had to be some error.

tomaskafka 6y ago

> the speakers are nowhere near as good Wow, I need to go listen to 16 inch, when I listened to new Air for the first time, I thought 'wow, those are surprisingly capable speakers for such a lightweight machine'

deergomoo 6y ago
They are probably its best feature I'd say (aside from being the first Apple laptop in 4 years with a reliable keyboard).
eyelidlessness 6y ago
The speakers on my 16” are good enough that I don’t much miss my old school stereo with bookshelf speakers which I parted with in a move a couple years ago. They certainly aren’t as capable of that volume, but they’re loud enough to fill my small 1br house, and with excellent audio quality (probably comparable to my old setup). Apple has consistently provided good audio iterations on its laptops, so I’d assume the same will be true on the inevitable M-series 16” replacement.

pmarreck 6y ago

I'm upgrading when the M1X MBP comes out, which (rumors say) will be another large performance jump

nr2x 6y ago

I use logic to make music and the noise from the fan on my 15" MBP goes beyond annoyance to making it hard to perform my task as I can't hear subtleties without cranking up the volume to compensate for the fan. As soon as the 14" drops later this year I'm on it.