Poll: *** The official M3 MacBook Pro thread (it has the M3 chip, is available in Space Black and everything!) ***

Are you going to buy an M3 MacBook Pro?

  • Yes

    Votes: 17 35.4%
  • No

    Votes: 31 64.6%

  • Total voters
    48
Associate
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Just listed my 14" MBP M2 on MM. I needed a 16" so went with the M3 Space Black. I'm really enjoying the Space Black. It's nicer than the midnight.
 
Commissario
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The surface isn’t coming off of the black one because it’s not a coating. They made a big thing of that.

But no, you’re not boring. I like the silver, I’m not so sure about the Blackbook.
 
Soldato
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There is no guarantee you will receive it and it doesn't ship until Friday, 22nd December but Amazon have the 16" MacBook Pro M3 Pro with 18GB of RAM in Space Black for £2100, which is £500 cheaper than Apple's pricing. I managed to resist the 16" M1 MacBook Pro for £1800. I currently have a 2019 16" MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and I have said my next laptop should at least have 32GB (which is more than I need and 24GB of RAM would be the sweet spot), which is why I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. These deals are temping me though.
 
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Soldato
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I've been playing/setting up a couple of M3 Max 16/40 core 14" units and they do feel incredibly fluid to use. Fans seem to ramp up faster than my own 16" M2 Max though - surprisingly so tbh. Not intrusively, it's just not something I notice on my 16".

The comparison to the M2 Ultra is interesting too - They aren't as quick as the M2 Ultra for the workloads I use - some maths intensive Excel stuff and some video rendering (work/play). The M2 Ultra is about 5 minutes faster on a 20 minute run than the 14" which is reasonably significant (if you care about such things, wouldn't ruin my day). I've some stuff that takes about an hour to run on the M2 Ultra - if I get a chance, I'll kick it off on one of these M3 max units. Just edited to add - on that 20 minute run, I can still use the M2 Ultra fairly reasonably, the 14" Max not so much. Becomes a little clunky, but not unusably so. Takes nearer 35 minutes to complete on my M2 Max/32GB.

Should have a 16" M3 Ultra of my own any day now, be interesting to see what it's like. Obviously needed to upgrade my M2 Max as it's so yesterday now. Erm.
 
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Soldato
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I was in Costco today and made a point to look at the new models now they're on display. Space black is nice, so that's one thing decided. The 16" has thrown me for a loop though! My current MBP is 13" and I get on 'OK' with it, but it does frustrate me sometimes. It's a mid-2012 (yes, 11 years old) and only has a basically 720p screen, so... :o. I do quite like the smallish throw-it-in-your-bag form factor though, and it's 'acceptable'. I was therefore quite set on the M3 Pro 12 core 18GB 1TB system in 14".

Seeing them in the flesh though, that 16" is gorgeous! Not as big as you'd think, either (as far as being cumbersome). Now I'm torn, and considering switching to the same CPU/GPU with 512GB instead of 1TB, at the same price (almost) but gaining the 16" display in exchange for half the storage. Bear in mind, my MBP is basically an evening/bedtime companion - a bit of coding, remote sysadmin, YouTube, Plex, browsing and so on. Nothing major and I literally use about 60GB of its 250GB SSD atm. Everything's on my NAS or encrypted in my cloud backup. I read Apple are using two NAND chips this year so speed shouldn't be too awful dropping down to 500GB from 1TB, and at least I'd gain 2" real estate and better speakers etc (iirc). I usually keep my stuff until it's unfeasible though (see: mid-2012 MBP lol) and it worries me longer term. Thoughts?
 
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Soldato
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Ref 14 vs 16 - If I wasn't a single desker - I.e., I may visit sites, but it's only 1 site, and 1 desk per visit - I'd 100% go with the 14. The 14 does feel a decent size more usable than my M2 Air Travel Buddy. The 16 feels like a lump in my backpack by comparison.
 
Man of Honour
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Ref 14 vs 16 - If I wasn't a single desker - I.e., I may visit sites, but it's only 1 site, and 1 desk per visit - I'd 100% go with the 14. The 14 does feel a decent size more usable than my M2 Air Travel Buddy. The 16 feels like a lump in my backpack by comparison.
Agreed, hate travelling with my work 16", my personal 14" is much nicer for that. But the screen...
 
Soldato
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Ref 14 vs 16 - If I wasn't a single desker - I.e., I may visit sites, but it's only 1 site, and 1 desk per visit - I'd 100% go with the 14. The 14 does feel a decent size more usable than my M2 Air Travel Buddy. The 16 feels like a lump in my backpack by comparison.

Agreed, hate travelling with my work 16", my personal 14" is much nicer for that. But the screen...

100% completely regret getting the 16", lugging it around etc. Especially as I've been travelling much more.
 
Soldato
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Well it’s here, arrived yesterday.

So far, zero difference in the day to day over the m1 version I have already but let’s be honest I wasn’t going to notice anything from the daily chug and that’s not what I purchased it for.

H.264 work is night and day faster, not enough to justify spending over £4k though so don’t go buying it for that unless your job requires you working on video projects and exporting at a rate of 3-4 videos a day for an entire year if you want that money back as mine certainly does not..

I can however play WoW at max settings, at 5120/1440, in latest content and for that it is actually exceeding the 3080ti system and destroying the 3070 laptop. As it’s the only game I play (as well as POE) it means I can bin off everything I’ve been using now. That’s the gaming laptop, the m1 16” and the gaming pc. That’s so much potential e-waste and a ton of kWhs a year saved that would be purchased and because of that alone it is going to be financially worth it to me in as little as a year now I can sell it all on.

Some dumb reasons to upgrade granted but I’m happy. More ram than I could ever use, a cpu that outpaces a desktop 7900x and trades blows with the 7950x (bar some heavy multithreaded tasks) all in a complete package that I’ve had plugged in and not once has the power exceeded 84w at the wall.

Spot on really.
 
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Man of Honour
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Can’t argue with that tbh, fewer devices to achieve what you require is better. I only have a desktop gaming PC as a lot of games I play on it are PC/Windows only, or they’re games I’d rather play with keyboard and mouse instead of using my PS5.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
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Where do people recommend getting them from? amazon has 9% off for the 16 max but shipping is showing as may now,
Usually direct from Apple as they have very easy returns. My second option would be Amazon or Very (when Very run deals). You won't be able to return items to Very though for a full refund.
 
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