*** The official M4 MacBook Pro thread (it has the M4 chip, 16Gb, AI and everything!) ***

I'm wondering if I'd notice any difference from an M1 Pro. No real reason for me to upgrade, it works perfectly fine, I just have an itch for new shiny. They've offer £610 IIRC for my current laptop which is on the low side so I think I'd sell it privately.

14-Core CPU
20-Core GPU
24GB Unified Memory
1TB SSD Storage¹
16-core Neural Engine
14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display²
Three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port
Magic Keyboard with Touch ID
Force Touch trackpad
96W USB-C Power Adapter
image.alt.store_feature_mac_btr_appleintelligence
Apple Intelligence Footnote ∆
£2,199.00
Includes
Education Savings
 
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ChrisD. said:
I'm wondering if I'd notice any difference from an M1 Pro. No real reason for me to upgrade, it works perfectly fine, I just have an itch for new shiny. They've offer £610 IIRC for my current laptop which is on the low side so I think I'd sell it privately.

14-Core CPU
20-Core GPU
24GB Unified Memory
1TB SSD Storage¹
16-core Neural Engine
14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display²
Three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port
Magic Keyboard with Touch ID
Force Touch trackpad
96W USB-C Power Adapter
image.alt.store_feature_mac_btr_appleintelligence
Apple Intelligence Footnote ∆
£2,199.00
Includes
Education Savings
Click to expand...
That’s the exact model I went for - got it for £1920 from Very.
I upgraded from the base 16” M1 Pro and for my use case which is mainly Lightroom/Photoshop there is a very noticeable improvement in terms performance, in the region of 50% on some tasks.

For more mundane/day-to-day tasks I’d be hard pushed to say there’s a big difference.
 
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GMac11 said:
That’s the exact model I went for - got it for £1920 from Very.
I upgraded from the base 16” M1 Pro and for my use case which is mainly Lightroom/Photoshop there is a very noticeable improvement in terms performance, in the region of 50% on some tasks.

For more mundane/day-to-day tasks I’d be hard pushed to say there’s a big difference.
Click to expand...
Cheers. My M1 Pro does have an issue with its USB ports (if I slightly move a cable in one of the ports when it's in use it can reboot the Mac). It has AC+, just need to take it in. I'm tempted to order the M4 Pro and drive it while the M1 is away and then return if it's not for me.

That's a decent deal via Very, with it being lower than Education prices. Was that with a 10% kick for using their 0% finance? What are they like with returns?
 
ChrisD. said:
Cheers. My M1 Pro does have an issue with its USB ports (if I slightly move a cable in one of the ports when it's in use it can reboot the Mac). It has AC+, just need to take it in. I'm tempted to order the M4 Pro and drive it while the M1 is away and then return if it's not for me.

That's a decent deal via Very, with it being lower than Education prices. Was that with a 10% kick for using their 0% finance? What are they like with returns?
Click to expand...
20% actually :D , I bought it at release.

Fortunately I haven’t had to find out what their returns are like but they do state that MacBooks come under the “Non returnable under our Approval Guarantee, once installed or connected.” How rigid that policy is get no idea.
 
You basically can't blag it any more unless you get very lucky and someone nice in store like @Zeebedy did. It used to be a case of just having a link to the education store but they stopped that years ago.
 
After trying lots of different laptops, including the base M4 MBP, I've settled on a 16 inch MBP base.

I didn't want to spend this amount of money really (got a new one for £1800 which is still decent), but haven't looked at the competition and done a fair bit of research, there still isn't anything which compares.


I looked at:

  • Surface Laptop 7 - didn't want the Snapdragon chip as the gaming performance is poor, and I use the laptop for the odd game every now and then (which are also Mac compatible). Also seen compatibility issues with it being ARM, so no benefit of having a Windows device for apps which aren't available on Mac.
  • Thinkpad X9 - closest competitor I think, but I'm not sold on the OLED display quite yet, and performance doesn't seem up to scratch for the £1600 asking price. It's more of a MacBook Air competitor.
  • Surface Laptop 7 for Business - recently launched with Lunar Lake, which improves compatibility, but outright performance is lower than the X Elite.


I felt that any of the Windows laptops were compromises, when I ultimately prefer Mac OS for a laptop and have been using them for years. The only reasons I considered Windows were:

  • Availability of apps which aren't on Mac.
  • Better connectivity with an Android device (since I'm likely to be moving from iPhone to S25 Ultra)
  • Cheaper
  • More options
 
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