Macbook M2 Pro 14” 2023: My Honest Review After 1 Month Of Use

Explaining why I probably wouldn’t buy the Macbook M2 Pro 14" again for my purposes of video editing in 2023. I've had this laptop for over a month now and I've used it for all of my personal daily tasks, all of my video editing and took it with me to coffee shops and working there.
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🙋‍♀️ I’m Maria, an Engineering Manager at a big tech company and I’ve been coding since I was 13 years old. I love working in tech because building new things and being creative is something that makes me really happy. While on this journey, I realized how lots of questions I receive in 1:1s get repeated a lot so I decided to upload short and simple Q&A videos on TikTok which grew to a small amount of followers. For some questions, I wanted to dive deeper with longer answers which is how this channel started. Thanks for being here – my goal is to help some people out and make their lives at tech jobs more effective.

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[techmentormaria]

Shot with ✨Cinematic Mode✨ on my iPhone 13 Pro. Crazy quality, right?

[skd]

I never got the buffer you are talking about when editing. But I do use Safari instead of Chrome, so this might be it. I usually have 20 tabs open, so it's definitely not that in my opinion. Also, I edited some videos in Final Cut Pro on my wife's Air M2 (8GB RAM) and had no buffer issues, so it must be something else.

[quazimoto]

I ran into the same issue as you with the 14" base model. I was originally in the market for an M2 Air and was going to upgrade to 24gb ram and 1tb hard drive but then realized the base model 14" was actually cheaper so I decided to take that one home. Unfortunately, 16gb ram was not enough for what I was trying to do, which was software development with an IDE, a bunch of chrome tabs, Docker, and a few other programs like postman and portico. Swap memory was almost always being used. So I brought it back and upgraded to the 14" M2 (mini) Max with the 12c/30c processor, 32gb ram, 1TB hard drive and it has been performing spectacularly. The only difference I've noticed is slightly shorter battery life because of the beefier processor - maybe an hour and change less but still miles ahead of any Intel laptop I've ever owned or used. I like my computer so much that I began wondering if I should've gotten the 16" because I do find the 14" cramped sometimes with windows up side by side. I have an external monitor I can use, but I love using the laptop on the go, from the couch or bed, or a coffee shop, so I think the portability is probably better for me. The biggest issue I have with the device is the sharp edges digging into my palm/wrist when I'm using the track pad. But besides those few nits, this is a very well designed machine that performs really well, so I hope that it will help me with creating apps and learning new technologies.

[martijntjuh]

Wow what a joy to watch short and informative keep it up!

[koltonquinton]

The reason people say get the 1TB version over the 512GB version isn’t purely for storage. 1TB version is dual channel (two physical chips configured to increase bandwidth). 512GB is not. This becomes noticeable when a macOS feature called swap happens. This is when macOS starts to utilize the ssd as ram. Happens as you approach max ram utilization. With the slower SSD’s, you notice the swap which is what you experience with the buffering. Downgrading to the m2 from m2 pro wouldn’t solve this. Only going to 1TB ssd or 32GB ram. Another option would be to find an M1 pro or higher machine with minimum 512GB ssd 16 GB ram. The base M1 Pro models utilized two physical ssd chips for the greater bandwidth. Which yes, means apple downgraded some aspects of the base model M2 pros.

[SmartByTravel]

Yea, 32 GB Ram is the sweet spot. You should exchange it but if you do 32GB it's $200 more for the Max. So, the entry level 30-GPU, 32GB Max 16" is the best value/performance of their lineup. On this one 32GB automatically upgrades you to 1TB. It's true Apple's return policy is 14-days but if you go to the store, you may be surprised that they let you upgrade it. I would go in and check. I have done it before.

[ThinLineMedia]

Never had my Windows laptop freeze, when I was doing heavy video editing and had Chrome open. It also has 16gb RAM and it is a laptop from 2019.

[coyoteb]

The problem with the 14" M2 Macbook Pro base 512GB is the SSD is slow (About half the speed of the 14" M1 Pro 512GB). So when you run out of memory, the system will use swap memory to your slow SSD which is why you get a slow system when having a bunch of Chrome tabs open. I purchased the 14" M1 Pro 512GB instead because it doesn't have this issue. Or you can get the M2 Pro with the 1TB SSD in order to get the fast SSD. You can find the 14" M1 Pro on sale or refurbished. The processor/GPU is minimal difference between the two generation systems.

[colbyzurlini]

There is a guy on YouTube doing comparisons of ram vs extra ssd storage and how it effects efficiency and more ram almost always makes it better . The swap storage is slower so the ram helps

[asdf]

Just a side note, especially since you do many videos on credit cards as well. Some credit cards will extend your return window, such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Capital Venture X and American Express Platinum, which I believe gives you up to 90 days to return a purchase.

In regards to Ram, I recommend switching to Safari. Much more ram friendly than Chrome and also energy/battery efficient.

[xaviercollins]

Definitely agree on the battery life and it staying cool for long period time of usage. It’s strong. I got the m2 pro 13in last summer when it first came out and it’s been great. Kinda would like to have a lil bigger screen though maybe in the future. The $$ is much higher for the 14 in so might hold on to this for awhile haha. Good vid and review!

[RainmanBiking]

1TB makes a difference to the 512GB because disk writing speeds are much faster. And this might be a factor when it comes to paging because of low free memory what your are experiencing. The reason why the 1TB version is much faster is because Apple built in 2 512gb SSD chips whereas the 512 Version only has one.

[uzzzba_]

Your review is so quick and simple, thank you!

[KevinFerrandiz]

Great review! Fellow software engineer here and "YouTuber" so our use case is quite similar. I have the base model and it's actually been very good for editing on Premiere Pro (uses between 3-9GB or ram from what I've seen).

[lenn]

I just bought an Apple refurbished M1 Pro 16" MBP. Coming from a 2008 15" MBP i didn't want to go smaller. Also this new MBP is a little lighter than the old one so that doesn't bother me. If you want something lighter with a big screen Apple is rumored to be coming out with a 15" MBA M2 next month. That sounds like a great laptop.

[sky_kryst]

Good videography. Nice to see the 14’ front and centre of the review as opposed to constantly changing angles in other reviews. Can you make an update video with different browsers open on the side instead of chrome and then update the results?

[MarsRobotDeveloper]

3:31 Turning the Monitor off, is the perfect scapegoat. The cat is brilliant.😁

[mohamedrazin]

Thanks for sharing your feedback, I'm planning to go for MBP 14’ m2 Pro 32GB RAM

Also I have a question, is there any big difference in chip processor - 10c CPU 16c GPU vs 12c CPU 19c GPU ??

I’m a sale funnel expert and I do web dev, canva and multiple tabs with PAID ads etc

Just want to know whether the 10c CPU 16c GPU enough ?

[gaelanubis]

I have MacBook Pro M1 Pro with 10 CPU cores + 16 GPU cores + 32GB RAM + 1TB storage. I use it for photography with Lightroom and Photoshop and now for learning web development.

[MarkYaman]

I could be wrong, but going for a bigger hard drive is always in your best interest, as when your ram runs out as you mentioned, the MacBook uses virtual ram, which temporarily uses space of your hard drive for more processing . So to have lots of free space even that you don’t use, is in your best interest