Earlier this year (2024), I was issued a new Apple Macbook Pro M3 laptop. It was a replacement for my MacBook Pro 2019 (acquired 2020). The old laptop was the last MBP with Intel processor, I think. I was a quad core i7 with Iris Plus builtin Graphics. It was performing ok. I have no major issues. I mostly spend my time in the terminal anyway. The only thing that made me realize that I needed a new machine was that when I transferred to another team and is doing a lot application development than before when I was doing mostly devops and infra tooling support.

Doing application development, I had to spin up a few docker instances to run our external application dependencies like database, cache stores, and development api servers. Running tests enough to make my mouse pointer jump. The lag is noticeable.

I was able to upgrade the OS to MacOS Sonoma which is probably the last OS that the laptop will be supported on. There are a million of background services running in Sonoma, 90% of those I have no idea what they are for. The lowly intel quad core processor must be working so hard. I am absolutely frugal with things I allow in my laptop. There's the company mandatory antivirus - I don't think it's necessary but IT department says I need to install it. There's Jumpcut to manage the Clipboard. I am terrible at remembering what was the last thing I copied. Programming is mostly copy-pasta these days. Lastly, the VPN that I need to connect to our staging servers.

I love the intel macbook except for the touchbar. Not having a physical button for ESC and his F friends is a huge dealbreaker but I don't complain when it's the company assigning tools to me. Oh, I'm also not a fan of the USB C charging port. I always try to work in places besides my desk if I have the chance. The USB C cable tightly inserted to the charging port gives a very high risk of my dog snagging the cable and my laptop with it. I love the magnetic charging port of the old macbooks.

And, so, earlier this year, I received my new M3 MacBook Pro. I'm so happy it did not have the silly touchbar and the magnetic charging cable is back! Also, there's the SD card reader. Ther's the HDMI port. There are enough USB C ports to get rid of the USB dongles I used to carry around with my previous macbook.

I love the battery life on my M3. I lasted me almost 8 hours once when I forgot to bring the charger to work in a coffee shop. I did not check how much was left but I'm sure it was nowhere near empty. I did not get any notification, alert or indication that the battery is dying - does the battery icon turn red or something?

The keys on the M3 are a joy to type. Far better than all my previous macbooks, though not as good as my Thinkpads. The touchbar is just not conducive for touch typing. There's no way of telling if the ESC keypress has registered besides the visual indication that it indeed successfully pressed.

I don't like the webcam notch but then again, I've gotten used to my phones having notches. The only time the notch bothers me is when I'm watching a video. But in the M3 MBP, the notch is outside the fullscreen video frame - (based on youtube fullscreen video).

I'm not sure how Apple does it but the sound in the M3 MBP is way way better than all the laptop I ever had. I didn't hear any bass on my old MBP. On my current, it's not shaking my desk but you can hear the low notes better.