1 week later with Macbook Pro 16 M2

As a lifelong Window user, I finally got myself a Macbook Pro. It is a 16-inch running on Apple's in-house M2 Pro silicon chip.

My current window laptop is an old Dell Inspiron 15 7559 model, using Intel i7-6700HQ @ 2.6GHZ processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphic card. I also upgraded the laptop to 16GB RAM and installed an SSD hard drive. It is not really a bad laptop, and I can't complain much about it for the price that I got. It is definitely worth the value.

However, the rubber of the laptop deteriorated over time, and have a broken hinge, which sometimes pushes and cracks up the case each time I open the screen. On the other hand, the laptop started to slow down (as usual, windows), and it couldn't handle well the bigger RAW file size from my SONY A7RV. The RAW file size is around 120MB per file. If shooting Lossless Compressed RAW L, it will be around 80MB per file.

So, I decided to get a new laptop and picked the Macbook Pro 16-inch M2. Here are the details of the device.

My review after using the Macbook Pro for one week

Overall, the experience is fantastic. It is a beautiful piece of device, sleek and lightweight. I'm also very impressed with the battery life. I can leave my charger at home and bring my laptop out for a full day of work without charging.

The performance is excellent, but instead of fast, I would prefer to use the word "smooth". Compared to my old device, it has no problem handling photo editing most of the time, but when it comes to specific actions, such as merging layers or using the brush tool, I can feel the latency. With the Macbook pro, everything goes so smoothly that it makes the entire photo editing much more enjoyable. I also have no problem having a few PSD files opened on Photoshop and having Google chrome playing music on youtube while doing the editing.

Now, let's talk about things that I found a bit annoying, especially coming from Windows OS. The first thing would be moving a file from one place to another. When I tried to move a file, I pressed Cmd + X buttons to "cut" the file, and nothing on the Mac showed that the file was "cut". The file will be greyed out if it is on the Windows OS. When I tried to paste the file into another folder, nothing happened. I know that this is probably because I'm unfamiliar with the MacOS, but if anyone has a better idea of how to move a file, let me know.

*Update: A friend has shared the solution. To move a file, start with "Cmd + C" to copy it, and then use "Cmd + Opt + V" to move a file. While holding down the Opt key, you can also see the change in the right-click menu. The option will change from "Paste Item" to "Move Item Here".

The second thing is that I realized that MacOS could not write files into my portable hard drive, where I store all my important RAW files and PSD files. After researching, it is due to the hard drive using NTFS format, which Windows has no problem with. I have two options. The first one is back up all my files from that hard drive, format the drive to exFAT format, and move them back to the hard drive. The second option is to pay USD 52.95 and install iBoysoft NTFS software to read and write to the hard drive. Obviously, I picked the second option.

Lastly, MacOS can only display two apps side by side and automatically move another window to the back or hide it to the side if using stage manager. I believe it is to keep the screen clean and organized, but as a windows user that often has a few apps displayed at the same time, I felt that it is a bit tedious that I have to keep switching between the apps. Maybe after some time, I will appreciate that feature more once I get used to it.

So far, I'm delighted with my Macbook Pro, and I think that's my quick review for now. I plan to write another detailed review and also talk about what to expect when moving from Windows to macOS. Stay tuned! :D

Happy shooting. Grey Chow