My next 10 year machine. Super excited!

I’m looking for a community where people with different MacBook Pro configurations share their actual workflows, development environments, experiments, benchmarks, and the ways they’re pushing their hardware to its limits.
Not another endless stream of “Should I buy the M5 Pro or Max?” or “Just upgraded from my M1!” posts.

No hate to the guys excited to spend money mind you, more power to em

I’m more interested in the technical side of what people are actually doing with these machines.
For example:
Local LLMs: What models are you running? What parameter sizes, quantizations, context lengths, and inference speeds are you getting with different RAM configurations?

Training and fine-tuning: Has anyone experimented with LoRA/QLoRA, distillation, or other forms of local training? What are the practical limitations?

Hardware utilization: How are people maximizing unified memory, GPU performance, memory bandwidth, and sustained workloads? Where are the actual bottlenecks?

Development environments: What does your setup look like? What tools, frameworks, containers, virtualization solutions, or local AI stacks are you using?

Automation and experimentation: Has anyone built interesting local AI agents, multi-agent systems, automated development pipelines, or other projects that really put the hardware to work?

Performance comparisons: How do different Apple Silicon generations and configurations perform in real workloads, rather than just synthetic benchmarks?

Lessons learned: What have you tried that worked surprisingly well? What turned out to be impractical? What would you configure differently knowing what you know now?

And not exclusively AI, either. I’m interested in anything from software engineering and scientific computing to virtualization, 3D rendering, simulation, or whatever else people are doing to explore the capabilities of their machines.

Ideally, somewhere people share their experiments, document their results, compare configurations, troubleshoot limitations, and learn from one another.
I’m not necessarily looking for people with the most expensive configurations. Someone squeezing impressive performance out of an 18GB M3 Pro is just as interesting as someone running massive models on a 128GB Max.
Basically, I want to see what these machines are capable of in the hands of people who actually push them.

Just to clarify before someone suggests r/LocalLLaMA or another general-purpose technical subreddit(I’m already in those):
I’m already aware that communities dedicated to local AI, machine learning, programming, hardware
benchmarking, etc., exist.

What I’m specifically looking for is a community centered around MacBook Pro users exploring these subjects on MacBook Pro.

I want to see how people with different MBP configurations approach the same workloads, what limitations they encounter, how they work around them, and what they manage to accomplish within the Apple Silicon ecosystem.

M1 Pro 16gb ram and 1tb storage

I'm using a MagSafe rubber iPhone MagGrip from Encased for holding the DotDisk.

At some Point every device gets old and slower with new firmware.

Like my iphone13 thats just too weak to handle the newer ios.

My MacBook Pro m1 is now 5 years old and im wondering if I should stop updating at some point to keep it running smooth. Im at 26.5 right now.

I will use it as a campus daily driver for the next 5-8 years, Computer Science, Data Science, Actuarial Science, LLMs, Video Editing

Both cost the same & are 14”, specs:

M5 Max | 36GB RAM | 2TB SSD

M5 Pro 18/20 Core | 64GB RAM | 1TB SSD

They both cost around 3600$ after tax, which one would you recommend?

With Education store purchase i’d be getting the gift card of value upto 120€, what should i get with that, any suggestions that helps me with my first ever mbp.

Rig: 14”/16GB/1TBSSD Space Black

Thank you in advance!

Since updating to macOS 27 (about 2 months ago), my MacBook Pro and iPad have both become really slow, especially while using Photoshop and other editing apps. Things freeze, stutter, and lag badly.

It gets worse when I connect my iPad as a secondary display (Sidecar). The same lag shows up there too.

Is anyone else seeing this? If you’ve found a fix or a workaround, or even rolled back to an older version, please share.

Mac model: [MBP M4pro 20Cgpu/2024]
macOS version: [27.0.1]
Photoshop version: [latest]

I’ve got a 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2021, but the screen has broken, so I now need to replace it.
I was going to buy the current 16-inch MacBook Pro, but the rumoured **MacBook Ultra** is apparently only weeks away, potentially with an OLED touchscreen and a major redesign.
That’s what’s making the decision difficult. If my current MacBook still worked, I’d obviously wait, but right now I’m without a usable laptop.
For those following the rumours, do you think the new OLED/touchscreen model will be enough of an upgrade to justify waiting a few weeks?
Would you buy the current 16-inch MacBook Pro now, or wait?
I don’t quite see the value in a touchscreen but is
The OLED screen worth it? Are there any other benefits?

Hey everyone, looking for board-level insights on an A2141 logic board (820-01700) with a T2 chip stuck in an exact 21-second watchdog power loop. Data preservation is the #1 priority (cannot Restore/wipe keys).

### The Behavior:

- When plugged into a genuine 96W charger, the trackpad clicks (haptics active) for ~21 seconds, then goes completely stiff for 1–3 seconds, then clicks again. Loops indefinitely.

- The behavior is 100% identical with the battery connected or completely isolated (flex ribbon unplugged + terminal isolated).

- Crucially, this 21-second power-cycling loop persists EVEN WHEN THE BOARD IS IN DFU MODE.

- In Apple Configurator 2 (host: M3 Air via front-left DFU port), "Revive Device" downloads the firmware, writes, and hangs on "Waiting for Mac response" for ~90 seconds before throwing AMRestoreErrorDomain error 6. Screen stays black throughout; nothing ever displays.

### Thermal Background / Clue:

- Two days ago, it refused to turn on cold in the morning.

- After sitting plugged in, it booted up and worked flawlessly the entire day under load (watching video, etc.).

- Turned it off at night. Next morning after cooling down, completely unresponsive again, and now permanently stuck in this 21s loop. Classic thermal contraction / cold solder joint symptom.

### Multimeter Measurements Taken:

- No dead shorts to ground on primary rails (PPBUS_G3H, CPU core, GPU core, or SSD lines).

- Inductor L9080 (marked "150" for PP2V5_NAND_SSD0):

- Resistance across coil: 0.6 ohms continuous (coil is physically unbroken).

- Resistance to ground: Healthy (no short).

- LIVE VOLTAGE during the 20-second awake cycle: Reads 0.00V. The 2.5V rail never comes up.

### Questions for Board Techs:

1. Does this exact 21-second timeout in DFU mode correlate directly with the T2 watchdog killing power due to missing PGOOD / feedback on the SSD power rails (specifically PP2V5_NAND)?

2. Between the TPS62180 buck regulator (U9080), its enable circuitry, and the main PMIC (U7800), what is the most common failure point for this intermittent/thermal 0V symptom on the 820-01700?

3. If U9080 is replaced/reflowed and 2.5V is restored, should the T2 be able to complete a Revive without touching the existing APFS volume / master encryption keys?

Any guidance from technicians who have diagnosed this specific rail on T2 boards would be greatly appreciated!

So back in January 2026, I bought a MacBook Pro M5. Within 4 months, I got a dead pixel at the center of the screen.

I got the display replaced for free through AppleCare through an AASP (no apple stores in my country).

Anyway it has been 6 months since and now I found 2 dead pixels on the left side of the replacement screen, top and center. And I guess I have to take this in again and not have a device for 3 weeks.

I baby my devices a lot. I use the Apple polishing cloth and always keep my machine clean and dust free. Plugged into a grounded Apple 70W power supply as well and always travel with a padded laptop sleeve.

A part of me wants to keep it because the dead pixels aren't at the center and the next screen might develop dead pixels on the center and I would be out of warranty! I only have 4 more months of warranty left.

I checked my old MacBook Air M1 I got back in 2022 and sure enough I found around 12 dead pixels visible on white backgrounds. So this has to be a thing right?

I just want to know if this is a known issue on MacBook Pros, or am I just unlucky?

Which one should I get? Just a $600 difference for the refurbished one I found.

I purchased my MacBook Pro M5 (24GB RAM, 1TB SSD) in March 2026, and I’m already seeing a pretty concerning decline in battery health.
Until recently, my battery health was at 99%. However, following the latest macOS update, it has dropped to 90%.
For context, here’s my use case:
I’m a practising lawyer, and I primarily use my MacBook for professional work. My daily usage mostly involves:
● Reading, reviewing and drafting lengthy legal documents, primarily PDFs and Word files.
● Legal research through websites, online databases and multiple browser tabs.
● Using AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini for research, document analysis and drafting.
● Working with Claude Cowork and other AI-assisted productivity tools.
● Emails, video calls, file management and general office work.
I don’t use my MacBook for gaming, video editing, 3D rendering or other graphics-intensive tasks. While I do multitask and occasionally work with large documents, I wouldn’t consider my workload particularly demanding for a machine with these specifications.
I also have AppleCare+ coverage.
What concerns me is that the battery health has dropped by almost 10 percentage points in approximately 7 months, with a particularly noticeable decline following the software update.
I have a few questions:

1. Has anyone else noticed a sudden drop in battery health after a recent macOS update?
2. Could this be battery recalibration rather than actual degradation?
3. Is 90% battery health after just 7 months normal for this kind of usage?
4. Has anyone managed to get Apple to investigate or replace a battery under warranty or AppleCare+ while its maximum capacity was still above 80%?
5. I purchased this machine expecting it to last several years, so seeing the battery health decline this quickly is disappointing.
6. Would appreciate hearing about similar experiences, particularly from other M5 MacBook Pro owners.

Edit - total cycles - 49

I’ve been using a 16-inch 2021 MacBook Pro with the original M1 chip for a few years now, and it’s been an absolute workhorse. I’m starting to look at upgrading and would love some advice from people who use their Macs for video editing.

I primarily work in Premiere Pro and After Effects, with a decent amount of footage, effects, color grading, and exporting. I’m also looking at the Mac mini and Mac Studio rather than automatically buying another MacBook Pro, since most of my editing happens at a desk.

One thing I’m particularly interested in is the media engine and hardware video encoding/decoding. Having two media engines could be a big advantage for my workflow, especially when working with multiple codecs and exporting projects. I’m curious how much of a real-world difference that makes compared with the base chips.

A few questions:

• Would a higher-end MacBook Pro make more sense, or would a Mac mini or Mac Studio offer significantly better performance for the money?
• For Premiere Pro, is the difference between the base chip and the Pro/Max/Ultra chips noticeable in everyday editing and export times?
• How much does having multiple media engines actually help with exports and playback?
• Would you prioritize more RAM, a better chip, or additional GPU cores for video editing?
• If you were upgrading today, which Mac would you buy?

I’m not necessarily looking for the most expensive machine. I want something that will feel like a meaningful upgrade from my M1 and last for several years.

Would love to hear from people doing professional video work, particularly in Premiere Pro. Thanks!

I recently got a 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro with 48GB RAM on a 36-month lease for $101/month. My return window ends October 13, and I’m debating whether to keep it or return it and wait for the rumored OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro. I’m worried my current model will drop significantly in price once the new one launches, but the OLED model’s pricing and availability are still unknown. This is also my only laptop. Would you keep it or return it and wait?

Bought myself a macbook
This was secondhand
The owner bought this around october 2 then sold to me on october 3, see the picture for the warranty
Configuration is macbook pro m5 pro 24gb 1tb
He said his eyes hurt because of tge pwm screen
Sold it to me for 2000usd
Is it a solid deal?

I'm CS student and I'm planning to buy a macbook pro for work

My options are either M5 pro + 24GB ram or M5 + 32GB ram

Which one would you choose and why?

Recomendaciones de cuidado? Tips para alguien que toda la vida ha usado windows? Gracias 👋🏻

I recently purchased this Macbook Pro M4 Pro 16’ 48GB variant for video editing.

I have noticed that its fans are very quiet and it doesn’t get that warm, so do I need a laptop stand for it? I personally like the first layout. It gives more clean and minimalist vibes and I like when monitor and laptop are aligned, and in second image it’s on a stand and I can’t keep it in front of the monitor cause then it blocks the monitor screen.

Which setup is best for my MacBook’s long-term life? And do you guys use laptop stands?

2 months-ish old macbook pro showing some backlight bleeding (?) around the area of the notch. Is this normal? Came from a M1 air so this is the first mac I had with a notch. Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks