I’ve been a Windows and Linux guy for decades and actively avoided Macs for years. Apple’s old Intel machines deserved the hate. Overpriced, underpowered, ran hot, and felt like lifestyle products pretending to be computers. The new Apple Silicon M5 changes all of that.

This MacBook Pro is absurdly fast. Everything feels instant. App launches, multitasking, creative software, automation, AI features. It is noticeably snappier than my Windows 11 laptop, and the overall experience is far less of a hassle. No bloatware. No OEM junk. No antivirus popups pretending to protect you from yourself. It just works.

There’s also something to be said for how quiet this machine is, in every sense of the word. macOS isn’t constantly hounding you with notifications, nags, or pop-ups begging for attention. You sit down, open it, and get work done. Physically, it’s just as quiet. The fans are effectively silent, even under load. The hinges are smooth and silent. No creaks, no whine, no heat-soaked laptop pretending it’s fine. The whole thing feels calm, controlled, and powerful.

The battery life is genuinely absurd coming from the PC world. This thing actually lasts all day, even with heavy use. Not “marketing all day,” not “if you dim the screen and do nothing.” Real, full workday use without hunting for a charger. Once you experience that, it’s hard to unsee how bad most Windows laptops still are in this department.

This is also the ultimate creative machine. My Huion and XP-Pen drawing displays work immediately with zero drama, and they are noticeably more responsive here than on my monster Windows gaming desktop, which is frankly embarrassing for Windows. Latency is lower, pen input feels better, and the whole drawing experience is smoother and more predictable.

GarageBand is legitimately excellent. It’s not a toy, it’s real software, and the fact that it’s included for free is wild. Same goes for Apple Pages and Keynote. They’re fast, clean, capable, and completely usable for real work. Getting this level of polished creative and productivity software bundled at no extra cost is something Windows just doesn’t do anymore.

The 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display is excellent. Bright, sharp, great contrast, and genuinely comfortable for long sessions. The speakers are the best laptop speakers I’ve personally encountered. Loud, clear, and actually usable without immediately reaching for headphones. Most laptops still sound like angry tin cans. This one doesn’t.

Build quality is top-tier. Solid, tight tolerances, zero flex, and the Space Black finish looks great in person. This finally feels like a premium machine without excuses or caveats.

macOS still has some jank, and Apple’s software installation model is still dumb in the same old Apple way. Dragging apps around like it’s 2006 is not charming. It’s just weird. That said, the OS has been refined a lot, and as a daily driver it’s smoother and less irritating than Windows 11. Fewer interruptions. Less nonsense. More getting work done.

The automation and AI capabilities on this machine are genuinely impressive compared to my Windows laptop. This is not marketing fluff. Even light use makes a difference, and heavier users will get real value out of it.

One genuinely baffling decision: Apple ships this entirely jet-black laptop with a black MagSafe cable… and then cheap-outs and includes a white wall charger like it was pulled from a clearance bin. What the heck? If you’re going to obsess over aesthetics this hard, at least commit. It’s a small thing, but it’s such an unforced miss on an otherwise beautifully designed machine.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m officially a Mac guy now. Apple Silicon finally earned it. This is an outstanding daily driver and easily the best laptop I’ve owned.

Overall, I love this laptop. I haven’t owned my own since giving my wife my m1 air almost 5 years ago to buy a windows gaming laptop.

The Build:

-Build quality feels solid. I just like the way it feels holding it, using it, etc. Smooth, rounded edges, not super heavy, no weird vent and lights like a gaming laptop.

-Keyboard feels nice. I can type pretty quickly on it, and overall provides decent tactile feedback for a small / thin laptop

-Screen is beautiful. Coming from my IPS on my laptop, its night and day. Blacks are inky black, HDR is fantastic. I wish I had a bigger monitor with this quality.

2. Performance

-we already know Apple silicon performs very well. this is no exception. Does everything I need it to with ease. My current use cases are light development with VSCode, Codex, Claude, etc, internet use, and some music production.

-I’ve only felt it warm one time when i was installing 80GB of Logic Pro sounds and downloading some other stuff at the same time, with browser open with 10 tabs, etc. On average, it stays cool.

Note: I got the 24gb model, and I’m glad I did. Just having Claude open, Chrome with maybe 5 tabs and a couple of other things I use it hovers around 17gb. With 24gb my RAM pressure stays low and keeps things fast. Highly recommend 24gb if you are even somewhat of a “power user”

3. The software

-Mac Os is pretty nice. It doesn’t seem to get in my way too much. I won’t say its better or worse than windows, it just depends on your use case. I still have my windows laptop I am using as a “game console” / media server. Windows is about the only option for a gaming machine other than Steam OS which isn’t supported on all hardware. Out of all 3, if someone asked me for what OS their first every computer should be to just surf the web and watch movies and videos, I’d say Mac is most likely the best fit especially if you already have mac hardware. If you want to play AAA games online, windows is basically the only option. If you want to fully customize your OS and have complete control, Linux is where it is at. For a gaming handheld, you can’t beat Steam OS.

4. Price

-Mac RAM prices used to seem unreasonable, until this whole RAM shortage thing happened. Its still a lot, but it feels like less now. I plan to keep this laptop for 5+ years so the price is justified for me.

Should you buy a Macbook Air instead?

-If you can get a macbook pro for <= 200 dollars more, get it, because of the screen and speakers alone. People will say "save the money if you are surfing the web" etc, which for the most part is true, but I'm telling you, even if you are just a normal casual user, the screen will make a HUGE difference in your enjoyment. Its not only the 120hz refresh rate which just overall makes everything feel more snappy, its the brightness, colors, HDR, inky blacks, etc. now as an average user should you spend $500 more to get a pro with the same specs? I'd say no. Also keep in mind, the Air starts at 256GB vs 512GB for the pro, so when do your price comparisons, use that as the baseline (512GB AIR).