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Comment by benlumen | Hacker News Reader

It's definitely impressive performance for an ultrabook - my concern right now is external monitor support.

I use an eGPU for the sole purpose of running triple monitors. It's a docking station, and the whole setup works brilliantly with my 13" Macbook. Productive workstation setup at home, super nimble laptop on the go.

Apparantly these M1 chips don't support eGPUs and don't even support two external monitors, let alone three. I know it's asked a lot, but what's "Pro" about that?

Completely negates any of the benefits of M1, which is a shame because I really wanted one.

edit: You know, if they don't resolve this then the final round of Intel Macbooks with the non-butterfly keyboards are going to be the holy grail of laptops to a lot of people for a long time, just like the pre-butterfly ones with the ports still are.

Multiple external monitors, eGPUs and bootcamp... that's a lot to lose, man.

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The M1 MB Pro is only the replacement for the 2 port MB Pro. One should assume that there will be 4 port MB Pro coming too featuring a variant/successor of the M1. That probably would be supporting more screens, more memory and storage.

This is definitely the one to wait for IMO.

Not sure what the 2-port M1 MBP13 is really for, other than price descrimination.

It brings a fan, which makes a huge difference if you have sustained loads. It also has a larger battery than the Air. Basically, it is the Air for those who need more sustained compute power. The 4 port version will certainly be much more capable, but also more expensive.

Pro apparently means it has an extra 100 nits and forced airflow to minimize processor throttling. It only has two serial ports and a small screen, so this was made for field use, though it does have support for a single 6K display when you get (or are confined to) home.

Might be better to go for a System76 or Dell if you can find all the apps you need for them.

PS: Pro also means an extra GPU core.

Those are really good points and thank you for making them.

I actually bought one of the last generation of MacBook Pros so I can continue to build an x86 based server application. Maybe these machines will command a premium on the second hand market in due course?

You can still compile for x64 (by default Xcode produces fat binaries), and do some testing via Rosetta.

Thanks but don't think it'll work if you rely on an x86 Docker image :(

The multiple monitor thing is weird. The Mac Mini supports more than one, and the one display it DOES support is the Pro Display XDR, which has more pixels than two 4K monitors.

The M1 Mac Mini supports one external display on the Thunderbolt port and a second one on the HDMI display. There are probably limitations on simultaneous resolution and refresh rates. This iteration of the M1 was not designed to handle large amounts of I/O. I would expect a more advanced version (M1X/M2) sometime in the next 6-12 months. That iteration will likely support 4 thunderbolt ports, multiple external monitors and larger RAM limits. That’s the one that Apple would use in iMacs and the other MacBook Pros.

I do wish that Apple would go ahead and release a 27” 5K display for the current machines. The 6K is way overkill and there are no good options for monitors >4K. They are probably waiting for the new iMacs with a new design language to put out a matching monitor.

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