DO NOT BUY M3 MacBook Pro 14 inch - Very disappointing

So I've been using this M3 MacBook Pro

base model for about a week now, and I can

honestly say I can't really recommend

this. For the amount of money it costs to

buy this and the specs you get in return,

I don't really feel like it's a worthy

investment of money, and I'm going to be

taking it back to the store. So as you

know, I got the 8GB base model, and that

was because I couldn't get the 16GB M3

MacBook Pro because they didn't have any

in the store. If I wanted the 16GB M3

MacBook, They said I had to wait until the

first week of January and it was Christmas

Day. I was excited. I wanted to get a

MacBook right then and there. They said

the only 16GB model they had was the M3

Pro MacBook Pro, which was way too

expensive for my budget. That's like over

$2,500 and I didn't really want the M3 Pro

chip because that's just too much power.

So I ended up getting the 8GB model,

which is an absolute joke. Just by using

the internet Safari browser and having

like 5 tabs open, you max out the RAM

already, use like 7 gigabytes of RAM, and

you're already using swap memory just by

having some tabs open and watching a bit

of YouTube and chatting a bit on Discord.

That is an absolute joke. Okay, I'll show

you how much RAM I'm using right now with

this little handy-dandy screen recorder.

Where is it? There it is. Okay, so I've

got 7 gigabytes of memory used, which is

basically the max. Cache file 740

megabytes, and I'm currently using 1.6

gigabytes of swap memory. Used, and memory

pressure is in yellow. And it says memory

pressure is an indicator of the system's

ability to meet the memory requirements of

this user's activities. High memory

pressure indicates the system is reaching

its limits. Performance may degrade. So

it's basically warning me that I am using

too much memory for the things I'm doing,

and I'm not really doing much right now.

I've got 4 tabs of Safari open, I've got

my video editing software open, and I've

got OBS, which is recording this video,

open. So I've got 2 kind of creative,

I guess you could say, programs open.

I've got some Safari tabs open and Discord

open and also Settings and Steam. And

that's just using basically all of my

RAM that I have available. So I'm

basically constantly using more RAM than I

actually have. I'm always using like 10

gigabytes usually, and according to Apple,

that's degrading my system by using too

much RAM. But even when I'm not doing

video editing or streaming or anything,

just browsing the internet, watching

YouTube, and chatting on Discord, I'm

already using all of the RAM. So it

doesn't matter what you do, it just seems

to use all of the RAM. So how are you

gonna be like a professional and do any

kind of professional work or activities if

you're doing Blendering or rendering or

animation or some kind of CPU-intensive

task, which I guess you would be doing?

That's why you got the Pro model. Surely

the Pro model is for pros who do like some

kind of professional work that requires

that kind of power. But then 8GB of RAM is

just not enough to do anything unless you

start going into swap memory, and that

starts degrading your system. Sure,

things feel smooth. I'm not feeling lag

when I'm using about 12GB of total RAM.

The problem starts coming into effect when

I've got a game running. So games usually

take like 6, 5GB of RAM. So I had Total

War: Warhammer 2 open that was using about

6GB of RAM. And it kept crashing because I

was using a total of about 15GB of RAM to

minimize it and swap over to like YouTube

and Discord whilst I'm waiting, and then

swap back to switch back to the game. It

would often crash and stutter because I

was using, using way too much RAM. I mean,

how can they market this thing for pros?

The name is in the title, Pro MacBook Pro,

but you can't do any professional work on

it because there's not enough RAM. It's

just so stupid that 8GB of RAM was the

base model kind of RAM that they give you.

Why don't they give you 16GB? In this day

and age, 16GB really should be the bare

minimum that's in the base model of a Pro

lineup. If it was the Air, MacBook Air

lineup, then I can kind of understand 8GB

being the base amount of RAM you get

because most users who just use it for web

browsing, watching some YouTube videos,

yeah, 8GB of RAM would be fine for them.

It's just kind of frustrating because this

is a very expensive device. It costs

$1,700, and I was previously using

an ROG Ally for my work, and that handled

my workflow just fine. It had 16GB of RAM

and a Z1 Extreme chip, and I decided to

upgrade from that to a MacBook because I

wanted a proper keyboard and I wanted a

bigger screen and I wanted more power from

the M3 chip, and I just wanted a normal

proper laptop instead of like a little

gaming device to handle my workflow. And I

ended up spending $1,000 extra, and I feel

like like I got a machine that is not

actually better 'cause I got less RAM now

and it's able to handle less tasks and

less programs at the same time than the

ROG Ally could. So what was the point

spending all the extra money to get

something premium? And then you also add

into the fact that you can't play a lot of

video games. I could play any game on the

ROG Ally, well, almost, 'cause it was,

you know, not a super high-spec device,

but I could play basically anything that's

on Steam. I can only play like 20% of my

Steam library on MacBookOS And there's

some games on the App Store, but they're

not very good games and they're very

expensive. So you're limited in terms of

gaming, and as a gamer, I wanted to be

able to play some games. I understood the

fact that it wouldn't be as good as a

Windows gaming laptop because it's Mac,

not Windows, and I wanted to focus on

productivity. That's why I got the

MacBook. But then I started to kind of

feel like I wanted to game, and I tried

out some games that were available on

macOS, but the system couldn't handle

having the game open and Safari open and

YouTube playing and Discord open and

switching between things just made the

game crash. And I was thinking of getting

the M3 Pro MacBook Pro because then I'd

have 18GB of RAM, which would be more than

enough to handle what I do, and the M3 Pro

chip, which would be much more efficient

and powerful than the M3 chip. But it's

like $2,600. I just couldn't justify

spending more money. I didn't want to get

trapped into Apple's selling, upselling

tactic. What they do is they'll be,

they'll be like, oh, you can get this base

model MacBook, which isn't too expensive.

It's only $1,700 and you get 8GB of RAM.

And then you buy it and use it and realize

8GB is not enough. And then you start

looking at 16GB. So I looked at 16GB and

it was like $2,000. And then I thought,

well, I could just get 24GB for only

$2,200. Oh, I can actually just get the M3

Pro chip with 18GB for just only a couple

hundred dollars more. And that's $2,400 or

$2,500. And then at that point, you went

from spending $1,700 to now justifying in

your mind to spend $2,600. And then you

think, oh, I could get the M3 Max for only

a couple hundred more dollars. Now I'm

spending $2,800. So I had to stop myself

because things were just getting kind of

silly. So I went into the shopping centers

yesterday because I just knew there would

be New Year's sales. And look what I got.

I got this ASUS or ASUS X13 Flow

laptop, and it's like a 2-in-1

convertible. It can turn into a tablet as

well by opening it like that.

See, look, you can turn it into

a tablet and it's got touchscreen, so it's

like an iPad basically, touchscreen

tablet. You can also use it like this.

So if you want to do some gaming with a

controller, you just put it in this mode

and then you've got the keyboard out of

the way. And then obviously there's laptop

mode like that. And guess how much this

cost? I got a 10% discount because it was

New Year sale. This cost $1,500

before the discount, so I only paid about

$1,350. So this is

the same price as this MacBook, 60,000

baht, which is like $1,700. But this one I

got 10% discount, so this was in total

cheaper. But before discounts, yeah,

these are basically the same price point.

But the specs on this blow the MacBook

specs out of the water. So I've got 16GB

of RAM on this, 8GB on the MacBook. I've

got— what's the CPU? I forgot the CPU.

It's like a Ryzen R9.

AMD Ryzen R9 7940HS,

which is on par with like a Core

i9 processor. So it's a pretty good

processor. It's actually kind of better

than the Z1 Extreme, and it's like on par

with the M3 chip. But it's got an RTX 4050

graphics card, which is a dedicated

graphics card, which is good for gaming.

The M3 doesn't have a dedicated graphics

card for gaming, and it has a 1TB storage,

1TB SSD. This has a 512GB storage, so I

got double the storage, I got double the

RAM, I've got Windows— finally back to

Windows, which is so much better than

macOS, so I can do some actual real

gaming— and I've got a dedicated graphics

card. I've got double the storage, double

the RAM, and it doubles as a tablet. I can

flip this into tablet mode or do like

upside down Flex mode. It's got

touchscreen, so I could do drawing on it

as well if I get the pen. And it is really

light. It's like 1.3 kg, whereas this is

1.6 kg. The 2 devices— this

is so much heavier than this. This is so

light. I really like this, and I'll be

doing a full review of this laptop in the

next video. The only problem is it does

get kind of hot and the fans get very

noisy unless you have it on battery power

efficient mode. So yeah, in conclusion, I

would say do not buy the MacBook M3 base

model version with only 8GB of RAM. 8GB of

RAM is really not enough if you're going

to do anything more than just browsing the

internet. And if you really like

multitasking, having games open and

multiple tabs and doing loads of stuff at

the same time, you definitely need more

than 8GB. But to go above 8GB on the

MacBook Pro with M3 chip, you would be

having to spend at least $2,000. So if you

don't mind shelling out nearly $3,000 or

$2,500 just to get 16GB or 24GB of RAM

on the M3 model, then sure, go ahead. But

if you're not rich, you can get much

better Windows devices that have better

specs like this one. And this was quite

expensive. I mean, there were cheaper

Windows laptops that had 16-inch screens,

2TB SSD, 16GB of RAM. I chose

this one and was willing to pay the extra

money because of the form factor. This is

the only— well, not the only— this is the

smallest screen with the powerful specs

you can get in it. It's like 13.4-inch

screen with an RTX 4050 and a really good

Ryzen AMD CPU. You can get the Zephyrus

G14, but they're slightly bulkier and

they had worse specs in the shop from what

I saw. Maybe there's a model that has

better specs, but This was the smallest

one I could see. There was like a tablet

computer, it looked like a Microsoft

Surface made by Asus, and that was called

the Flow Z13, and it had similar specs to

this, but I didn't really like the tablet

form. I want like a proper laptop build.