Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Ultimate 16 Inch MacBook Pro Desktop Setup”.
Hey: what’s up folks how’s it going! This watch hope you guys are all doing well and today we’re going to be talking about my ultimate setup for the 16-inch macbook pro powered by the m1 pro chip. Now, if you haven’t watched our recent content featuring the 16 inch versus the 14 inch m1 pro powered macbook pros, you definitely have to do so check out the description down below to watch that content, but essentially thanks to the power of the m1 pro and m1 Max silicon, you can essentially have one computer that does everything, no matter. What your needs and demands are, whether you’re going to be using your laptop for general productivity office related work, content creation such as video photo editing, perhaps you’re going to be doing some music and audio production, or even some gaming from time to time. No matter what the scenario you can think of thanks to the power of the new chips, you pretty much have no limitations.
Furthermore, since both of the 14 and 16 inch macbook pros have a full-size hdmi connection sd card slot, you typically don’t need to get adapters for them unless you’re gon na need to get some usb type, a connections which is pretty easy to adapt, because you do Also have three thunderbolt four connections now this setup that you’re looking at over here is fairly minimalistic. We basically have the essential things that i need personally to get most of my work done from a day-to-day basis, which is primarily video, editing, photo editing a little bit of audio production work gaming, as well as general productivity and office related tasks. So we only really have a keyboard ml setup by 4k monitor we have a usb a 3.0 hub to add more usb type-a connections, since that’s still not available on the macbook itself.
Now for audio wise, the built-in speakers on the 16-inch macbook pro are fantastic. There’S six in totals: they have force counseling, woofers, excellent in terms of a general listening experience with the laptop alone, but in a more desktop-like setting, we do want a little bit more dynamic range and power for audio production reasons. So i went with my old audio engine a2 plus wired speakers.
There was also a bluetooth version available as well, and we also hooked it up to our behringer usb 4×4 audio interface to access things like phantom powered xlr microphones quarter inch inputs to hook up uh things like real instruments, guitar bass, things like that as well as Other microphones and it’s gon na serve as an excellent base for our audio and music production stuff that we’re gon na do on logic, with laptop now beginning the tour of our setup. Let’S start with the actual computer itself and that’s the 16.2 inch macbook pro specifically we’re using the 2500 base model configuration, so that comes with the m1 pro chip with a 10 core cpu 16 core gpu. We have 16 gigabytes of ram.
Now the macbook, based on our testing thus far actually runs relatively efficiently and fairly cool, even if, if you’re taxing it really hard all the time, but it doesn’t help to get a stand to get a little bit better air flow and to help preserve the longevity Of the components inside so we’re actually going to be using a foldable, collapsible laptop stand, that’s going to help elevate the laptop to get better airflow and to get better access to the ports inside, and it’s also gon na help reduce the overall footprint of uh. The a laptop on our desktop spaces – that’s gon, na free up space for more things in the future, so we’re actually using a relatively affordable foldable laptop stand, has multiple levels of adjustability is super portable and typically you can get these on amazon for under 20 dollars And it’s a great way to maximize your desktop real estate as well as increase the airflow underneath the stand itself is heavily padded with nice, rubberized padding on the surface, so i won’t scratch the nice aluminum finish on your macbook and again you’re going to access your Ports a little bit easier angle up the keyboard, if that’s necessary, and this really is a no-brainer if you’re going to be using a laptop hooked up to external peripheries and monitors in a desktop-like setting. Now, if you want to know the exact model of this stand, specifically we’re going to have that in the description down below, as well as the links of all the products we’re going to be using in this article moving right along since we don’t have a usb Type: a connections on board on the macbook pros, as we mentioned earlier, we are going to need to adapt it, i’m going to initially use a usb ac extension, cable and hook it up to my old trusty g-ting. Usb type c hub been using this thing for all of the previous generation and macbook pros. It’S a great little hub actually comes with a multi-card reader, as well as a two usb type-a connections, which we’re going to be hooking up to one, our seagate backup, plus eight terabyte external hard drive and the other one’s going to go to our tp-link usb 3.0. Hub with seven ports as well as two extra ports for 2.4 amp charging now, since our mechanical external drive from c8, is uh, 7200 rpm and interfacing through a usb 3.0. It’S not going to be as fast as the internal ssd drive built into the macbook, but it’s definitely a affordable way to get more storage options into your macbook, since that only costs around 230 dollars for eight terabytes. A great for expanding your storage and getting a localized backup solution.
Now, as you can see, i’ve reverse mounted the seven port usb 3.0 hub. So that’s going to free up more space down below, so we can easily house our external drive right there and save a lot of space. That way, that’s going to free up space for more items in the future and plus, with seven ports available on a type a basis. We can easily hook up many different accessories in the future.
No problem, including the behringer usb audio interface, that we talked about earlier, specifically we’re using the umc 404 hd four microphone preamps with xlr phantom power, as well as a quarter inch inputs as well as four output connections, we’re actually hooking up our audio engine a2. Speakers directly at the back of the unit using the analog left, right, rca connections and the bookshelf speakers themselves are powered independently. So we don’t need a separate amplifier to power. The speakers now, of course, it’s important to mention that the audio engine a2 speakers are not studio grade.
Reference monitors are designed for serious audio and music production, rather just a speaker system, design for laptops or desktop based experiences, gaming listening to music generally and watching movies, and things like that, but are just a base upgrade on the built-in speakers on the macbook pros. Now, eventually, i will be upgrading to some proper studio reference monitors, so uh. The sound quality will be definitely improved for specific music production, but for the time being, general listening experience. These are definitely passable and there’s actually a new version of the a2 pluses from audio engine that have built-in bluetooth capabilities, so you can wirelessly connect them to the macbook if you’re not going to be using an audio interface now moving forward. Let’S talk about the peripherals, we’re using specifically in terms of the keyboard and mouse which are both from logitech. The keyboard that we’re using is the mx keys. It’S been available for many years now.
The keyboard itself has full function, keys, it’s full size designed for both mac, os 10 and windows, use you can hook wirelessly via bluetooth or it’s included, dongle a connection, and you can pair up to three devices and seamlessly switch between them. The keycaps themselves are fairly large, have a decent amount of travel distance, and you can see that there’s a spherical indentation to match the shape of your fingertips. So it gives a nice comfortable tactile feedback and sensation and is super comfortable to type on, while still being relatively low profile at around 20 millimeters in terms of thickness.
Now you have a built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery in here, and it does have a backlight system that actually has a proximity hand sensor. So i’ll actually turn off the backlight when it’s not in usage, but with the backlight on you typically get a week to 10 days of usage and with it off, you can get up to five months of usage to go with the mx keys. You have to go with the mx master now, so we chose the third version, which is a relatively current model and if you’re looking for a general mouse that has the dark field. Technology which can be used in multiple different surfaces, including a glass and is bluetooth, enable i don’t think really you can go wrong with the mx master.
Three we’ve been using it for a couple of years. Now it’s ultra fast, responsive and diverse enough, where you can do a little bit of gaming with it, as well as your general computing. On top of that, the mx master also has a dedicated gesture control button which allows you to get access to the commands. You typically do on the built-in trackpad on the macbook pro, so you can switch between at desktop spaces, launch emission control or the launch pad just using the mouse itself, which is pretty cool. Furthermore, the main reason why i went with the logitech mx series of peripherals, apart from the dedicated apple ones, is especially considering the magic mouse is not that comfortable to use. For me personally, i find the ergonomics on the logitech side are definitely superior, even though the mx master 3 doesn’t require a mouse pad.
You can use it on any desktop surface and get similar performance, but in order to get better overall tracking surface and consistency, i typically do like to use a mouse pad just for comfort reasons, and for many years now i’ve been using the cooler master mp860, which Is actually a dual sided mouse pad with rgb a lighting? So, on one side, you have a traditional low friction fabric finish, which designed for a little bit more speedier action based tracking performance, while the aluminum side on the other side is a little bit more tuned for fine precision and control over your movements. Now, specifically, in terms of the external monitor, we’re using the lg 32ud99-w, it’s a thunderbolt enabled in-plane switching monitor with a native resolution of 3840 by 2160 has official certification and besides hooking it up via thunderbolt, which you can do on the macbooks, i’m actually using the Hdmi connection, since that’s going to free up more thunderbolt connections to hook up to later things down the road, the biggest highlight of this monitor definitely has to be the ultra thin bezels and the low profile there’s still actually not a lot of near monitors that match The aesthetics of this and it even though it is a couple of years old, it actually fits very well with the aesthetics of the new generation macbook pros. Furthermore, the color reproduction is excellent. It can reproduce the dci p3 color. Spectrum up to 95 percent has a great degree response time of 5 milliseconds which isn’t great for gaming, but decent enough for most casual gamers out there and the peak brightness is not bad up to 550 nits and the typical brightness is around 350 units. Furthermore, you can see that i’ve added some rgb uh light strips at the back of the monitor, which help make the picture pop out even more and it’s fantastic for consuming media and doing all my work that i do on a day-to-day basis.
Now, with the current version of the macbook pro that i have right now, you can actually add a another monitor, since it can support dual monitors fairly easily with the m1 pro configuration and if you get the m1 max version of the chip, you can actually support Up to four external displays at the time being, i’m super happy with one and having that ultra hd resolution definitely adds a lot in terms of screen real estate and having 32 inches is definitely going to be great for again maximizing the amount of desktop space that I have both on the built-in 16-inch display and on the external monitor, so my multitasking capabilities will go up and hopefully my productivity as well now, in terms of the desk itself, i’m using just a couple of different bits and bobs that i got from ikea. You can easily configure any desk from them and have kind of a similar look. It does not have any motors or stand options, since primarily this is going to be a sit-down chair experience and hopefully will expand upon this existing setup in the very near future. But for the meantime, if you have any specific questions, i definitely love to hear your thoughts. Also, please make sure to check out the description down below for all the detailed information about everything we talked about in this article. If you go through any of our amazon affiliate links helps make content like this possible, but it doesn’t cost you anything extra.
So a big! Thank you to you, guys that do so on a regular basis and uh. If you haven’t watched our recent content featuring the 16-inch macbook pro again definitely check out that content in the description down below the meantime subscribe. If you haven’t already share the content and we’ll see you real soon take care. .