One year ago, I made a pretty crazy investment: a roughly $3,000, space black 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro with upgraded processor, 1TB storage, and 48GB of RAM. In this video I break down what that’s actually been like after living with it for real work—editing, exporting, uploading, thumbnails, and motion graphics—across multiple YouTube channels. My workload ranges from quick 5–10 minute videos to 1–2 hour projects, and yes, even absurdly long exports, so I’ve definitely tried to push this thing in a lot of different ways. Performance-wise, it’s been insanely fast. Final Cut Pro is buttery smooth for me about 99% of the time, and even when I see a hiccup, it’s usually just a quick second. Storage was the must-have upgrade (because you can’t upgrade it later), and using an external SSD keeps my workflow organized and cheap long-term. RAM-wise, I went from “I never want to see a low-RAM warning again” to maybe… overkill at 48GB. But I did find one weird dealbreaker: editing with Bluetooth headphones (especially my AirPods 4) makes Final Cut lag badly—freezes, slow loading, the whole thing. My workaround is wired audio or editing in a private space. Outside of that, battery is strong for general use, fans are rarely audible even in heat/cold, and that Liquid Retina XDR 120Hz display is still just incredible a year later.