Apple has crossed yet another rubicon with its 2024 MacBook Pro laptops: With the update to M4, M4 Pro, and now M4 Max processors, these are the longest-lasting Macs yet at 24 hours by Apple’s testing. That’s just the first in a litany of improvements Apple brings to bear in its latest laptops for the professional set.
The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops are now equipped with the M4 line of processors, going all the way up to Apple’s freshest powerhouse mobile chip, the M4 Max. Debuting in both sizes of MacBook Pro, the M4 Max doubles the CPU core count of the basic M4 chip to 16 and more than triples its GPU size with up to a 40-core part. To support this, Apple also bumped up the 14-inch model’s starting memory to 16GB for no extra charge.
(Credit: René Ramos; Apple)
Apple’s entry-level M2 and M3 MacBook Air models also received this generous free bump in memory at no extra cost, but the new MacBook Pro laptops have plenty left to dig into.
Apple Takes the 14-Inch MacBook Pro to the Max
Available with the entire range of Apple’s M4 processors, the 14-inch MacBook Pro continues to be the most customizable MacBook in the Air or Pro lineups. If portability is your priority, you can get just the amount of power you need without increasing size.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro also receives every tertiary upgrade, just like the 16-inch model. The most noticeable is the optional nano-texture display, which reduces glare in direct lighting situations without impacting image sharpness from the Liquid Retina XDR panel.
(Credit: René Ramos; Apple)
Apple also added an improved 12-megapixel Center Stage webcam technology that follows you as you move within its range of vision. Center Stage also enables a new Desk View feature to record your face and what’s directly below and in front of the display simultaneously. I suspect you’ll need creativity to get the most out of Desk View on a MacBook Pro, with your hands likely being the subject of that shot, but it’s not impossible.
All versions of the 14-inch MacBook Pro will now house three Thunderbolt 4 ports instead of just two. However, starting with the M4 Pro models, these become 120Gbps Thunderbolt 5 connections, the latest in multi-purpose connectivity.
The 16-Inch MacBook Pro Sees a Smaller Bump
Oddly enough, the 16-inch MacBook Pro adopts every change listed above for the 14-inch model but doesn’t proportionately gain any more Thunderbolt ports to account for its larger size. Of course, these are also Thunderbolt 5 connections, but getting one more for a total of four would have been welcome.
Otherwise, the 16-inch MacBook Pro will undoubtedly be the place to see the M4 Max at its most potent. With the additional space for cooling hardware and hot air dissipation, this is likely the best environment for such a souped-up chip.
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(Credit: René Ramos; Apple)
Apple claims to have achieved the fastest CPU cores of any processor with its M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. These are likewise boosted in the graphics department with faster GPU cores overall, specifically two times faster at ray tracing. Of course, the M4 Max takes these enhancements to extremes with more cores than any other model. M4 Max is reportedly 3.5 times as fast as M1 Max, for instance.
These chips also doubled in AI performance with the M4 update, making their 16-core Neural Engines the fastest to date at crunching on AI tasks. Of course, this comes in time for Apple Intelligence, Apple’s suite of AI-driven software tools that drops in the macOS Sequoia 15.1 update.
Finally, specifically regarding the M4 Pro and Max, Apple boosted memory bandwidth to a sizable 273GB/s. This boosted bandwidth improves performance with AI workloads, which will only help with Apple Intelligence.
While the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 and 16GB of memory starts at $1,599, and the M4 Pro model starts at $1,999, the 16-inch MacBook Pro (with M4 Pro) starts at a much higher $2,499. All models are available in “Space Black” and silver for preorder now, with general sale beginning on Nov. 8. Stay tuned for full reviews before you click the “buy” button.
