We’re just less than two days away from Apple’s highly anticipated announcements of the next generation of Macs with the M4 series of chips. Based on previous rumors, one of them will very likely be the MacBook Pro, so here’s everything we can expect from Apple’s high-end pro laptops.
Early Leak
Earlier this month, some of the folks from Russia were able to get their hands on the unreleased M4 14-inch MacBook Pro, and they even posted an unboxing and first hands-on video on YouTube. In that video, they showcased that the unreleased product was the real deal as they even revealed the specs on the box as well as the “About This Mac” section. With that said, we can expect several details based on the video.
14-inch MacBook Pro (M4)
First, we can expect the base model 14-inch Pro to finally come with 16GB of unified memory as standard. For a while, Apple has been criticized for offering several entry-level Macs with 8GB of memory, especially with the base M3 14-inch Pro from last October. Therefore, it will finally be a much more welcome change to see an entry model finally coming with more memory.
Second, you may remember that the 14-inch Pro (M3) has two Thunderbolt ports whereas the higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch Pros (M3 Pro/Max) have three Thunderbolt ports. The YouTube video shows that the unreleased model has the third Thunderbolt port on the right side, which is in the same position as that of the current higher-end models. This is made possible thanks to the M4 having four Thunderbolt controllers, up from two on the M3 die, so we’ll finally see the same set of I/O ports across all MacBook Pro models.
Third, since the M4 will have more Thunderbolt controllers, we could finally see support for up to two external monitors on the base 14-inch model regardless of the lid situation. The limitation that the standard M-series chips have is that they can only connect to one external monitor when the lid is open. With the M3 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro (on macOS Sonoma 14.6), they can connect up to two external monitors, but only when the lid is closed.
Fourth, the model will finally come in Space Black as the higher-end models. The reason that the 14-inch Pro (M3) came in Space Gray is that those machines started production ahead of the M3 Pro/Max models, so that’s why the initial M3 models came with macOS Ventura 13.5 installed. This will finally make the entire MacBook Pro lineup more consistent than before.
14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro (M4 Pro/M4 Max)
Apple already introduced the M4 chip with the iPad Pro back in May; however, not much has been known about the higher-tier Pro and Max variants. However, there are several possibilities we can expect. Of course, we can expect more CPU/GPU cores on the M4 Pro/Max and possibly more Thunderbolt controllers as well to connect to even Thunderbolt accessories. Since the M4 series of chips is based on the second-generation 3nm process, we can expect at least the M4 Max to be just as powerful (if not more) as the M2 Ultra in the current Mac Studio. However, we don’t expect a drastic redesign on any of those models. Such a new design with OLED displays will be further down the road.
Pricing and Conclusion
The base M3 MacBook Pro comes with the unbinned chip, so we’ll likely see the same treatment for the M4 MacBook Pro (10-core CPU/10-core GPU). Since that machine will start with 16GB of memory standard, we should see a similar starting price of $1,599 USD, or Apple may increase that price by up to $200. But whatever the case may be, we’ll definitely see several deals on those machines during the holiday season, particularly with the standard configurations as it’s even harder to find sales for custom configurations. I believe the base 14-inch MacBook Pro will finally be the best value for what you’re paying for as that machine will have the most improvement over the previous generation.
Stay tuned for Monday when Apple will start announcing new Macs then! Follow us on X for the latest news!
