Yesterday, Apple unleashed the all-new MacBook Pro as its final Mac that was announced for this week. It’s supercharged by the latest M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max, featuring breakthrough technologies that push the boundaries even further. Besides the boost in performance, Apple has made several under-the-hood changes that you may have overlooked. Without further ado, here are several tidbits you should know of if you are considering buying an M4-based MacBook Pro.
M4 MacBook Pro (14-inch)
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- The base M4 model has an additional Thunderbolt port, bringing a total of three Thunderbolt 4 ports, so it now has the same amount of Thunderbolt ports as the M4 Pro/M4 Max models.
- The base M4 model now comes in the darker Space Black finish as the M4 Pro/M4 Max models in addition to the traditional silver finish.
- The base M4 model now starts with 16GB of unified memory, which has finally addressed the complaint of the measly 8GB as the base memory for years. Additionally, the memory bandwidth is improved from 100GB/s to 120GB/s.
- The base M4 model can be configurable with up to 32GB of unified memory, up from 24GB on the previous M3 model.
- Thanks to more Thunderbolt controllers, the M4 model now supports two external 6K displays in addition to the built-in display, which now matches that capability to the higher-end Pro chip.
M4 Pro/M4 Max (14-inch/16-inch)
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- Both the M4 Pro/M4 Max models now feature three Thunderbolt 5 ports that support transfer speeds of up to 120 Gb/s.
- The M3 Pro machines previously started with 18GB of unified memory, but now, they’ve been bumped up to 24GB of memory on the base configurations. It can be configurable to up to 48GB of memory, up from 36GB on the previous M3 Pro models. Additionally, the memory bandwidth gets faster with 273GB/s (vs 150GB/s on the previous).
- The M3 Max machines had up to 400GB/s memory bandwidth, but the M4 Max machines now get up to 546GB/s memory bandwidth.
- Keep in mind the following:
- If you want 36GB of memory, you’ll have to select the M4 Max with 32-core GPU
- For 64GB or 128GB, you’ll have to select the M4 Max with 40-core GPU
Liquid Retina XDR Displays and Battery Life
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- The XDR displays on all M4 MacBook Pro models get a solid improvement with up to 1000 nits of brightness for SDR content outdoors. This is an improvement over the 600 nits of max. brightness for SDR content.
- What’s even more worth noting is that similar to the displays on the latest Apple Watch and iPhone models, those XDR displays can dim down as low as 1 nit, which is really nice if you’re working inside a dark room without getting too much eye strain.
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- The new nano-texture display option is available on all MacBook Pro models with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max, and it’s just a $150 upgrade over the default standard glass option.
- Thanks to the improved energy efficiencies of the M4 series of chips, battery life gets improved on both the M4 and M4 Pro models too with up to 24 hours of battery life. Note that battery life varies on usage and configuration, but here’s a breakdown of each of the models.
- 14-inch (M4)
- up to 16 hours of wireless web (vs. 15 hours on M3)
- up to 24 hours of video streaming (vs 22 hours on M3 for Apple TV app movie playback)
- 14-inch (M4 Pro)
- up to 14 hours of wireless web (vs. 12 hours on M3 Pro)
- up to 22 hours of video streaming (vs. 18 hours on M3 Pro for Apple TV app movie playback)
- 16-inch (M4 Pro)
- up to 17 hours of wireless web (vs. 15 hours on M3 Pro)
- up to 24 hours of video streaming (vs. 22 hours on M3 Pro for Apple TV app movie playback)
- 14-inch (M4)
That’s all the in-depth details you need before buying the new MacBook Pro. It starts at the same price of $1,599 ($1,499 in education), bringing even more value to customers with increased memory and the latest enhancements. The MacBook Pro is available to order today, with initial shipments arriving in Apple Stores and homes on November 8.
