New 12 months, new MacBooks. With little fanfare, Apple has unveiled up to date 14-inch and 16-inch MacE-book Pros, now powered by the M2 Pro and M2 Max Apple-made chipsets. That’s virtually the one main change from the 2021 MacE-book Pro predecessors. However, that is not the one new {hardware} announcement. There’s additionally a extra highly effective Mac Mini, powered by an M2 chip, with a tantalizingly low worth of $599. Â Â
The new 14- and 16-inch MacE-book Pro fashions are the primary to introduce Apple’s M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, successors to the M1 Pro and M1 Max from 2021. Last 12 months, Apple unveiled the usual M2 chip within the MacE-book Air and 13-inch MacE-book Pro, however these newer chipsets are extra highly effective and extra environment friendly.Â
You can select both chip for every machine; they provide as much as a 12-core CPU, with the M2 Pro going as much as a 19-core GPU and the potential of as much as 32-GB of unified reminiscence. Go with the M2 Max and you’ll be able to improve to a 38-core GPU and as much as 96-GB of unified reminiscence for actually power-hungry duties. Tacking on these upgrades dramatically raises the worth, however fortunately, the bottom worth stays the identical for these laptops. The 14-inch MacE-book Pro begins a $1,999 and the 16-inch mannequin prices $2,499. You can organize them now and they’re going to ship on January 24.
Apple says the M2 Pro comes with 20 p.c extra transistors than the M1 Pro and doubles the quantity of bandwidth when put next with the M2, from 100 GB per second to 200. Image processing is reportedly 40 p.c sooner on the M2 Pro over the M1 Pro too. All this could result in improved efficiency throughout the board, however the proof can be within the pudding—we’ll have our ideas on these gadgets quickly.Â
Other buffs to the MacBooks embody assist for 8K/60-Hz and 4K/240-Hz exterior screens once you use the HDMI port, in addition to Wi-Fi 6E compatibility when you have a Wi-Fi 6E router. Much else stays the identical as their predecessors. You get the identical nice 120-Hz show, a sturdy construct, and the improved port choice that features three USB-C ports, HDMI, an SD card slot, a headphone jack, and a MagSafe connector. However, which means the issues we did not like stayed the identical. These 14- and 16-inch laptops are heavy, not fairly the machines you’d wish to tote with you all over the place. There’s nonetheless no Face ID both (solely Touch ID).
We additionally weren’t thrilled about battery life, however Apple has considerably addressed this within the newest mannequin. Specifically, the 16-inch MacE-book Pro has been bumped to 22 hours of battery life, up from 21. Not an enormous increase, nevertheless it’s nonetheless what Apple claims is “the longest battery life ever in a Mac.” We’ll see.Â
