M4 MacBook Pro: Here’s everything we know so far

1 week ago

The M4 MacBook Pro has yet landed, and pinch it travel boosted capacity and a full stack of caller features. It’s 1 of nan biggest MacBook upgrades successful nan past fewer years.

Whether you’re unsure if it’s correct for you aliases you conscionable want to study everything location is to cognize astir nan M4 MacBook Pro, we’ve sewage nan answers here. Read connected to spot what’s caller successful Apple’s latest pro-level laptop.

Price and merchandise date

Russian YouTuber Romancev768 pinch what is claimed to beryllium a existent M4 MacBook Pro unit.

Apple has a wont of launching caller Macs successful nan fall, and this twelvemonth was nary different. The institution announced nan caller M4-equipped MacBook Pro connected October 30 and released a short promotional video alongside it. It followed nan announcement of different caller Macs earlier successful nan week, including an M4 iMac and an M4 Mac mini.

As for nan price, we suspected that we mightiness spot an summation here, but Apple kept things arsenic they were pinch nan M3 generation. That intends a starting value of $1,599 for nan 14-inch MacBook Pro pinch M4 chip.

The MacBook Pro M4 is disposable for preorder now and will beryllium disposable to acquisition connected November 8.

Performance

A personification utilizing nan M4 MacBook Pro.

With nan M4 MacBook Pro, Apple is offering 3 spot options: nan M4, nan M4 Pro, and nan M4 Max. The capacity you tin expect evidently depends connected which spot you pick, but each 1 offers noticeable improvements complete their M3-generation predecessors.

Take nan M4 chip, for example. With up to 10 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores, Apple says this spot tin process images successful Affinity Photo up to 1.3 times faster than nan M3, and up to 1.8 times faster than nan M1. Going backmost further, nan M4 tin tally that aforesaid Affinity Photo task 7 times faster than nan Intel-based 13-inch MacBook Pro pinch a Core i7 chip. That’s an aged device, but if you’re still connected an Intel MacBook Pro, it’ll beryllium a immense measurement up.

Apple besides shed ray connected nan caller M4 Pro and M4 Max chips and their performance. The M4 Pro tin beryllium configured to person a 14-core CPU and a 20-core GPU, and it boasts 75% much representation bandwidth than nan M3 Pro. Apple says it’ll springiness you doubly nan graphical capacity of nan M4 and 1.3 times faster 3D visualization successful Cinema 4D compared to nan M3 Pro.

The last spot successful nan lineup is nan M4 Max, which is presently Apple’s astir powerful Mac chip. It offers up to 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores, and that makes for 1.2 times faster capacity than nan M3 Max (for some CPU and GPU) and 4 times nan bandwidth of what Apple calls nan “latest AI PC chip” (the institution didn’t specify which spot it was referring to).

The M4 MacBook Pro alongside 2 outer displays.

Elsewhere, Apple has doubled nan starting representation of nan M4 MacBook Pro, up from 8GB successful nan M3 exemplary to 16GB successful nan latest edition. That should really thief pinch multitasking, arsenic good arsenic pinch nan Apple Intelligence tasks that nan latest chips tin handle.

That’s each very well, but what astir real-world benchmarks? Well, we didn’t person to hold for reviews to spot those, arsenic a bid of high-profile leaks earlier nan MacBook Pro’s motorboat spilled nan beans connected almost everything you request to cognize astir its performance.

For instance, Russian YouTuber Wylsacom sewage clasp of 1 of nan leaked M4 MacBook Pros and put it done its paces, and that included conducting a Geekbench test. This showed nan M4 spot wrong nan laptop deed a single-core people of 3864 and a multi-core people of 15288. Those results are astir 27% and 31% higher than nan M3, respectively. A 2nd leaked benchmark — this clip for Apple’s Metal graphics API — has besides surfaced, and it indicates that nan M4 chip’s GPU is astir 20% amended than that recovered successful nan M3. Overall, that suggests a beautiful noteworthy betterment complete Apple’s erstwhile chip.

Features

Aside from a caller spot roster, nan M4 MacBook Pro besides comes pinch a fistful of caller features that make it worthy considering.

If you opt for nan M4 Pro aliases M4 Max models, you’ll get Thunderbolt 5 connectivity successful its USB-C ports. This ramps up nan information transportation speeds to 120Gbps fromfrom a maximum of 40Gbps successful nan erstwhile MacBook Pro (which only worked pinch Thunderbolt 4).

Apple is now offering a nano-texture solid action for nan MacBook Pro, nan first clip it has done truthful and besides nan first clip this exertion has been disposable extracurricular nan Pro Display XDR and nan Studio Display. This should thief trim glare and distracting reflections. The mini-LED show successful Apple’s laptop tin besides blast each nan measurement up to 1,000 nits of SDR brightness, which is measurement supra what immoderate different laptop tin bring to nan table.

While we’re connected nan taxable of nan display, Apple has upgraded nan webcam that sits wrong nan M4 MacBook Pro’s screen. Its solution now hits 12 megapixels and it now useful pinch Apple’s Center Stage feature, which automatically pans nan camera to support you successful nan mediate of nan framework arsenic you move astir nan room. Finally, nan webcam now useful pinch Desk View, which shows a bird’s-eye position of your desk, arsenic good arsenic a front-on changeable of you erstwhile you’re connected a video call.

For years now, MacBooks person travel pinch unthinkable artillery life, and Apple has extended that further pinch nan caller M4 models. You tin now expect up to 24 hours of juice, Apple says, though it’s not clear precisely what benignant of usage that entails.

Oh, and there’s 1 much thing. The iPad Pro’s M4 spot comes pinch a built-in show motor that Apple says is utilized to “drive nan stunning precision, color, and brightness” of nan tablet’s OLED display. Given that nan MacBook Pro uses nan aforesaid M4 spot — presumably pinch nan aforesaid show motor — does this mean an OLED show is coming to nan MacBook Pro?

Perhaps, but don’t expect it immoderate clip soon. The latest predictions put nan merchandise day of nan rumored OLED MacBook Pro anyplace betwixt 2025 and 2027, truthful there’s still a while to spell earlier Apple’s flagship laptop gets that long-awaited upgrade. But having a dedicated show motor successful nan M4 spot hints that it’ll get eventually.

Design

The creation of nan M4 MacBook Pro remains mostly nan aforesaid arsenic that of its predecessor — it moreover uses nan aforesaid container arsenic nan M3 MacBook Pro, which is thing Apple has ne'er done before. But location are 1 aliases 2 mini creation tweaks to look retired for.

The astir salient 1 is nan group of colors you person to take from. The entry-level M4 MacBook Pro is now disposable successful a Space Black color, thing that was antecedently reserved for nan M3 Pro and M3 Max versions of nan laptop. This is thing that was revealed successful nan salient leaks that occurred a fewer weeks earlier nan M4 MacBook Pro officially launched.

Apple has besides upped nan USB-C larboard count connected nan entry-level M4 MacBook Pro. You’ll now get 3 alternatively of nan 2 that came pinch nan M3 MacBook Pro. These ports are still Thunderbolt 4 connected this model, but if you upgrade to nan M4 Pro aliases M4 Max MacBook Pro, you’ll get Thunderbolt 5 connectivity alternatively (as antecedently mentioned).

There’s not overmuch other to study connected nan creation front. The latest MacBook Pro redesign happened successful 2021, which isn’t that agelong agone successful Apple’s timeline. The institution redesigned its MacBook Pros successful 2012, 2016, and 2021, and by that measure, nan adjacent 1 will astir apt hap astir 2025 aliases 2026. So don’t get excessively excited for a chassis overhaul this year.

Looking somewhat further ahead, nan OLED MacBook Pro is simply a much probable campaigner for a creation change. Not only is it apt to autumn wrong nan day scope mentioned above, but nan tandem OLED sheet Apple utilized successful nan M4 iPad Pro allowed that instrumentality to go noticeably thinner.

If Apple uses nan aforesaid tech successful nan MacBook Pro — and fixed really costly this tech would person been to research, we’re betting that it will — we mightiness spot a somewhat thinner MacBook Pro erstwhile nan OLED sheet makes its debut successful Apple’s laptop. That’s an thought backed by some Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Apple expert Ming-Chi Kuo, some of whom judge Apple intends to slim down a important number of its products (including nan MacBook Pro) complete nan adjacent fewer years.

Software

Apple's Craig Federighi discussing Apple Intelligence astatine nan Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024.

We shouldn’t conscionable attraction connected nan hardware, arsenic nan M4 MacBook Pro received immoderate beautiful important package upgrades too. For instance, there’s Apple Intelligence, nan AI level that Apple revealed astatine its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) successful June 2024. This is being infused correct done Apple’s operating systems — for example, it lets nan Mail app categorize your emails and rewrite them utilizing a different reside of voice, and adds image procreation and audio transcription devices to make moving pinch media a small easier. Siri is besides owed for a major overhaul acknowledgment to Apple Intelligence, and this update could people nan largest revamp successful Siri’s history.

Apple Intelligence has landed successful macOS Sequoia, albeit successful a very constricted manner for nan clip being. Aside from Apple Intelligence, macOS Sequoia includes a scope of caller features for nan M4 MacBook Pro (and immoderate different Mac that tin tally it), including iPhone mirroring, window tiling controls, a caller Passwords app, and more.

However, it’s worthy noting that Gurman believes that immoderate Apple Intelligence features won’t motorboat until 2025, and galore of them didn’t get successful clip for nan motorboat of nan M4 MacBook Pro. That includes Siri’s expertise to summation contextual consciousness of what you’re doing connected your device, arsenic good arsenic its powerfulness to power your apps, specified arsenic editing a photo, past emailing it to a friend. Other features, for illustration Mail’s email sorting and nan Swift Assist companion for Xcode, mightiness driblet successful 2024, but they’re still excessively precocious for nan M4 MacBook Pro launch.

Lastly, location person been rumors that an Apple Intelligence+ suite of precocious AI features could motorboat astatine immoderate point, which would beryllium a paid package bundle. That’s still conscionable a rumor, though, truthful we don’t yet cognize if it would require nan much tin Neural Engine that nan M4 provides.