Apple took the wraps off M4-powered MacBook Pros on Wednesday. While the new laptops sport the same design as their predecessors, they deliver faster performance and a staggering 24 hours of battery life, the company said in a press release announcing the M4 MacBook Pro launch.
“MacBook Pro is an incredibly powerful tool that millions of people use to do their life’s best work, and today we’re making it even better,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering.
M4 MacBook Pro launch: Big upgrades and amazing battery life
Apple’s M4 MacBook Pro retains the same design as its predecessor but now also comes in space black. The M4 chip — the same one Apple uses in the 2024 iMac and the redesigned Mac mini, which both launched this week — features a 10-core CPU and GPU. This is paired with higher (and faster) 16GB of unified memory, which is configurable to 32GB in the base model.
Thanks to the beefier GPU, the M4 MacBook Pro can drive two external displays alongside its Liquid Retina panel.
Image: Apple
Another notable change is three Thunderbolt 4 ports, up from two on the previous model. Apple claims up to 1.8x performance boost over the M1 MacBook Pro in tasks like editing gigapixel photos. The company says the upgraded Neural Engine in the M4-series MacBook Pros is more than 3x faster, delivering a major speed boost in Apple Intelligence and other AI workloads.
All 2024 MacBook Pro models use a newer Liquid Retina XDR panel that can display SDR content at 1,000 nits and hit a peak HDR brightness of 1,600 nits.
Pricing for the M4 MacBook Pro remains unchanged, starting at $1,599.
M4 Pro MacBook Pro delivers even bigger performance leap
Photo: Apple
The M4 Pro-powered MacBook Pro still comes in 14-inch and 16-inch variants. Apple claims the new chip featuring a 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU is twice as powerful as the entry-level M4 processor. Memory bandwidth also gets a massive 75% boost over M3 Pro MacBooks for smoother system performance. Apple says the M4 Pro MacBook Pro delivers a 3x performance boost over the M1 Pro-powered models in most workloads.
The new M4 MacBook Pro family features a new 12MP Center Stage camera, the same as the one on the M4 iMac.
All M4 Pro and M4 Max-powered MacBook Pros feature Thunderbolt 5 ports, which deliver twice the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4.
The 14-inch M4 Pro MacBook Pro starts at $1,999, while the 16-inch model starts at $2,499.
M4 Max MacBook Pro is Apple’s fastest MacBook ever
For even heavier workloads, Apple unveiled the M4 Max-powered MacBook Pro. It delivers performance “previously only imaginable on a desktop,” the company says. The chip features a 16-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, and can be configured with up to 128GB of unified memory. System bandwidth gets a big boost to 512GB as well.
The Neural Engine is also seriously fast, with Apple claiming a 3x performance boost over the M1 Max chip. Despite the performance improvements, Apple says its new MacBook Pro family delivers up to 24 hours of battery life.
You can preorder the M4 MacBook Pros starting today for delivery on November 8, when the new laptops will become available at Apple Stores.
Watch Apple’s M4 MacBook Pro launch video
Source: Apple
