Apple’s 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max finally got their big announcement today. While it was just a press release and a video rather than a major production at Cupertino, there’s still a lot to digest. It’s been 15 months since the outstanding MacBook Pro 14 with M1 Pro arrived, and since then we’ve been introduced to the MacBook Air M2 and 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2. The rumors regarding the M2 Pro and M2 Max-powered MacBook Pros have been swirling for months now, but at last, they are here. Here are all the crucial details on the MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max.
MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max: price
The good news is that Apple is basically sticking to the same pricing that we saw with the previous generation M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros, but the bad news is that still isn’t cheap. The 14-inch, 10-core M2 Pro with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD starts at $1,999. The 16-inch, 12-core M2 Pro with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD starts at $2,499. Here’s a look at pricing for the most popular models.
14-inch M2 Pro 10-core CPU/16-core GPU/16GB RAM/512GB SSD: $1,99914-inch M2 Pro 12-core CPU/19-core GPU/16GB RAM/1TB SSD: $2,49914-inch M2 Max 12-core CPU/30-core GPU/32GB RAM/1TB SSD: $3,09916-inch M2 Pro 12-core CPU/19-core GPU/16GB RAM/512GB SSD: $2,49916-inch M2 Pro 12-core CPU/19-core GPU/16GB RAM/1TB SSD: $2,69916-inch M2 Max 12-core CPU/38-core GPU/32GB RAM/1TB SSD: $3,499
MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max: release date
You can pre-order the new MacBook Pros today with the laptops shipping and available in stores starting on Tuesday, January 24.
MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max: specs
MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max: ports
Much like the rest of the exterior of the new MacBook Pros, the port array remains the same. You have three ThunderBolt 4/USB 4 ports, an HDMI port, a MagSafe 3 port, an SDXC memory card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max: battery life
We will need to get the new MacBook Pros in our labs to get a real measure of their battery life, but given that they have dominated our laptops with the longest battery life since the move to Apple Silicon there is plenty of reason to believe these will also deliver. Apple claims that the 14-inch MacBook Pro will offer up to 18 hours of Apple TV app movie playback, while the 16-inch model will last 22 hours. That’s an increase of one hour for each model. On the previous generation the claimed 17 hours and 21 hours for the 14-inch and 16-inch models translated to 14 hours and 8 minutes and 15 hours and 31 minutes in our testing. Notably the latter is for an M1 Max powered 16-inch MacBook Pro, Apple’s claims are always centered on the more battery-friendly Pro chips. While these laptops should both easily eclipse the average in their categories, we’ll be paying close attention as we saw the M2 MacBook Air slip to 14 hours and 6 minutes, while the M1 MacBook Air lasted 14 hours and 42 minutes. It’s still an outstanding result and not a drastic fall, but Apple may not be able to live up to its “longest battery life ever in a Mac” claim if the new MacBook Pros follow the same trajectory.
MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max: performance
While we did see leaked M2 Max benchmarks last month, we are once again going to need to wait until we get the laptops in our labs for a final weigh-in on the performance, but let’s take a look at what Apple has to say about the power of its new chips. Apple leads the announcement of these new laptops with the claim that they offer up to 6x faster performance than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro. For those keeping track at home, the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro was the 16-inch MacBook Pro launched in 2019 with a 9th Gen Intel core i9 processor. That’s a far cry from the Intel 13th Gen CPUs that are shipping this quarter, so Apple set an extremely low bar for it to clear by a mile. It’s obvious that Apple is trying to ensure that any MacBook Pro owners that haven’t taken the leap to an Apple Silicon laptop won’t jump ship to a Windows alternative, but that doesn’t make the comparison sound less ridiculous. Apple doesn’t make any other comparisons between M2 Pro/Max and Intel 13th Gen or AMD chips though, but rest assured we’ll have face-offs to come on just that subject for those of you that aren’t locked into macOS or Windows. What Apple does give us is some of the upgrades compared to M1 Pro and M1 Max. Staring with M2 Pro, 10- or 12-core CPUs in the new chips feature up to eight high-performance and four high-efficiency cores that delivers up to 20% greater performance than M1 Pro. On the GPU side the up to 19 cores in M2 Pro nets you a 30% improvement, while the new Neural Engine is 40% faster. The latter should result in faster video and image processing. Turning to M2 Max, all CPUs are 12-core with eight high-performance and four high-efficiency cores. Once again this is a 20% bump from M1 Max. The GPU gets the same 30% bump from the M1 Max with now up to 38 cores and a whopping 96GB of unified memory. M2 Max is naturally targeting creators a 30% performance improvement for color grading in DaVinci Resolve or effects rendering in Cinema 4D.
Outlook
While some might be disappointed in the lack of any exterior updates, given the massive design overhaul we saw on the previous 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros it never seemed like that was in the cards. Turning to what’s inside the new models, it all sounds great on paper and our experiences with the previous generations of Apple Silicon suggest that will carry over to real-world performance, but you’ll have to wait for our review to find out. If you have been waiting around for the new MacBook Pros then the wait is almost over. You can preorder the MacBook Pro M2 Pro or M2 Max right now or wait for our review to help you decide whether you need the latest or greatest or if you might be better off finding an outstanding deal on an M1 Pro or M1 Max.
