The latest laptops from Apple have just been released and they are powered by the latest versions of Apple silicon, promising, as the company says, the most powerful chip ever built for a laptop.
These chips are the M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max, the last of which may be faster than ordinary mortals need. All of them are designed to do everything you want on a laptop, at speed, and for sustained periods of time.
There are subtle visual upgrades to the MacBook Pro this time around, but much remains the same as this time last year when the M3 series of processors was launched.
The new laptops come in the same sizes as before, that is, models with 14-inch and 16-inch displays. The striking design is the same, with cliff-edge sides and curved corners, a display that creeps so are into the corners that the only space for a front-facing camera is in a cut-out at the top, a sumptuously comfortable keyboard and an extensive trackpad.
Connectivity, a key part of any laptop, has been improved across the board. Along with the SD photographic memory card slot, there are now more advanced USB-C connectors, meaning data can be transferred much faster. And there’s the fan-favourite Apple speciality: MagSafe. This is the power connector which is fast and efficient, but links magnetically so if someone trips on your cable, it lightly disengages instead of sending the laptop flying. Mind you, the new MacBook Pro models have the longest battery life of any Apple laptops, so it won’t always be plugged in.
I’ve been testing the new MacBook Pro since Apple unveiled it: here are full details of its strengths and weaknesses. And whether you should buy one.
Tech specs
Packaging
Apple’s box for the MacBook Pro is made of thick cardboard to protect the laptop inside, held in place in a perfectly fitting slot. The display of the laptop has a thin sheet of protective paper on it. It’s all recyclable, including the translucent paper that wraps the laptop, charging brick and cardholder around the charging cable.
Design and Display
Last year, Apple introduced a snazzy new colour to its MacBook Pro range, called space black. Its gleaming look, unlike other laptops, sat alongside the silver option and the less glitzy space grey which came on the entry-level Pro.
This year, for the first time, space black and silver are available for all levels of MacBook Pro. The power cable for the space black version comes in black too.
The overall design is unchanged, offering a handsome, professional look that’s classy and high-end. Build quality is extremely good, even down to the balance of the laptop: you can open it effortlessly with one finger and unlike some other notebook PCs, the base of the computer won’t tip up as you do it.
There’s another, democratising design change: the most affordable MacBook Pro had two USB-C sockets but the ones with the more powerful chips had an extra USB-C socket on the other side, which was often much more convenient. Now, all MacBook Pro models have the same number of ports. But while all MacBook Pros are equal, some are more equal than others. The three USB-C sockets on models with the M4 processor have Thunderbolt 4 speeds but the M4 Pro and M4 Max laptops have three Thunderbolt 5 capabilities, which are up to three times faster. This fits with the idea that the M4 Pro and M4 Max are super-fast, super-capable models.
There’s also a new front-facing camera tucked into a cut-out at the top of the display. The 12-megapixel Centre Stage camera is designed so that if you’re on a video conferencing call, the software can quietly keep you in the centre of the frame even if you keep moving about. And a Desk View feature means that you can show people on the call whatever’s on the desk in front of the laptop, from a top-down view.
Oh, and if you’re concerned about that cut-out, it doesn’t interfere with the rest of the display as it’s small enough to sit in an area less deep than the menu bar which runs across the top of the screen, so it quickly becomes unnoticed.
Performance
The new M4 Pro and M4 Max processors are astonishingly fast. I’ve been testing the M4 Pro model and it has handled everything I’ve thrown at it without complaint or slowdown – or even the fan switching on because I’ve been working it so hard.
The point of the fan is it can leap into life if things get too hot inside, allowing more demanding usage for longer. But I’ve never heard it kick in. I’ve been running the MacBook Pro for simple, workday tasks like surfing the web, watching YouTube and so on. But I’ve also played back high-resolution video and used demanding video-editing programs at full tilt. Note that the base M4 version of the MacBook Pro has one fan, the others have two. Either way, your usage will have to be intense and sustained to hear them, I believe.
Some of the speed of the M4 series chips is augmented by extra active memory (RAM). Where the MacBook Pro with M3, which you could buy until last week when it was retired, came with 8GB of RAM, now the lowest configuration is 16GB. Apple hasn’t increased the price for this – in fact, the range now starts at £1,599, which is £100 cheaper than last year’s model.
Much of this speed update is to accommodate something which isn’t here yet: Apple Intelligence. This is Apple’s version of artificial intelligence, designed to make life easier in subtle ways, such as creating instant summaries of hard-to-plough-through email chains, or rewriting your words to make them more friendly or professional, say.
Apple Intelligence uses a lot of processing power and will be well-suited to the new MacBook Pro. Well, I think it will: it only arrives for UK users in December, so we’ll have to see.
The final benefit of strong performance is extended battery life. Depending on the model and size, the battery life is now up to 24 hours, measured in video streaming timing, and applies to the 14-inch model with M4 processor, and all 16-inch versions of MacBook Pro. The other ones, that is, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro or M4 Max chips both manage up to 22 hours between charges. Both are highly impressive, but the 24-hour metric is the longest-ever on any Apple laptop.
Anything else?
The display has an option for something called nano-texture, which is designed to reduce reflections and glare on the display. This is especially useful on a laptop as you might be using it outdoors in bright light. The MacBook Pro displays are tremendous, with miniLED backlighting offering exceptional contrast and bright colours and since the top brightness is up to 1,600 nits for HDR content, or 1,000 nits elsewhere, this laptop can be used in a wide variety of situations. The nano-texture option costs an extra £150.
And it’s worth noting that if you’re watching a movie on the MacBook Pro it sounds as good as it looks, thanks to the upward-facing speakers at the side of the keyboard, plus others hidden underneath.
Any downsides?
You could argue that the M4 is not the biggest upgrade over the M3 series that arrived last autumn. Maybe so, but most people considering this won’t have upgraded to M3 in the last 12 months, and the speed increases over the model before – let alone the models with Intel processors of a few years before which are still in wide use – are significant.
Verdict
Apple MacBook Pro with M4
Apple’s laptops are hard to beat, thanks to a combination of a highly intuitive operating system, immaculate build quality, attractive display, excellent sound and, above all, super-fast performance. It may even be too powerful for most people’s needs. Maybe. But there’s something very satisfying about a laptop that never dawdles, however many apps you have open. And that extra power also buys headroom for the future: as more advanced programs demand more, you’ll be able to work and play at speed for years to come.
The extra connections and space black options that are now common to all models, the readiness for Apple Intelligence and extended battery life make the MacBook Pro a choice that’s hard to resist.
Buy now £1999.00, John Lewis
