Is the New MacBook Pro Really Professional Grade?
2021 MacBook Pro
Apple Inc. updated the already powerful MacBook Pro with the first redesign in years. This redesign also means Apple has ditched Intel altogether in favor of their own in-house designed M1. You have might have heard about the M1 chip when Apple debuted it with MacBook and iPad Pro last year. But this year, they have made a big jump both inside and outside. The 2021 MacBook Pro models come in 14.2-inch and 16.2-inch size choices, and this time they have more ports, up to 64GB memory, and the remarkable Apple silicon chips, the M1 Pro and M1 Max. The MagSafe has made a return after a few years and this time it is thinner and even steadier. But the pleasantly surprising additions are the SD card slot and a full-size HDMI port.
Battery and Design
The new models come with faster charging and more battery life than the previous models. The 14inch model comes with the 96 watt-hour adapter which is an upgrade from 67 watts that came with the last year’s model, and the 16inch model comes with a 140 watt-hour adapter which is a nice upgrade from last year. More importantly, the adapter is separate from the braided USB-C cable which means, you don’t have to change the whole adapter if your cable broke. Additionally, there is a new keyboard on these MacBook Pros with all physical buttons which means the touch bar has been removed. One could argue the usefulness of the touch bar, but I personally like to have all physical function keys. I guess I am old-fashioned when it comes to the keyboard.
Display
I think last year’s displays were already great but this year Apple upped their game even more. These new displays on paper are pretty impressive. They are 10-bit panels with mini LED, HDR, 16:10 aspect ratio, almost 4K, and a high refresh rate of 120 kHz. To say the least, it is basically a mini pro-XDR display but with an even higher pixel density and higher refresh rate. Finally, I am very glad that Apple increased the max brightness to an impressive 1600 nits. All in all, thinner bezels, HDR, higher refresh rate, and pixel density make the display one of the best on any laptop.
Chips
The difference between the "Pro" and "Max" labels comes down to GPU and the number of cores. The M1 Pro has a 16-core GPU, while the M1 Max includes a 32-core GPU, with a 24-core GPU additionally accessible as an internal upgrade choice. The M1 Pro can have up to 32GB memory, while the M1 Max can have up to 64GB. Apple says the M1 Pro and Pro Max chips are up to 70 percent faster than M1 in the 13inch MacBook Pro. The GPU in the M1 Pro is up to two times faster than the M1, and the GPU in the M1 Max is up to four times faster than the M1. M1 Pro and Pro Max utilize a framework on a chip design like the M1.
Performance
When it comes to real-world performance, both models are really impressive. M1 Pro in 14inch and M1 Max in the 16inch model performed very high on the Geekbench scores. For the M1 Max, the single-core score was 1,788 and the multi-core performance was 12,806. These are the highest numbers on any Mac. These laptops are next level when it comes to real-world performance. There are parts of the chip that Apple has built with specific purposes in mind, and that is what makes these chips next level. These chips have a media engine and ProRes accelerator as part of that. It makes it a great tool for content creators and media professionals. It is a dream machine for video creators who are on the go. Export times are much less than the previous model, and editing is a breeze even on high-resolution videos.
Should You Get It?
If you are a professional who works on laptops and you think they have reached their limit, I think these will be a great option for you, and you will be very happy with either chip options depending on what you want to use it for. I would recommend the more powerful M1 Max option if you are a video editor though. If you just want a faster laptop with one of the best displays and probably the best battery life, you will not go wrong with these laptops. I personally would choose the 16inch model for the bigger screen realestate and better battery life.