Apple's M4 MacBook Pro: A Leap in Power and Innovation

This is a big week for Apple. The company continues its unique trend of press release announcements to introduce a new MacBook Pro. We’ve already heard about the new Mac mini and the new iMac, both with M4 chips. Now, there’s a new MacBook Pro powered by the same family of chips, but with an M4 Max option for even more power.

So, what’s new? The M4 MacBook Pro is available in the familiar 14- and 16-inch sizes, but now starts with 16 GB of memory with support for up to 32 GB. The base model also includes a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU (the M3’s start with an 8-core CPU).

Another new option, ideal if you need a “tremendous performance boost,” as Apple puts it, is the MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro chip. It has a 14-core CPU (10 performance, 4 efficiency cores) and a 20-core GPU. This makes it twice as powerful as the M4 chip. With 75 percent more memory bandwidth than the previous model, it’s up to three times faster than M1 Pro models.

There’s also the MacBook Pro with the M4 Max chip. The company says this powerhouse is designed for big data crunchers like 3D artists and data scientists. With the M4 Max, the new MacBook Pro delivers desktop-level performance. With up to a 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, and over half a TB/s of memory bandwidth, it’s 3.5x faster than the M1 Max. This unlocks intensive tasks like 3D animation and film scoring. It supports up to 128 GB of unified memory, making it ideal for working with large AI models. The upgraded Media Engine with two ProRes accelerators can smoothly edit those 4K ProRes videos taken by your iPhone 16 Pro. The M4 Pro and M4 Max models also have Thunderbolt 5 ports for double the transfer speeds, up to 120 Gb/s.

Apple’s announcement also details the new nano-texture display option available in the MacBook Pro, designed to reduce glare and display SDR content at up to 1000 nits. The MacBook Pro now also has a 12MP Center Stage camera for better video quality in low light, and it keeps you centered on calls as you move. It also supports Desk View for added versatility and has studio-quality mics and a six-speaker system with Spatial Audio.

Now let’s talk about the software on these new MacBooks. Apple Intelligence, launching with macOS Sequoia 15.1, brings various AI tools to the Mac. It offers systemwide Writing Tools for rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text and introduces a revamped Siri that handles both spoken and typed requests, answers questions about Apple products, and in December will be able to perform system actions based on user context.

New features like Image Playground for custom images and Genmoji for personalized emoji will also launch in December, including ChatGPT integration for easy access to its smarts. Sequoia on the MacBook Pro enables iPhone Mirroring, a faster Safari with distraction control, Personalized Spatial Audio for gaming, easy window tiling, and a central Passwords app for secure storage for your passwords and other credentials.

The new M4 MacBook Pro, available for pre-order starting today in black and silver, starts at $1,599 for the 14-inch model and $2,499 for the 16-inch version. Various configuration options are available, but only the 16-inch MacBook Pro supports the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. They’re available starting November 8.