New MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max Announced
by Matthew Nudelman
Month DD, YYYY
Just today, Apple announced the new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips for
the newest Mac and MacBook computers. This continues from Apple
developing their own silicon for all of their products since the
M1 was introduced in 2020 and has since been in use in the
MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, iMac, and eventually even
the iPad Pro and iPad Air. In 2022, Apple introduced the M2 for
the first time in the newest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iPad
Pro. Now, there are two new additions to the M2 lineup with the
M2 Pro and M2 Max, similar to what was done with the M1 as it
also had Pro and Max variants. There was also the M1 Ultra, but
it was only featured in last year's Mac Studio, and as of now
there has been no new Mac Studio announced, so there is no M2
Ultra for now.
Apple claims that the new MacBook Pro has a battery life of up
to 22 hours, making it the longest lasting battery of any
MacBook to date. The new MacBook Pro also supports Wi-Fi 6E, the
latest standard in Wi-Fi connectivity (which many devices have
already adopted within the past year). The HDMI port supports 8K
displays for the first time on the MacBook. The M2 Max even
comes with up to 96GB of unified memory, far larger than most
laptops, meaning it is possible to have many demanding programs
running at the same time and working with projects that are too
big for many other computers.
As is common with Apple's own hardware, the company boasts
their product's power efficiency since they are able to optimize
it much more effectively when they are designing the processors
and software themselves. They claim the M2 Pro, featuring
configurations for a CPU with either 10 cores or 12 cores, will
provide up to 20 percent greater performance than the M1 Pro.
They also say the GPU will deliver up to 30 percent better
graphics performance and that the “Neural Engine” is 40 percent
faster, speeding up processes that use AI. Apple also continues
to compare their own silicon to the past Intel-based MacBooks,
claiming that the M2 Pro and M2 Max make the MacBook much more
powerful and efficient. For example, they say that image
processing in Adobe Photoshop is up to 80 percent faster with
the M2 Pro compared to the “fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro.”
The M2 Max has a GPU with up to 38 cores and a CPU with 12
cores.
The HDMI connectivity has been expanded to 8K displays, though
the refresh rate can only reach up to 60Hz, while it can go up
to 240Hz with a 4K display. Apple also continues to keep ports
limited as they only provide three USB-C ports on the MacBook
Pro and very likely are never planning to include an USB-A port
on any MacBook at any point. The transition to USB-C has been
less-than-smooth for Apple as they initially rushed into it back
in 2015 with the “new MacBook” featuring a single USB-C port and
nothing else, and the 2018 MacBook Air which dropped everything
for two USB-C ports and a headphone jack. However, now that
USB-C has been much more widely adopted, this will likely become
less of an issue in the future. Despite the internal differences
of the new MacBook Pro, the exterior is actually identical to
the M1 MacBook Pro, so the amount of ports has not been changed
since then.
The new MacBook Pro will be in the hands of consumers this
Tuesday, January 24th. It will be interesting to see what kinds
of performance tests users may put it through in order to see
how much more powerful it really may be.