UPDATE: Oct. 30, 2024, 1:20 p.m. EDT This story has been updated with more info about the new M4 MacBook Pros.
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Apple’s “Mac week” continues with the launch of new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros powered by M4-series chips (M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max). Starting prices range from $1,599 to $3,199, and preorders are now live in the Apple Store.
The M4 MacBook Pros will begin shipping on Friday, Nov. 8.
What’s new
Announced Wednesday (Oct. 30) following a brief leak on Apple’s website, the new models include a 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M4 chip, plus 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. They all come in space black and silver.
The M4 MacBook Pros are all equipped with Liquid Retina XDR displays that offer up to 1,000 nits of SDR brightness (a bump from 600 nits for SDR in their predecessors), and buyers have the option of upgrading them with a new “nano-texture display” for $150 more. This “dramatically reduces glare and distractions from reflections,” says Apple. It throws in a free polishing cloth worth $19.
Credit: Apple
The top bezel of these displays contains a new 12MP Center Stage camera with support for “Desk View,” a feature that adds a top-down view of the user’s desk during video calls; the previous MacBook Pros had 1080p webcams.
Apple also claims that the new MacBook Pros offer up to 24 hours of battery life, which would make them the longest-lasting Macs ever made. (The 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro lasted nearly 17 hours per charge in Mashable’s testing, for what it’s worth. A 24-hour battery life would put Apple’s laptops on par with fresh Copilot+ PCs like the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7.)
On the connectivity front, the M4-series MacBook Pros all have an HDMI port, an SDXC card slot, a MagSafe 3 charging port, a headphone jack, and support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The M4 model tacks on three Thunderbolt 4 ports, while the M4 Pro and M4 Max versions have three Thunderbolt 5 ports that promise faster-than-double transfer speeds.
M4 configurations
Geared toward “entrepreneurs, students, creators, or anyone doing what they love,” Apple’s new starter MacBook Pro comes with 16GB to 32GB of memory and 512GB to 2TB of SSD storage. (That first number is a welcome bump from the M3 generation’s 8GB of base RAM.)
It starts at $1,599 and maxes out at $2,749 if you tack on the nano-texture display option. It’s only available in a 14-inch size.
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M4 Pro configurations
The M4 Pro MacBook Pro is aimed at “researchers, developers, engineers, creative pros, or anyone that needs even faster performance for more demanding workflows.” It can be configured with 24GB to 48GB of RAM and 512GB to 4TB of storage.
The 14- and 16-inch sizes start at $1,999 and $2,499, respectively; if you max out the latter and add a nano-texture display, it’ll cost you $4,249.
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M4 Max configurations
Apple’s beefiest MacBook Pro to date is “[designed] for pros like data scientists, 3D artists, and composers who constantly push workflows to the limit.” The 14-inch model has 36GB of RAM, while the 16-inch version comes with 36GB to 128GB of RAM. Both have 1TB to 8TB of storage.
The 14- and 16-inch sizes start at $3,199 and $3,499, respectively, and maxing out the bigger one works out to $7,349.
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For more information about Apple’s big week of refreshed devices, check out our Mac announcements hub.
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