The M4 MacBook Pro gets a great camera at last, Thunderbolt 5, more RAM

Macworld

Apple on Wednesday completed its trifecta of M4 Mac releases by unveiling the new M4 MacBook Pro. The announcement comes after Apple revealed the newly designed Mac mini on Tuesday and the updated iMac on Monday.

While the complete MacBook Pro lineup gets M4 updates across the board, the base M4 model undergoes some drastic changes. The $1,599 model with a base M4 chip now comes standard with 16GB of unified memory, an increase from the previous 8GB. It also has three Thunderbolt ports, one more than the previous model. And the final change is that the space black color, which was exclusive to the higher-end, more expensive models is now available along with the standard silver.

Apple has upgraded the ports on the M4 Pro and M4 Max models to Thunderbolt 5, as it did with the M4 Pro Mac mini. The 14-inch base M4 MacBook Pro model still has Thunderbolt 4. Here are the standard configurations:

14-inch MacBook Pro

$1,599/£1,599: M4 with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB unified memory, 512GB SSD, Thunderbolt 4

$1,799/£1,799: M4 with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB unified memory, 1TB SSD, Thunderbolt 4

$1,999/£1,999: M4 with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 24GB unified memory, 1GB SSD, Thunderbolt 4

$1,999/£1,999: M4 Pro with a 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB unified memory, 512GB SSD, Thunderbolt 5

$2,399/£2,399: M4 Pro with a 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 24GB unified memory, 512TB SSD, Thunderbolt 5

$3,199/£3,199: M4 Max with a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 36GB unified memory, 1TB SSD, Thunderbolt 5

16-inch MacBook Pro

$2,499/£2,499: M4 Pro with a 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 24GB unified memory, 512GB SSD, Thunderbolt 5

$2,899/£2,899: M4 Pro with a 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 48GB unified memory, 512TB SSD, Thunderbolt 5

$3,499/£3,499: M4 Max with a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 36GB unified memory, 1TB SSD, Thunderbolt 5

$3,999/£3,999: M4 Max with a 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 48GB unified memory, 1TB SSD, Thunderbolt 5

M4, M4 Pro, M4 Max performance

According to Apple, the base M4 chip with a 10-core CPU (four performance cores, six efficiency cores) and a 10-core GPU is “up to 1.8x faster than the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 for tasks like editing gigapixel photos, and even more demanding workloads like rendering complex scenes in Blender are up to 3.4x faster.” The 16-core neural Engine is three times faster than the M1. Apple did not cite performance comparisons in its press releases to the M3, but on the MacBook Pro website, the company does offer some vague M3-versus-M4 numbers, and it looks as though the M4 offers the typical incremental boost over the M3.

As for the M4 Pro, apple states that it is “up to 3x faster than models with M1 Pro, speeding up workflows like geo-mapping, structural engineering, and data modeling.” The M4 Max offers “3.5x the performance of M1 Max, ripping through heavy creative workloads like visual effects, 3D animation, and film scoring.”

New camera, nano-glass, and other features

Apple has updated the built-in camera to a 12MP Center Stage camera that automatically keeps the user in the center of the frame. The camera also supports Desk View, which can show the desk space in front of the laptop.

All MacBook Pro models have a glossy Liquid Retina XDR display, but Apple now offers a nano-texture glass option that has a matte-like finish for $150. The display also gets a boost in brightness for SDR content to 1000 nits. Additionally, the M4 Pro models start at 24GB of RAM, up from 18GB on the M3 Pro models, and the max has been raised to 128GB (from 96GB).

All models have three Thunderbolt ports, an HDMI port, a SDXC card slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a MagSafe 3 port, and Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. The M4 laptops have a 70-watt power adapter, while the 14-inch M4 Pro models comes with a 96-watt adapter. All the 16-inch laptops have a 140-watt power adapter.

The M4 MacBook Pro lineup is available for pre-order now, with shipping starting on November 8.