All You Need to Know About the New MacBook Pro
As early as last year, Apple began its transition towards the M1 chip starting with the Macbook Air. The new chips are a bold attempt at outclassing Intel’s highest-performing products, while also allowing Apple to make a statement about independence. Abiding by the same trajectory into 2021, Apple has really put the Pro in “professional”. Originally launched in 2009 and 2006 respectively as the 17-inch and 15-inch Macbook Pros, the newly updated 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro has been a long time favourite amongst students and white-collar employees alike.
Not only does the 2021 MacBook Pro boast a more compact size, but it is also armed with Apple’s bleeding edge M1 Pro/Max chip. These iterations of the Macbook Pro offer a value proposition that can’t be missed - whether you’re a long-time Apple fan or someone just looking for a reasonable spec bump for your daily workflow, there’s something new for everyone here.
What’s New On The MacBook Pro
Memory Capacity
Arguably the most important change is the new chipset within the 2021 MacBook Pro. Compared to the 8-core M1 Chip, the M1 Pro and M1 Max have 10 CPU cores responsible for processing and operations. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Apple further optimises efficiency and workflow by dedicating eight of these cores for high-performance tasks and two for low-energy assignments. This is double the amount of high-performance cores than the M1 Chip, which expectedly yields incredible processing power.
Speed
This is also in addition to the increase in graphics performance, as both M1 Pro and Max chips come with 16 and 32 graphic cores respectively. Compared to the seven or eight-core options offered on previous M1 Macs, you can imagine how smooth rendering and designing is on the 2021 MacBook Pro. In fact, benchmarked against their predecessors, the new Macbook Pros are estimated to be 70 per cent faster. Up against the earlier M1 chip, the M1 Max is approximately four times faster and 13 times faster than the earlier Intel models.
The Screen
To the joy of diehard MacBook fans worldwide, the Cupertino based tech-giant finally decided to do away with the Touch Bar. Instead, a new circular fingerprint scanner, as well as larger physical keys, adorn the top of the keyboard bezel. This was a particular point of criticism in previous models and demonstrates Apple’s design philosophy of simplified utility. Other points of criticism were also addressed in this update with the inclusions of an HDMI port and additional Thunderbolt 3 ports. On top of this, other physical design improvements include a heavy reduction on bezel borders along with the screen. In line with the current specs of latest-generation devices, Apple has of course included a Retina XDR display screen.
Battery Life and Memory Capacity
Finally, Apple also stretched both memory capacity and battery life on the 2021 MacBook Pro. The M1 Pro chip supports up to 32 gigabytes of RAM while the M1 Max has storage options for up to 64 gigabytes. Compared to the M1 Silicone chip, that’s a minimum twofold improvement. On a full charge, Apple claims that the smaller 14-inch MacBook Pro has up to 17 hours of screen time, while the larger 16-inch variant reaches up to 21 hours of battery life. This has been a key point for many MacBook Pro users who complain that despite the computing power of the device, battery life was often sacrificed which meant that many had to carry around an inconvenient heavy power brick adaptor for charging while on the go. This is no longer the case.
Should You Pull the Trigger?
For many, the question of “Should I get a Macbook Pro?” is easily answered with the 2021 update. Proposing an insane value proposition and price tag, which seems extremely future proof - this device is a must-buy for anyone that enjoys working within the Apple ecosystem. The only argument one might have for not picking this up would be ownership of the 2020 M1 Macbook Air. Fortunately, the technical upgrades seem worthy enough to still consider the leap towards this year’s model.