Apple released new M4 MacBook Pros worldwide in November 2024. The M4 MacBooks come in three different versions of the M4 chip: the regular M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max. Similarly they are available in two sizes, 14 inch and 16 inches.
(image credit: Apple)
This year Apple discontinues the iconic Space Gray MacBook color, narrowing the color options to Space Black and Silver. Although the Space Black variant of the MacBook Pro is stunning to look at, it may be more susceptible to fingerprints compared to the Silver model.
Let’s explore the new features and improvements compared to previous generation MacBooks.
Camera
MacBook comes with a 12MP Center Stage camera which will stay focused on you even if you move around the room. This feature will be useful for people who use external monitors with their laptops. If you tend to place your laptop on the side to work on the secondary monitor while attending a meeting, the MacBook’s camera will try to keep you in focus.
Every year Apple improves the camera on the MacBooks a little bit. Even though the MacBook Camera is not as good as the iPhone’s camera, it is still one of the best cameras that you can find on a laptop.
Display
This year’s MacBook Pro comes with a nano-texture display, which will block most of the reflections on the screen. It will cost an extra $150 compared to the standard Liquid Retina Display that you get on a MacBook.
(image credit: Apple)
The happy news is that regardless of the display option, the MacBook display is brighter than ever now with 1000 nits of maximum brightness in a direct sunlight or brighter environment.
If you use your laptop outside so much where there are lots of reflections and you wouldn’t mind paying an extra $150, you can get the nano-texture display. Otherwise, the standard display would be more than enough, since it has a 1000 nits of peak brightness.
Performance
Apple claims that the M4 Family CPUs provide the world’s best single-core performance. All three variants (M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max) are built using second-generation 3-nanometer technology. This allows M4 MacBooks to be faster and power-efficient.
Base M4 Chip
The base M4 MacBook Pro now comes with a 10-Core CPU and 10-Core GPU, 16GB of unified memory, and 120GB/s of memory bandwidth. I’m glad that Apple has finally increased the unified memory from 8GB to 16GB. This will make the base M4 MacBook Pro an ideal choice for most people. This regular M4 variant can be upgraded to 32GB of unified memory and 2TB SSD storage. You can get the base M4 MacBook for $1599.
M4 Pro Chip
The M4 Pro chip variant features a 12-Core CPU and 16-Core GPU, which you can upgrade to a 14-Core CPU and 20-Core GPU. It includes 24GB of unified memory, upgradeable to 48GB. It has a memory bandwidth of 273GB/s. The base storage is 512 GB and it can be upgraded to 4TB SSD.
M4 Max Chip
The M4 Max chip variant comes with a 14-Core CPU and 32-Core GPU and can be upgraded to a 16-Core CPU and 40-Core GPU. 36GB is the default unified memory option for the M4 Max chip and it can be upgraded to 128GB of unified memory. It has a memory bandwidth of 546GB/s. The base storage for the M4 Max is 1TB and you can max it out with a whopping 8TB SSD, if you don’t mind the cost.
The maxed-out M4 Max MacBook Pro will cost you $7,049.00 for the 14-inch and $7,349.00 for the 16-inch variants. Although this would be an overkill for 99% of people, if you have an intensive workflow like 3D rendering, graphic designing, training large sets of LLM models for machine learning, this is the best laptop that money can buy you in 2024. All the M4 models come with a 16-Core Neural Engine which will help in enhancing performance and efficiency for machine learning and AI-related tasks.
Apple Intelligence
Apple states that it designed the M4 MacBook Pros to handle the advance features of Apple Intelligence. Current macOS version Sequoia currently offers limited features, with more to come in future macOS updates.
If you’re running macOS Sequoia 15.1, your MacBook includes features like notification summaries, an improved Siri that maintains conversation context, smart replies in Mail and Messages, and writing tools for proofreading, rewriting, and summarizing.
The M4 MacBook’s 16-core neural engine can handle any AI-related features that can come in future versions of macOS.
Battery Performance
Apple claims that the M4 MacBooks provide 24-hour battery life. In the real world, you can expect 10 to 15 hours of battery life if you are a moderate user. If you do lots of intensive tasks like 4K video editing, training machine learning models, you can expect 5 to 8 hours of battery life.
Final Thoughts
The M4 MacBook Pro provides incredible power, long-lasting battery life, a stunning display, a good camera, a joyful keyboard and trackpad, making it the best choice for most people.
It is a bit pricier than the Windows laptops available on the market. However, if you are looking for a laptop that can last over the next 5 to 10 years and still deliver incredible performance, you can’t find a better option than the M4 MacBook Pro.