Day three of Apple’s “week of announcements” saw the news that many have been waiting patiently for: the release of the new MacBook Pro M4. The revamped MacBook Pro is stacked with updated hardware such as Thunderbolt 5 ports, a 12MP camera, a nano-texture display, and of course the much-anticipated M4 chip in one of three different chip configurations: the M4, M4 Pro, or M4 Max.
All three have a 16-core neural engine and are paired with 16GB, 24GB, or 36GB of unified memory. They’re available for preorder today starting at $1,599 and will be available regularly beginning November 8th.
Also: Apple Magic Mouse gets USB-C, but still plugs in the bottom. Buy this instead
The new MacBook Pros come in either Space Black or Silver, and either a 14- or 16-inch configuration. The former is available with all three chips, while the 16-inch version only comes with the M4 Pro or M4 Pro Max. The new chip — released just one year after the M3 — aims to propel Apple back to the top of the industry by harnessing AI capabilities powered by the chip’s neural processing unit (NPU) for increased on-device performance for large language models.
<!–>
The base-level M4 has three Thunderbolt 4 ports (one on the right side now), while the M4 Pro and Pro Max have three Thunderbolt 5 ports, a first for Apple with the new connectivity standard. Apple also touts improved battery life with the M4 chip: up to 24 hours on a single charge, which pushes the bar for what was already great battery life with the M3.
The MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro chip bumps up the performance further, with Apple claiming twice as much power as the base M4 and a 75% increase in memory bandwidth from the M3 chip (double the amount, Apple notes, as any AI PC chip). At the top is the MacBook with the M4 Pro Max chip, which has up to a 40-core GPU and neural engine that’s three times faster than the M1 Max.
Also: The M4 MacBook Pro has a boringly awesome reason for you to upgrade
Regarding their displays, Apple’s liquid retina XDR display features an all-new nano-texture option that can support up to 1000 nits of brightness, with up to 1600 peak brightness for HDR content. Alongside the display, the 12MP Center Stage Camera aims to deliver high-quality video in challenging lighting while pairing with on-device AI to keep users centered in the frame.
The MacBook Pro M4 also comes with Apple Intelligence straight out of the box, although many of the most noteworthy features will roll out over the next few months. Apple’s proprietary AI feature set includes text summaries, writing tools, and image generation, with ChatGPT being integrated into Siri in December of 2024.