Apple is expected to release the first revision of the 2021 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros in 2023. Here’s everything we expect to see with the M2 Pro and M2 Max-chip MacBook Pro laptops so far.
When are the MacBook Pro M2 Pro and M2 Max coming?
Mark Gurman at Bloomberg set expectations after the iPhone 14 event that Apple was unlikely to hold a second fall event in 2022.
Instead, Apple could just briefly select members of the tech media on the new machines and issue a press release. That’s partly because the big upgrade to these Macs is largely just beefier versions in terms of performance.
Apple later said its holiday lineup was set for the year. Nevertheless, we continued to see more and more evidence Unreleased Macs will soon become released Macs.
The colors of the MacBook Pro 2022?
Expecting the gray and silver colors of the MacBook Pro again is the safe bet. However, something new has happened since the last series of MacBook Pro. In June, Apple made a darker aluminum finish called Midnight. The MacBook Air is so far the only machine to sport this blackish blue shade of metal.
If the MacBook Pro were available in the new color, it would both look brand new and be the first midnight laptop with an all-black keyboard. While many are still waiting for an all-black MacBook Pro, this would be a great alternative to silver and space gray.
Last year’s MacBook Pro customers were also disappointed that the USB-C MagSafe 3 cable only came in white/silver. It matches the color of MacBook Pro silver, but it is not a match for gray customers. Apple has since released color match USB-C to MagSafe 3 cables for space grey, starlight and midnight. Apple will surely bundle the Space Gray version with Space Gray MacBook Pros with this revision.
The M2 iPad Pro update, however, does not include Midnight. That doesn’t bode well for a MacBook Pro Midnight.
M2 Pro and M2 Max
Finally, the real reason for the upgrade is internal.
Apple introduced it M1 Pro and M1 Max processors in October 2021 alongside the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros. The company kept Apple’s silicon upgrade train going last spring with the even more powerful M1 Ultra.
Then Apple launched the M2 cycle in June with the MacBook Air. We can probably expect the same performance boost from M1 to M2, just scaled for the Pro and Max versions in the new MacBook Pros. Yes, that could mean more fan activity to avoid throttling. That remains to be decided.
Unless you’re getting the most out of your MacBook Pro’s performance, it probably won’t be the year-over-year update that M1 Max customers need. If you’ve already bought an M1 Pro and are ready for a Max flavor instead, M2 Max is your chance.
Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has confirmed that graphics performance will be at the center of these new chips. We’ve also seen a few benchmark test runs that claim to show M2 Max performance:
According to the platform, the M2 Max chip used in the benchmark test has a 12-core processor with 3.54 GHz and 96 GB of RAM. He scored 1853 on one heart and 13855 on multiple hearts. For comparison, the M1 Max chip that powers the entry-level MacBook Pro and Mac Studio has 10 cores at 3.2GHz and scores 1746 single-core and 12154 multi-core.
Based on these tests, the M2 Max chip is only about 14% faster than the M1 Max chip. Since the results are from an actual machine, it’s unclear if Geekbench 5 failed to measure the full performance of the new CPU or if the M2 Max won’t actually be a huge upgrade by compared to the M1 Max, which does not sound. unlikely.
Read the full report on the late November benchmark leaks here. A second set of markers also claimed to have shown the performance of the M2 Max chip in early December:
the benchmark test results, also done with Geekbench 5, showing a single-core score of 2027 and a multi-core score of 14888. In comparison, the previously leaked M2 Max benchmark test scored 1853 on single-core and 13855 on multi-core. The M1 Max chip that powers the entry-level Mac Studio has 10 cores at 3.2GHz and scores 1746 in single-core and 12154 in multi-core.
Comparing the latest benchmark test of the M2 Max chip with the M1 Max, we have up to 22% better multi-core performance, whereas previous results showed the new chip to be 14% faster. It is uncertain whether the results are in fact legit, and if so, why they differ from each other.
Read the full story on additional M2 Max chip SKUs here.
Following
Here are some other possibilities we hope to see with the new MacBook Pros:
- 16-inch MacBook Pro fast charging via USB-C; this was not entirely possible with the M1 Pro/Max version.
- More RAM? Apple has increased the RAM limit for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with M2.
- Center stage webcam? Probably not, especially after the Studio display threshing.
- Ultra M2 version? Don’t hold your breath. Ultra is basically two Max chips, and that kind of performance would likely reduce battery life.
- Speaking of battery life and performance, High power mode on the 16-inch MacBook Pro M1 Max speeds up graphics-intensive tasks. Maybe we’ll see this feature coming to other versions of the new MacBook Pro.
TL;DR 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro updates expected in Q1 2023 as soon as possible. Waiting until those new Macs are announced to make a purchase? Let us know in the comments!
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