Apple’s 2024 upgraded MacBook Pro ended the year on a high, with a significant power boost from the M4 chip, twice the memory than standard, longer battery life, and a lower price.
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Prices for the long-running laptop range start from £1,599 (€1,899/$1,599/AU$2,499), which is around £100 cheaper than last year’s M3 model. While it’s still an expensive, premium laptop, it does come with at least 16GB of RAM instead of the 8GB on previous models, which is worth paying extra for an upgrade.
The appearance has not changed from its predecessor. The body is still a solid, premium-looking aluminum shell that looks great in either gray or black. Although it’s not ultra-thin, its 14.2-inch size means it won’t feel cramped in your bag, making it perfect for working on the go.
This laptop has a premium look, feel, and feel for the price, and is available in black or gray aluminum. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The screen is still the star of the show. Super bright and crisp mini LED display with 120Hz refresh rate to keep things running smoothly. It’s noticeably brighter than many rivals for general tasks, and truly shines with HDR content. Apple is currently selling a special nano-textured display option for an additional £150, which significantly reduces glare when working in bright light or outdoors, if needed.
The on-screen webcam saw a very welcome upgrade to a 12MP Stage Center camera, similar to the one used on most iPads from 2021 onwards. It automatically pans and scans to stay in the frame. This is a killer feature for anyone who lives their life online. Work video calls. There’s a novel.”desk view” option uses an ultra-wide lens to view the space in front of your laptop and allows you to demonstrate it remotely. Although the built-in camera doesn’t provide a very clear view, it’s easier to use your iPhone as a secondary camera with various accessories.
The camera doesn’t yet support Apple’s Face ID system for iPhones and iPads. That’s a shame, even though the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in the power button works well.
Specifications
- Screen: 14.2 inch Mini LED (3024×1964; 254 ppi) ProMotion (120Hz)
- Processor: Apple M4, Pro, or Max
- Ram: 16, 24, 32, or up to 128GB
- Storage: 512GB, 1, 2, 4, or 8TB SSD
- Operating System: macOS 15.1 Sequoia
- Camera: 12MP center stage
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 3x Thunderbolt 4/USB 4, HDMI 2.1, SD card, headphones
- Size: 221.2×312.6×15.5mm
- Weight: 1.55kg
All 14-inch MacBook Pro models have three USB-C ports that allow you to connect to two external monitors at the same time. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The big upgrade under the hood is the addition of Apple’s latest M4 series chip, first seen in the iPad Pro M4 earlier this year. The base 14-inch MacBook Pro comes with a 10-core version of the M4 chip and 16 GB of RAM (double the previous model), which is a welcome upgrade.
The M4 chip is up to 25% faster across the board than the traditional M3 chip, and up to 1.8x faster than the original M1 chip, making it extremely fast indeed. It feels very fast in everyday use, launching apps and processing data noticeably faster than a MacBook Pro with a 2021 or newer M1 Pro chip.
This laptop has best-in-class battery life, lasting around 21 hours of light browsing and regular usage with many tabs open in Chrome, a word processor, and various small utilities, note-taking and messaging apps can manage approximately 18 hours of work. light photo editing affinity photo. It also has a long battery life on standby, draining only about 1% overnight when closed.
For many use cases, the M4 chip is sufficient. However, if you’re looking to render 3D objects, crunch numbers, or write code, the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips are available, which add more high-performance processing and graphics cores. thunderbolt 5 Connectivity.
The base model M4 laptop has an additional Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 port compared to the previous model, allowing you to drive two external monitors and a laptop display simultaneously.
Sustainability
The Space Black color looks just as great as the high-end version of its predecessor and is now available on all MacBook Pro M4 models. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
MacBook Pro is made with 35% recycled materials, including aluminum, copper, gold, plastic, rare earth elements, steel, and tin. In its report, Apple provides a detailed analysis of the impact computers have on the environment.
The laptop is generally repairable, and Apple makes its repair manual available. The battery life is as follows: Over 1,000 full charge cycles and can Apple will replace it for £245. The company offers trade-in and free recycling programs, including for non-Apple products.
macOS Sequoia and the First Apple Intelligence
MacOS 15.1 now enables iPhone Mirroring, Siri input, AI Cleanup for Photos, and several other Apple Intelligence features. Composition: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
MacBook Pro runs the latest version of macOS Sequoia 15.1, which comes with a variety of new Messages and other features that are compatible with iOS 18.1. It features a very useful new window tiling system that snaps windows to the side or full screen when you drag them to the edge of your display, similar to the feature in Windows 11.
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It has iPhone mirroring allows you to wirelessly view a virtual representation of your iPhone on your Mac and control it with your mouse and keyboard, including using apps. A selection of notifications from your phone will appear in your Mac’s Notification Center. This is useful for certain services that only have a phone app.
But the new features that are getting the most attention are the first few features of Apple Intelligence. These include the same AI writing tools you’d find on your iPhone or iPad that can proofread, rewrite, and summarize text. Since they are built directly into the operating system, they are easier and faster to use than third-party options, but I have only found them useful a few times.
You can now type and talk with the new Siri. This works very well on Mac. Double-tapping the command button brings up a text box, which is more socially acceptable in an office or coffee shop than asking a question aloud. However, Siri’s capabilities are still far behind rivals such as Google’s Gemini.
Other small AI tools are scattered around various apps. The Photos app now has natural language search and a new AI cleanup tool to remove unwanted objects. Mail and Messages apps have AI smart replies and conversation summaries that stack and summarize notifications from all your apps for quick analysis.
I don’t think any of these tools are killer features for your Mac, but some of them can be useful in a pinch, and when they’re not, they usually don’t get in the way.
Price
Prices for the 14-inch MacBook Pro M4 start at £1,599 (€1,899/$1,599/AU$2,499). The M4 Pro model is priced from £1,999 (€2,399/$1,999/AU$3,299), while the M4 Max starts at £3,199 (€3,799/$3,199/AU$4,999).
For comparison, the MacBook Air M3 starts at £1,099, the iPad Pro M4 costs £999, the comparable Dell XPS 14 costs around £1,400, the Razer Blade 14 costs £2,150, and Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio 2 is priced at £1,090. £2,069.
Verdict
The MacBook Pro M4 shows that small improvements across the board can slowly add up to bigger results. It may not look all that different from last year’s M3 model, but it has significant speed and battery life upgrades that make a big difference in day-to-day operation when compared to a machine that’s just three years old.
14-inch laptops are still the best in terms of screen size and portability, thanks to Apple’s best-in-class keyboard, trackpad, and great display.
Finally having a good Center Stage camera on the MacBook Pro is a very welcome upgrade, even without Face ID. An additional USB-C port, double the boot memory, and the faster M4 chip also make this boot model even more appealing.
It’s still an expensive laptop, but it’s on par as a premium workstation that can be used at full speed away from a power socket and has a very long battery life, unless you specifically need Windows 11. There is no.
Strong Points: The M4 chip is faster, has more power options, a minimum of 16 GB RAM, very long battery life, a great miniLED ProMotion screen, a great center stage camera, plenty of ports and SD card slots, great speakers, It has Touch ID, a great keyboard and trackpad.
Cons: No Face ID, no USB-A, RAM or SSD cannot be upgraded after purchase, is expensive, and not a big upgrade on the M3 model.
Touch ID on the power button is a great feature, but it’s Apple’s best-in-class keyboard and trackpad that make working with your MacBook Pro a joy. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Source: www.theguardian.com
