Apple updates MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max chips

Apple updates the MacBook Pro and introduces some even more powerful chips. Announced this morning via a low-key press release, the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros are being updated to the M4 series of processors, which now include the M4 Pro chip that debuted yesterday in the Mac Mini and a new, even higher -end M4 Max. The entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro also gets a slight design upgrade in the form of an additional USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 port on the right side and a spacer black option to match its more premium brethren.

Like previous models, the M4 Pro-equipped laptops start at $1,999 for the 14-inch and $2,499 for the 16-inch, but both get an upgrade from 18GB of base RAM to 24GB. The base 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro still starts at $1,599, but that model now (mercifully) starts with 16GB of RAM instead of just 8GB. The new MacBook Pros will be available on November 8 with pre-orders available now.

In addition to the chip bump and RAM improvements, the 14- and 16-inch Pros with M4 Pro / Max chips are also the first Mac laptops with Thunderbolt 5 ports. All three MacBook Pros come with new 12-megapixel webcams that feature a desktop view, and each can be configured with a new nano-texture display capable of up to 1,000 nits of SDR brightness and 1,600 nits in HDR.

These additional upgrades are nice, but the big changes are still the chips. Apple claims that the entire M4 generation of chips has “the world’s fastest CPU core” and “the industry’s best single-threaded performance.” Single-core performance has been a strong suit of Apple’s Mac chips since the M1 generation, and the M4 chip is promised to have “dramatically faster multithreaded performance.” The M4 Pro and Max also have faster GPU cores with a ray-tracing engine that’s twice as fast. The neural engine is also 2x faster than the M3 generation for improved machine learning and AI workloads.

The latest most powerful silicon from Apple should be best equipped for Apple’s big AI push with Apple Intelligence, which just launched this week across supported Macs, iPhones and iPads. That said, Apple Intelligence runs on Macs dating back to the M1 chip from 2020 — the big hurdle for Macs seems to be RAM. Coinciding with today’s MacBook Pro announcements, Apple is also increasing the base configurations of the M2 and M3 MacBook Air models from 8GB of RAM to 16GB, starting at $999 for the M2. So maybe it’s only a matter of time before older models with lesser specs are left behind in terms of the future features Apple continues to slowly roll out via updates.

The M3 generation of MacBook Pros was a mix of continued excellence in the form of the M3 Pro/Max models and an awkward middle child in the non-Pro M3 14-inch. The best Mac laptops with Pro and Max chips have remained good choices for creatives who have performance-intensive workflows with apps like Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro. The entry-level 14-inch M3 model, on the other hand, was a bit hard to justify compared to a cheaper MacBook Air or one of its more expensive siblings on sale. The new 14-inch with M4 looks a little more interesting now and a little bit more deserving of that “Pro” branding. It’s amazing how an extra USB port can make you feel.

Update October 30: Added base RAM amounts for both 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro chips.