Finishing off its week of announcements, Apple revealed the new MacBook Pro with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips on Wednesday. But in addition to upgraded chips, MacBook Pro laptops have even more new features and updates. Here, we’ll cover 11 new M4 MacBook Pro features you need to know about before the laptop launches next week.
New colorway: Apple unveiled the new Space Black color for the M3 MacBook Pro. However, it was only available for the M3 Pro and M3 Max models. Now, Apple offers this finish for every M4 MacBook Pro, in addition to the existing Silver option.
Standard RAM improvements: The M4 MacBook Pro now starts with 16GB of RAM, double the previous standard model. The M4 Pro chip comes with at least 24GB of RAM, and the M4 Max has 32GB.
Nano-texture display: Apple brought the nano-texture display to the MacBook Pro. Users can now configure the laptop with a matte display to avoid outdoor light reflection.
Brighter display: Apple now offers up to 1,000 nits of brightness for SDR view, up from 500 nits. For HDR content, the max brightness remains at 1,600.
M4 chip: This chip delivers up to 1.8x faster CPU performance and 2.2x faster GPU performance over the M1 model.
M4 Pro: This new processor can be configured with up to 14 cores, including 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores. M4 Pro also provides multithreaded performance. With up to 20 cores, the M4 Pro GPU is up to twice as powerful as the M4 GPU.
M4 Max: Exclusive to the MacBook Pro, the M4 Max chip features up to a 16-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, over half a terabyte per second of unified memory bandwidth, and a Neural Engine that is over 3x faster than the M1 Max, allowing on-device AI models to run faster than ever.
New camera: Apple replaced the FaceTime HD camera with a new 12MP Center Stage camera. As the name suggests, this new lens offers new features, such as Center Stager and Desk View.
Thunderbolt 5 ports: Apple updated the ports on the M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook Pro models to support Thunderbolt 5, an upgrade over Thunderbolt 4.
Longer battery life: The battery on the M4 MacBook Pro can support up to 24 hours of video streaming, which makes it the best battery ever available in a Mac. The M4 Pro chip can offer up to 22 hours, and the M4 Max up to 18 hours.
External display support: The M4 Max MacBook Pro supports up to three external displays: up to two external displays with 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, one external display with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz, or one external display with 4K resolution at 240Hz over HDMI.
Wrap up
These are the most exciting new features coming to Apple’s next premium laptop. Apple plans to roll out the M4 MacBook Pro models on November 8.
