New MacBook Pros are coming soon, and they're available for preorder now (see at Amazon). These machines offer just about everything pro-level MacBook fans have been asking for in recent years. They're ultra powerful, they ditch the much-maligned Touch Bar, and they have ports galore. It seems it's the dawn of a new day for Apple's most powerful laptops.
These new machines start at $1999 and are set to release on October 26. Here's everything you need to know to lock in your preorder.
At the time of this writing, only the 14-inch models have gone live on Amazon, though the listing pages are up for the 16-inch ones, so I'd expect them to be available soon. You can get it in silver or space gray, with a 512GB or 1TB SSD. Best Buy has both 14" and 16" options, and at Apple you can spec it out even more for full customizability (though keep an eye on the shipping date if you do).
These machines include your choice of two new Apple-made systems on a chip. There's the M1 Pro and the bigger and more powerful M1 Max. Apple says the M1 Pro is 70% faster than the standard M1 chip. The M1 Max offers up to 3.7x faster CPU performance, and up to 13x faster graphics performance. In short, they're both beasts that can power all kinds of high-end computing processes, but they run significantly cooler than all other chips in their class.
Both chips are available in either the 14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro, which is great, because previous MBPs saved their most beastly chips for the 16-inch model.
Port-wise, things are massively improved over the previous models, which favored USB-C ports over literally all other possible ports. These machines have a MagSafe 3 port for charging, which also makes tripping over the power cord much less dicey. They have three Thunderbolt 4 ports, a headphone jack, an SD card slot, and an HDMI port.
Also improved is the battery life. Apple says the 14" model gets up to 17 hours of video playback, or 11 hours of wireless web browsing on a single charge. Thanks to the 16" model's larger battery, it gets you up to 21 hours of video playback or 14 hours of web browsing. It also supports fast charging, which gets you 50% battery life in 30 minutes.
Apple has finally plopped a 1080p camera in these machines, which ought to make your FaceTime and Zoom calls look better. And, again, the TouchBar is gone. It's like Apple has finally listened to customers and corrected pretty much all of its mistakes from previous generations.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
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These new machines start at $1999 and are set to release on October 26. Here's everything you need to know to lock in your preorder.
Preorder MacBook Pro with M1 Pro or M1 Max Chip (2021)
At the time of this writing, only the 14-inch models have gone live on Amazon, though the listing pages are up for the 16-inch ones, so I'd expect them to be available soon. You can get it in silver or space gray, with a 512GB or 1TB SSD. Best Buy has both 14" and 16" options, and at Apple you can spec it out even more for full customizability (though keep an eye on the shipping date if you do).
These machines include your choice of two new Apple-made systems on a chip. There's the M1 Pro and the bigger and more powerful M1 Max. Apple says the M1 Pro is 70% faster than the standard M1 chip. The M1 Max offers up to 3.7x faster CPU performance, and up to 13x faster graphics performance. In short, they're both beasts that can power all kinds of high-end computing processes, but they run significantly cooler than all other chips in their class.
Both chips are available in either the 14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro, which is great, because previous MBPs saved their most beastly chips for the 16-inch model.
Port-wise, things are massively improved over the previous models, which favored USB-C ports over literally all other possible ports. These machines have a MagSafe 3 port for charging, which also makes tripping over the power cord much less dicey. They have three Thunderbolt 4 ports, a headphone jack, an SD card slot, and an HDMI port.
Also improved is the battery life. Apple says the 14" model gets up to 17 hours of video playback, or 11 hours of wireless web browsing on a single charge. Thanks to the 16" model's larger battery, it gets you up to 21 hours of video playback or 14 hours of web browsing. It also supports fast charging, which gets you 50% battery life in 30 minutes.
Apple has finally plopped a 1080p camera in these machines, which ought to make your FaceTime and Zoom calls look better. And, again, the TouchBar is gone. It's like Apple has finally listened to customers and corrected pretty much all of its mistakes from previous generations.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
Continue reading...