Apple delivered the icing on the Mac Week cake with the unveiling of the MacBook Pro. It, of course, supports the base M4 chip but, more importantly, it can also be configured with the M4 Pro and the newly-announced M4 Max. The internal upgrades are compelling for anyone with an old MacBook Pro M1 or an older Intel model.

The new machine has 14-inch and 16-inch variants, besides a substantial memory boost.

Blazing fast

All video editors, 3D artists and code compilers may have their eyes on the M4 Max chip. The chip brings up to a 16-core CPU (12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores), and a 40-core GPU. For the sake of comparison, the M4 Pro sports a 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU, while the plain M4 chip comes with either eight or 10 cores alongside a 10-core graphics chip. The M4 Max chip also supports up to 128GB of RAM with 30 per cent more memory bandwidth than the M3 Max.

With M4 Max, MacBook Pro delivers up to 3.5x the performance of M1 Max, ripping through heavy creative workloads like visual effects, 3D animation, and film scoring. Having up to 12GB of unified memory will help developers can easily interact with LLMs that have nearly 200 billion parameters. And with the powerful Media Engine in M4 Max, which features two ProRes accelerators, MacBook Pro performance is top-notch even when taking 4K@120 fps ProRes video captured with the new iPhone 16 Pro and editing it in Final Cut Pro.

The new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro is ideal for researchers, developers, engineers, creative pros, or for anyone looking for even faster performance

The M4 Pro is no slouch either. For researchers, developers, engineers, creative pros, or anyone who demands faster performance, MacBook Pro with M4 Pro offers a substantial performance boost. M4 Pro features a powerful 14-core CPU with 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores for a jump in multicore performance, along with up to a 20-core GPU that is twice as powerful as M4. With M4 Pro, the new MacBook Pro gets a massive 75 per cent increase in memory bandwidth over the prior generation — double that of any AI PC chip. The new MacBook Pro with M4 Pro is up to 3x faster than models with M1 Pro, speeding up workflows like geo-mapping, structural engineering, and data modelling.

And we already know what M4 brings: It features a more powerful 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores, and a faster 10-core GPU with Apple’s most advanced graphics architecture. The new MacBook Pro starts with 16GB of faster unified memory with support for up to 32GB, along with 120GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Apple has said that the M4 family offers “the world’s fastest CPU core, along with outstanding multithreaded CPU performance for the most demanding workloads”.

Other big improvements

The new MacBook Pros can reach up to 1,000 nits of SDR brightness (compared to 600 nits before), and there’s also a nano-texture display option. It can reach 1,600 nits in HDR. The feature will help people work in bright settings as it drastically reduces glare. Both machines are also getting 12MP Centre Stage webcams, which is a bump up from 1080p cameras.

A shout out to the ports: The 14- and 16-inch Pros with M4 Pro / Max chips are the first Mac laptops with Thunderbolt 5 ports.

Pricing and availability

You can book the new MacBook Pro now and availability begins November 8. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 starts at ₹169,900 and ₹159,900 for education; the 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro starts at ₹199,900 and ₹184,900 for education; and the 16‑inch MacBook Pro starts at ₹249,900 and ₹229,900 for education.