Apple on Monday (October 18) unveiled the new generation MacBook Pro series.
It comes with a significant upgrade in terms of not just design but also processing power over the Intel Core-i chipset-based MacBook Pro.
The new model will be available in two sizes-- 14.2-inch and 16.2-inch. They come with Liquid Retina XDR display. It features sane the mini-LED technology used in the latest iPad Pro.
It offers 1,000 nits of sustained, full-screen brightness and can also reach 1,600 nits of peak brightness, and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The 14.2-inch display is said to have 5.9 million pixels, whereas the 16.2-inch display features 7.7 million pixels.
Like the iPhone 13 Pro series, the new MacBook Pro series also features ProMotion technology. Depending on the type of tasks such as browsing the internet to video editing a 4K video, the display can dynamically change refresh rate up from 10Hz to 120Hz.
Both models come with a full HD(1080p) FaceTime camera (f/2.0 & four-element lens), three Thunderbolt v4 ports to connect high-speed peripherals, an SDXC card slot for fast access to media, an HDMI port for conveniently connecting to displays and TVs, and an improved headphone jack that supports high-impedance headphones.
Apple is also bringing back the MagSafe to MacBook Pro. The new MagSafe v3.0 features an updated design and supporting more power into the system. Additionally, fast charge comes to the Mac for the first time. It can charge up from zero to 50 per cent in just 30 minutes.
The new MacBook Pro comes with Magic Keyboard set in double-anodised black well, which elegantly highlights the backlit glyphs on the keys, and features a full-height function row.
Apple has incorporated physical function keys — including a wider escape key and has replaced the Touch Bar, bringing back the familiar, tactile feel of mechanical keys.
Apple is offering the MacBook Pro series in two chipset options-- M1 Pro and M1 Max.
Both promise a giant leap in terms of efficient performance, faster graphics processing, and battery life.
The new M1 Pro silicon comes with up-to-10-core CPU with eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores, along with an up-to-16-core GPU. It promises to deliver up to 70 percent faster CPU performance than M1, and up to 2x faster GPU performance.
Also, the new M1 Pro also delivers up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth — nearly 3x the bandwidth of M1 — and supports up to 32GB of fast unified memory. Designed to dramatically speed up pro video workflows, M1 Pro adds a ProRes accelerator in the media engine, delivering unbelievably fast and power-efficient video processing.
The M1 Max has the same powerful 10-core CPU as the M1 Pro, but with double GPU cores.
It has a massive 32 cores for up to 4x faster GPU performance than M1. It also has up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth — 2x that of M1 Pro and nearly 6x that of M1 — and up to 64GB of fast unified memory.
"With even the latest PC laptops topping out at 16GB of video memory, having this huge amount of memory available is game-changing for pro workloads, allowing pros to do things that were previously unimaginable on a notebook. 3D artists on the new MacBook Pro can now easily work with extreme geometry and textures in scenes that pro PC laptops can’t even run," said Apple.
"M1 Max also offers an enhanced media engine that features two ProRes accelerators for even higher multi-stream performance. As a result, pros can edit up to 30 streams of 4K ProRes video or up to seven streams of 8K ProRes video in Final Cut Pro — more streams than on a 28-core Mac Pro with Afterburner. And for the first time on any Mac, video editors can grade colour in HDR on 8K ProRes 4444 video on battery when they’re miles away from the edit bay, " Apple added.
As far as the battery life is concerned, the 14-inch model promises to deliver up to 17 hours of video playback, seven more hours compared to the predecessor.
The 16-inch model gets up to a remarkable 21 hours of video playback, 10 additional hours than the last iteration and making it the best MacBook Pro to date to offer such long battery life.
The new MacBook Pro feature 100 per cent recycled aluminium, 100 per cent recycled tin in the solder of its main logic board, and, for the first time in a Mac notebook, the use of 100 per cent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets. Both models are also built with 35 per cent or more recycled plastic in seven components, and all of the packaging wood fibres are from responsibly managed forests or recycled sources.
In India, the new MacBook Pro models will be made available in two CPU options-- M1 Pro and M1 Max. They can be ordered on apple.com/in/store. They will begin arriving to customers and will be in select Apple Store locations and Apple Authorised Resellers from October 26 onwards.
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro model starts at Rs 1,94,900 and Rs 1,75,410 for students via education plan.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro model starts at Rs 2,39,900. For students, they can buy it for Rs 2,15,910 via education plan.
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