And like with previous 13-inch MacBook Pro models, you’ll still get a Touch ID fingerprint reader right next to the Touch Bar that was handy for logging into the machine without a password.įinally, while the Touch Bar has its benefits, I’ll take the physical function keys on the 14-inch, 16-inch and M2 Air models any day of the week. The touch-sensitive LED screen is capable of providing useful contextual controls, making it easy for me to scroll through a YouTube video in Chrome or mute myself during a WebEx call. While I prefer the physical function keys on the new 14-inch and 16-inch models (more on why later), the Touch Bar still has its charms. The M2 MacBook Pro is also the last remaining MacBook to feature the polarizing Touch Bar, which may be a pro or a con depending on your preferences. The laptop’s stereo speakers were perfectly loud and clear enough for my day-to-day use, whether I was blasting instrumental rock while working or listening in on important video calls. Same goes for the MacBook Pro’s vibrant 13.3-inch Retina display, which provided satisfying, inky blacks when I worked in Google Docs and vibrant colors when I fired up an 8K nature video on YouTube. The bouncy, snappy Magic Keyboard is still a delight to type on, keeping my hands plenty comfortable throughout long workdays of hammering away. The notebook’s svelte aluminum design remains a thing of beauty, with a 3-pound chassis that feels more substantial and well-made than anything else in its price range while still being thin and light enough to tuck into most bags. The new MacBook Pro is physically identical to the M1 MacBook Pro model that launched in 2020, and that’s not a bad thing. You can upgrade to 16GB of memory for an extra $200, or up to a massive 24GB for $400 if you really plan on taxing your machine. While my base model with 8GB of RAM allowed me to smoothly jump between well over a dozen apps and even more Chrome tabs with minimal hiccups, I did notice some moments of minor slowdown when I had lots of things running for a long period of time. If you’re a serious multitasker, you’ll want to consider splurging for more memory. Long story short: If you plan on doing intensive video editing on the go, keep a charger handy.Īnother quick word of warning. That’s not far off the 6 hours and 36 minutes we got from the 14-inch MacBook Pro, but it’s well behind the whopping 14 hours we saw from the M1 MacBook Air. However, our in-house battery test - which consists of playing a 4K video on a loop - had a significant tax on the system, draining the new MacBook Pro’s battery in just over 6 hours. Apple’s notebook regularly got me through entire 8-hour workdays with plenty of juice to spare, though the battery seemed to drain faster during video calls. Heck, it even beat last year’s M1-powered, 24-inch iMac across the board, and that’s a full-on desktop computer.Īs far as battery life goes, your mileage will depend on what you’re using the MacBook Pro for. The latest MacBook Pro turned in the highest single-core result we’ve ever seen from the Geekbench 5 overall performance test, and trailed only the larger, more expensive MacBook Pro 14-inch, MacBook Pro 16-inch and Dell XPS 17 when it came to multi-core performance. If you need more objective proof of just how powerful the MacBook Pro M2 is, look no further than our benchmark tests. And while the MacBook Pro has an internal fan for when it’s pushed to the limit, I never once heard it kick in throughout my week of testing. In the music production app Ableton Live, it only took the MacBook Pro about 35 seconds to export an intricate 16-track electronic music project into a shareable MP3 file. I was able to smoothly juggle multiple high-resolution video streams in Final Cut Pro, and the app only buckled once I had seven of these 4K files playing at the same time. Apple’s new M2 notebook really shone when it came to demanding creative processes. But that’s to be expected for a modern high-end laptop. The latest MacBook Pro handled my usual multitasking workload of various chat apps, video calls and countless Chrome tabs without a hitch. The M2 MacBook Pro is easily one of the fastest laptops I’ve ever used. The company is promising yet another major bump with the M2 processor that powers this latest 13-inch MacBook Pro, and based on our testing, it lives up to the hype. When Apple launched the first MacBooks powered by its own Apple M1 processors back in 2020, we were stunned by just how big a leap in performance they provided over the Intel-powered Macs of old. Your CNN account Log in to your CNN account
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