Then there’s the display notch, where the webcam is located at the top of the screen. It’s still an eyesore, and during my testing it obscured dialog boxes more than once. Additionally, the MacBook Pro’s fan has always been extremely loud under load, and it’s just as loud today, and the power brick is still white, even if your laptop is Space Black.
These aren’t new concerns, and they’re all minor complaints alongside a new, heavier concern: At 4.7 pounds, the M4 MacBook Pro feels very heavy, and is indeed half a pound heavier than the M3 Max version. I reviewed it exactly a year ago. However, inexplicably, it is still 19 millimeters thick. Where has that extra half pound gone? It must be the tempting internal updates that will leave us speechless, right?
Power increase
The obvious upgrade is Apple’s new M4 Pro CPU, which is the mid-tier offering between the standard M4 and M4 Max, not including the rumored M4 Ultra in 2025. The new features of the M4 silicon are too numerous and too nerdy to list them here. , but in short, you get more cores on both the CPU (14 in this configuration) and GPU (20) and (also as configured here) 48 GB of unified memory, which is designed to speed up everything from video processing even DNA sequencing, if that’s your hobby.
Naturally, there’s the updated and much-hyped Neural Engine, now with 16 cores, designed to power on-device AI workloads (and the new Apple Intelligence) at three times the speed of the M1. My tested setup also added a 2-terabyte solid-state drive, so this rig is as loaded as it gets.
Aside from the motherboard, there are new features that may be visible more immediately: three to be exact. First, the USB ports support Thunderbolt 5 (120 Gbps/sec) for faster data transfer speeds. A new 12 MP webcam features “Desk View”, which allows you to share a live stream of your desktop while sharing your screen. Lastly, there is a “nanotexture” display upgrade option, which is Applespeak for its glare reduction technology that debuted in Studio Display. I have the feature on my test machine, and if nothing else on the M4 MacBook Pro excites you, this should do it. It makes the screen feel like you’re looking at a photograph. (The upgrade will cost you $150.)
