Speaking of the Studio Display, Apple introduced the nano-textured glass option, which reduces glare, which is useful if you frequently work next to a window or outdoors. As usual, this is an add-on upgrade so it will cost you an extra $150 and is available for all configurations.
The base MacBook Pro now has three USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 (one more than the M3 version), an HDMI, an SD card slot, a high-impedance headphone jack, and a MagSafe charging port. It is available in space black and silver. If you opt for the version with the M4 Pro and M4 Max chipsets, you’ll get three USB-C Thunderbolt 5 ports for faster data transfer speeds along with the same other connectivity options.
If you don’t need a super-powerful chip, you can pair the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the base M4 and 16GB of unified memory. However, this option does not exist with the 16-inch MacBook Pro. You have to get it with the M4 Pro or the M4 Max.
So what’s the difference between the M4 Pro and M4 Max? The M4 Pro can be upgraded to a 14-core CPU and up to a 20-core GPU. The most powerful option is the M4 Max, which includes a 16-core CPU and up to 40-core GPU. These chips are based on a second-generation 3-nanometer process, which puts more transistors in a smaller space to improve efficiency and speed. The M4 Pro and M4 Max enable features like mesh shading and ray tracing; Apple says the ray tracing engine is now twice as fast as in the M3 chips.