Apple MacBook Pro M4 review: faster, better and cheaper | Apple

Apple’s redesigned MacBook Pro in 2024 will get a big boost in power thanks to the M4 chip, double the amount of standard storage, even improve battery life and lower the price, ending the year on a high.

The legacy laptop range now costs from £1,599 (€1,899/$1,599/AU$2,499), making it around £100 cheaper than last year’s M3 models. While it’s still an expensive premium laptop, it comes with at least 16GB of RAM, rather than the 8GB that was an upgrade worth paying extra for on previous models.

The appearance has not changed compared to its predecessor. The body is still a durable premium aluminum body that looks great in either gray or black. It’s not a super slim machine, but at 14.2 inches it’s easy to slip into a bag without feeling too cramped for on-the-go work.

The screen is still the star of the show, with an ultra-bright and clear mini-LED display with a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth images. It’s noticeably brighter than many competitors for general performance and handles HDR content very well. Apple now sells a special nanotexture display option for £150, which significantly reduces glare for working in bright light or outdoors when needed.

The webcam above the screen has received a very welcome upgrade to a 12MP Stage Center camera, similar to those found in most iPad from 2021.. It automatically pans and scans to keep you in the frame, which is an awesome feature for anyone who lives on video calls for work. There is a novel “Desk view“, which uses an ultra-wide-angle lens to show the space directly in front of the laptop to show things off remotely. With the built-in camera, the view isn’t the clearest, but it’s easier to use the iPhone as a secondary camera with various accessories.

The camera still doesn’t support Apple’s Face ID system on the iPhone and iPad, which is a shame, although the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in the power button works fine.

Specifications

• Screen: 14.2″ Mini-LED Monitor (3024 x 1964; 254 ppi) ProMotion (120 Hz)

• CPU: Apple M4, Pro or Max

• RAM: 16, 24, 32 or up to 128 GB

• Storage: 512 GB, 1, 2, 4, or 8 TB SSD

• Operating system: macOS 15.1 Sequoia

• Camera: Center stage 12 MP

• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 3 Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 ports, HDMI 2.1, SD card, headphones

• Dimensions: 221.2 x 312.6 x 15.5 mm

• Weight: 1.55 kg

Fast M4 power with very long battery life

Inside, the big update is the addition of Apple’s latest M4 series of chips, first introduced in iPad Pro M4 year to date. The base model 14-inch MacBook Pro now starts with a 10-core version of the M4 chip and 16GB of RAM—double the amount of its predecessor—which is a welcome upgrade.

The M4 chip is 25% faster across the board than the previous M3 chip and 1.8 times faster than the original M1 chip, making it very fast indeed. In day-to-day use it felt extremely fast, with app launches and data processing noticeably faster than normal use. MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip from 2021.

The laptop has best-in-class battery life of about 21 hours with light browsing and regular work of about 18 hours with many tabs open in Chrome, word processor, and various small utilities, notes and messaging apps, and some light photo editing in Close photo. It also has excellent standby battery life, losing only about 1% overnight when closed.

For many use cases, the M4 chip will be more than enough. But for those who want to render 3D objects, processing numbers, or custom code, the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips are available, which add more high-performance CPU and GPU cores, as well as Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.

The base model M4 laptop has an additional Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 port compared to its predecessor and is capable of simultaneously connecting two external monitors and a laptop display.

Sustainable development

MacBook Pro is made from 35% recycled materials, including aluminum, copper, gold, plastic, rare earth elements, steel and tin. Apple breaks the computer environmental impact in your report.

Laptop generally repairable and Apple does available repair manuals. The battery should last for more than 1000 full charging cycles and maybe replaced by Apple for £245. The company offers trade-in schemes and free recycling, including for third-party products.

MacOS Sequoia and the first development of Apple Intelligence

The MacBook Pro runs the latest version of macOS Sequoia 15.1, which comes with a host of new messages and other features. according to iOS 18.1. It has a very useful new window tiling system that snaps windows to the sides or full screen when you drag them to the edges of the display, similar to the feature in Windows 11.

He has iPhone mirroringwhich allows you to see a virtual representation of your iPhone on your Mac wirelessly and control it with your mouse and keyboard, including apps. Notifications of your choice from your phone appear in the Mac’s Notification Center, which is useful for certain services that only have phone apps.

But the most notable new additions are the first few Apple Intelligence features. These include the same artificial intelligence writing tools that are capable of checking, rewriting, and summarizing your text as it appears. on iPhone or iPad. Because they’re built directly into the operating system, they’re easier and faster to use than third-party options, but I’ve only found them useful a few times.

You can now type to talk to the new Siri, which works very well on Mac. Double-click the Command button to open a text field to make a request rather than by voice, which is much more socially acceptable in an office or café. However, Siri still lags far behind its competitors, such as Google’s Gemini.

Other small AI tools are scattered across various applications. The Photos app now features natural language search and a new AI Clean Up tool for removing unwanted items. The Mail and Messages apps feature AI-powered smart replies and conversation summaries, and notifications from all apps can be grouped and summarized for quick analysis.

None of these tools seem like killer features on a Mac, but some of them can be useful in a pinch and generally don’t get in the way otherwise.

Price

MacBook Pro M4 14-inch starts from £1599 (1899 euro/US$1599/AUD 2499). The M4 Pro models start from £1,999 (€2,399/$1,999/AU$3,299) and the M4 Max from £3,199 (€3,799/$3,199/AU$4,999).

For comparison, MacBook Air M3 costs from £1099, iPad Pro M4 cost £999an equivalent Dell XPS 14 costs around £1400Razer Blade 14 costs £2150 And Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 costs from £2069.

Verdict

The MacBook Pro M4 shows that small improvements across the board add up to much bigger results. It may not be much different from last year’s M3, but it offers a significant improvement in speed and battery life, and compared to the car from three years ago it makes a huge difference in day-to-day use.

The 14-inch laptop remains the best in screen size and portability, thanks to Apple’s best-in-class keyboard, trackpad, and fantastic display.

Finally, the arrival of the excellent Center Stage camera on the MacBook Pro is a very welcome update, even if it doesn’t include Face ID. The additional USB-C port, double the starting memory, and the fast speed of the M4 chip also make the entry model much more attractive.

It’s still an expensive laptop, but as a premium workstation that can be used at full speed when away from a wall socket and has a very long battery life, nothing can compare to it, unless you need Windows 11.

Pros: The M4 chip is fast with a choice of more power, a minimum of 16GB of RAM, very long battery life, a fantastic miniLED ProMotion screen, a great central camera, plenty of ports and an SD card slot, great speakers, Touch ID, a great keyboard and trackpad.

Cons: no Face ID, no USB-A, RAM or SSD can’t be upgraded after purchase, expensive, not a big upgrade for the M3 model.