Apple had big plans for its next MacBook Pro in 2021, including a major design overhaul, including a new 14-inch size. It also seemed that the firm decided to remove the Touch Bar and sign the return of MagSafe, long awaited since it reappeared on the latest iPhone.
Under the hood, there was even talk of integrating a redesigned Apple M1 chip and new screen technology.
Have all these changes that have been rumored for months turned out to be true? Find out the answer here.
14-inch MacBook Pro price and availability
During its Unleashed event on October 18, Apple did lift the veil on its new 14-inch MacBook Pro.
It is offered from €2 and will be officially delivered from October 249,00 on the brand's website.
Design of the 14-inch MacBook Pro
As we expected, the MacBook Pro got some significant design changes, like a flat-edged design similar to the iPhone 12, the absence of Touch Bar, the return of MagSafe, and the added ports including an SD slot.
It uses a heat pipe system similar to the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which helps increase thermal headroom and provides better performance.
Apple has removed the "MacBook Pro" logo usually placed below the display to present an iPad Pro-like look. As for its case, it is now made of titanium, not to mention that it is available in two colors: silver and space gray.
Screen
In addition to the current 13-inch, Apple has decided to produce a 14-inch MacBook Pro by reducing the bezels by 24%. Now the screen has a notch in the center of the menu bar.
It has new display resolutions for the 14-inch and 16-inch models, which are 3456 x 2234 and 3024 x 1964 respectively. These include a ProMotion display that boasts a refresh rate of 120 Hz.
Apple has even dared to bet on Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED screens, a first on the brand's computers.
New technical characteristics
In addition to the significant design change, the new MacBook Pro line also benefits from improvements to its processor and battery.
Processor
As a reminder, in November 2020, Apple updated the two entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro models, making them among the first Macs to adopt Apple's M1 chips.
As for the other two MacBook Pro models, they had remained unchanged since May 2020, and after being allocated 10th generation Intel processors and more RAM.
Today, for its 14 and 16 inch versions, Apple has designed two chips called M1 Pro and M1 Max respectively. These chips integrate both CPU, GPU and RAM.
In details, the M1 Pro and Max feature a 10-core CPU. On the GPU side, the Pro has 16 cores against 32 for the Max.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro, specifically, features the M1 Pro chip, configurable M1 Max with 10-core CPU and 24-core GPU, or M1 Max with 10-core CPU and 32-core GPU.
With a base of 16 GB of memory, but thanks to a unified memory architecture (UMA), you can, if you wish, configure up to 64 GB of RAM.
Speakers and microphones
The 14-inch MacBook Pro sports a high-fidelity six-speaker audio system with force-cancelling woofers.
It also supports spatial audio technology with support for Dolby Atmos, which gives another dimension to your listening experience.
Battery
Apple's Silicon allows the MacBook Pro to obtain better autonomy on its smaller models, it is in any case the promise that Apple tries to keep. She claims that her autonomy lasts up to 17 p.m.
Absence of Touch Bar and addition of ports
As mentioned above, the OLED Touch Bar has been removed from the new MacBook Pro and the physical buttons will be restored.
This loss leads to the gain of an HDMI port, accompanied by a USB-C / Thunderbolt and an SD card reader. On the left, the Mac features two additional USB-C/Thunderbolt ports with a MagSafe slot.
