Apple’s M1 silicon debuted to nice fanfare a yr in the past, infusing the entry-level 2020 MacBook Air with extraordinary computing energy for a laptop of its dimension and worth. On the time, the 13-inch MacBook Pro rang up because the lesser worth, because it price extra however used the identical M1 processor that the MacBook Air did. Apple now adjustments the equation—and opens up the Professional to a wider swath of content material execs—with the 14-inch MacBook Professional (begins at $1,999; $2,899 as examined). Debuting a brand new display screen dimension for Apple laptops, this MacBook Professional is the pocket book that Mac-minded artistic professionals have been ready for, with a much-more-powerful Apple chip (the M1 Professional), an intensive number of ports (together with some outdated necessities returning), and revolutionary display screen know-how to justify its significantly greater worth. It beneficial properties an Editors’ Selection award as a significantly {powerful} device for Mac creatives that, in contrast to most workstation-grade laptops, retains cheap portability.
14-Inch MacBook Professional or 16-Incher: Which Ought to I Purchase?
The brand new 14-inch MacBook Professional has so many benefits over the 13-inch mannequin that, in case you are knowledgeable person sure to macOS, and with the money to spend money on a significantly succesful workhorse, your choice actually comes down as to whether you can purchase the 14-inch or the 16-inch mannequin. You’ll be able to safely go away the 13-inch M1 MacBook Professional mannequin off the checklist. (At this writing, Apple continues to promote it with out having up to date it from the plain-M1 configuration introduced final yr.)
Apple’s on-line configurator for its new-for-2021 MacBook Execs are versatile and a bit complicated, to make sure, however many of the normal and elective options are equivalent throughout the 14-inch and 16-inch display screen sizes. Your selection actually comes right down to dimension, weight, and worth.
When you can abdomen spending numerous additional dough and carrying round a considerably bulkier and heavier chassis for 2 further inches of display screen actual property, the 16-incher will fulfill. However if you happen to’re like many execs searching for a mix of portability and energy, we suspect these compromises may flip you off, particularly if you happen to’ve already acquired a extra {powerful} desktop at dwelling or the workplace to do most of your heavy rendering and compiling. That’s why we’re giving the 14-inch mannequin reviewed right here the Editors’ Selection award.
If the other is true, skip the remainder of this overview and head on over to our analysis of the 16-inch model—you’ll be able to’t go improper with that one if you happen to’ve acquired a roomy price range and stronger shoulders. For everybody else, let’s proceed by evaluating the bodily variations of the 2 fashions.
The 14-inch MacBook Professional is 0.61 by 12.3 by 8.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.5 kilos. That takes it above the 3-pound restrict we usually use to delineate whether or not or not a laptop computer is within the “ultraportable” class, to which the 13-inch MacBook Professional and the MacBook Air undoubtedly belong.
However, the 14-incher is considerably extra transportable than the 16-incher, which measures 0.66 by 14 by 9.8 inches and weighs 4.8 kilos. The 14-inch MacBook Professional can be extra compact than most of its direct Home windows rivals, which are usually cumbersome 15-inch mobile workstation laptops that additionally weigh 4 kilos or extra. Sure, there are numerous 14-inch Home windows laptops that do qualify as ultraportable, together with our favourite enterprise laptop computer, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9. However these machines supply nowhere close to the ability that the M1 Professional or M1 Max processors within the 2021 MacBook Execs present. They’re actually geared extra towards fundamental productiveness than severe content material creation.
Put apart the dimensions variations, although, and the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Execs each share practically equivalent bodily options: the ports, the keyboards, the show know-how, even the selection of Apple M1 Professional or M1 Max processors. Even the digital camera notch within the high portion of the display screen, one of the vital controversial options of the brand new design, is equivalent between the 2. Each additionally give you a selection of House Grey or Silver coloration schemes, following within the footsteps of numerous Apple merchandise which have gone earlier than.
Whilst you may assume that efficiency differs between the 2, because the bigger laptop computer naturally has the design potential for a extra succesful thermal-management system to maintain the M1 Professional or M1 Max chips working at their peak for extra sustained intervals, that really seems to not be the case for almost all of workflows you’re prone to carry out. So let’s save discuss of efficiency for the top of this overview, and as an alternative check out the 14-inch MacBook Professional’s new ancillary options.
Thunderbolt 4 and Extra: Ports and Slots Get a Reshuffle
It’s not typically that enter and output ports are a headline characteristic on a laptop computer, but it surely’s actually the case with the brand new MacBook Professional. 5 years in the past, Apple ditched many of the ports on its laptops, putting all its connectivity eggs within the USB-C/Thunderbolt basket. A refrain of woe rose from the net Apple-sphere, the place reviewers and commenters complained that laptops want greater than only one kind of port.
To be truthful, the oval-shaped USB-C port is as versatile as ports come, with some variations dealing with every little thing from battery charging to show output to 40GBps-max Thunderbolt transfers with exterior laborious drives. However skilled customers with sophisticated peripheral setups merely want extra I/O selection, and Apple has fortunately restored that selection with the brand new MacBook Professional.
Not solely is there now a devoted HDMI output for connecting exterior displays with out an adapter or particular cable, however the SD card reader additionally makes a welcome reappearance. Apple as soon as claimed that sticking an SD card reader into your laptop computer is an inelegant resolution for transferring pictures and video. However skilled photographers (together with a bunch I do know) decry this sacrifice of operate on the altar of kind. It’s good to see the SD card reader again, even when it and the HDMI output seem like retro steps.
The MagSafe energy connector (now dubbed “MagSafe 3”) is the ultimate port making its reappearance on the brand new MacBook Professional, providing a devoted energy connector that’s a cinch to connect, since magnets information it into place. The MagSafe 3 port isn’t suitable with earlier MacBook energy adapters, and it has no relation to MagSafe equipment for the iPhone and iPad. However it does supply the twin benefits of cleanly breaking away if you happen to occur to journey over the wire, and of not consuming up a USB-C/Thunderbolt connector to cost the battery.
That saving of a port isn’t as good an enchancment because it in any other case might need been, because the new laptop computer contains three USB-C/Thunderbolt ports as an alternative of the 4 that higher-end variations of the 13-inch MacBook Professional have. (Base fashions of the 13-inch Professional have simply two, considered one of which have to be used when charging.) However all of them assist the most recent iteration of the Thunderbolt interface, Thunderbolt 4. Additionally onboard is a 3.5mm audio jack—it’s good to see that Apple (to date, anyway) hasn’t ditched this endangered port like a few of its rivals have.
No Touching! (For Actual, This Time)
What the 2016-to-2020 MacBook Execs lacked in bodily connections, they made up for in chance-taking on contact enter: the Apple-unique touch-screen interface often called the Contact Bar. A skinny strip of touch-enabled display screen that replaces the row of operate keys on the keyboard, the Contact Bar is a controversial technique of including contact capabilities to macOS, which has to date not been redesigned for complete contact assist the best way Windows 11 is.
In the course of the Contact Bar’s heyday, Apple touted it as a boon to artistic execs, who might use it to clean via video timelines and rapidly entry the settings they wanted to regulate for any given job. (The display screen would adapt in keeping with the appliance that was stay.) And a few execs did take to it. However many individuals (together with us) complained that the Contact Bar was one thing of a gimmick, a midway, half-hearted different to including contact assist to the principle show. Apple has apparently had a change of coronary heart—although not about including contact to its screens, thoughts you. The Contact Bar is solely gone within the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Execs.
As soon as once more, like with the ports, old-school is again. As an alternative, you’ll discover the row of acquainted standard operate keys, together with brightness and quantity controls, in addition to buttons to activate Highlight search and Mission Management. Programmers might particularly welcome the return of the full-size, bodily Escape key, which could be helpful while you’re compiling code. Within the higher left nook, you may discover a energy button with a built-in Contact ID sensor for fingerprint logins to your macOS account.
The remainder of the keyboard and the Pressure Contact trackpad are primarily unchanged from the identical glorious ones that grace the earlier version of the 16-inch MacBook Professional, and which are at present discovered on the 13-inch mannequin. The Apple Magic Keyboard provides sturdy keys with loads of journey distance and tactile switches, and makes use of an ambient gentle sensor to mechanically alter the keys’ backlight depth. It is the identical improved keyboard seen and felt on the most recent MacBook Execs, a change from the troublesome considered one of earlier years. The trackpad on the 14-inch mannequin has beneficiant proportions and provides a uniform clicking sensation because of haptic suggestions, irrespective of the place your fingertip is positioned.
The one vital change to the keyboard space is the addition of a brand new black surrounding plate that matches the colour of the keycaps. It’s a putting distinction to the remainder of the chassis if you happen to go for the silver coloration, though there’s much less of a distinction with the darker House Grey choice. (In each instances, the keys and the keyboard backplate are the identical black coloration.) On earlier MacBook Execs, the keyboard backplate matched the silver or House Grey coloration of the remainder of the chassis.
The New Panel: Retina Show, Meet XDR
After the return to I/O variety and the addition of the Apple M1 Professional processor, the XDR display screen know-how on the 14-inch MacBook Professional is its next-most-buzzworthy characteristic. In Apple parlance, XDR stands for “excessive dynamic vary,” its advertising and marketing time period for what many different private tech units check with as “excessive dynamic vary,” or HDR.
There’s loads to unpack right here with the Liquid Retina XDR display screen apart from the elevated vary of colours it may possibly show, so let’s begin with the best addition: a 120Hz refresh price with ProMotion. This know-how has been round for some time on Apple’s iPads and iPhones, however the brand new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Execs are the primary laptop computer era to get it. The utmost refresh price is double the 60Hz most that has been the laptop-display normal for a few years. It makes scrolling via web pages and paperwork silky clean. (Larger-than-60Hz display screen refresh charges are actually normal fare in gaming laptops, however they don’t seem to be but frequent in mainstream, non-gaming fashions.)
ProMotion comes enabled by default out of the field, however you do not have to run on the 120Hz most refresh always. As a result of the MacBook Professional is a content material creation workstation, the System Preferences app provides presets for just a few different refresh charges of 60Hz and under, so you’ll be able to match the display screen’s price to that of the video you’re at present enhancing.
The opposite essential development of the XDR display screen over earlier Retina Shows is its LED know-how, which provides brighter whites, deeper blacks, and general extra vibrant colours than the 13-inch MacBook Professional can show. Because of a number of native dimming zones, a display-backlighting approach often called Mini-LED, the XDR display screen is able to a rare rated distinction ratio of 1,000,000:1. (For extra on the way it works, try our explainer around Mini-LED technology and the way it pertains to the MacBook Professional.)
Is XDR actually higher than different superior show applied sciences—equivalent to OLED screens—on Home windows workstations meant for content material creation work that requires distinctive distinction and coloration accuracy? Properly, it relies upon. After viewing a set of pattern photographs and movies that Apple despatched alongside for testing, it’s apparent even to my untrained eye that the native dimming zones lead to astoundingly vivid whites. How vivid is “astoundingly”? When viewing optimized content material, the display screen is rated for a most of 1,600 nits of native brightness, the identical because the $5,000 Apple Pro Display XDR and much above the five hundred to 1,000 nits that’s thought of exceptionally vivid for a laptop computer.
The catch is that the content material you’re viewing actually does must be optimized for prime distinction ratios. Once we examined the 14-inch MacBook Professional’s display screen with our DataColor SpyderX sensor and software program, which deploys non-optimized check screens, it recorded a most of 500 nits of brightness.
Peering Across the Display Notch
As talked about earlier, the brand new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Execs have a “notch” (a downward-extending protrusion) in the midst of the highest fringe of the display screen to accommodate the laptop computer’s digital camera and lens. There’s nothing notably new about that right here, besides that it is on a MacBook—Apple pioneered this strategy in its telephones years in the past with the Apple iPhone X in order that the display screen bezels might be decreased whereas nonetheless affording room for a high quality digital camera sensor.
It’s now commonplace on iPhones and different telephones, but it surely’s uncommon on laptops. Within the MacBook Professional’s case, the notch covers the central a part of the higher menu bar. When you use a darkish coloration scheme with a black menu bar, you gained’t discover it in any respect. Neither is it noticeable whereas watching a full-screen 16:9 video, since, in that case, the black bars above and under the content material masks it. However if you happen to desire a standard vivid coloration scheme with a white menu bar, the notch could be very a lot in your face.
On the plus aspect, the notch does accommodate among the best cameras I’ve ever used on a laptop computer. It’s a 1080p FaceTime HD digital camera, and whereas Apple is not alone in offering a 1080p unit in a late-model laptop computer, 720p laptop computer cams stay dismayingly frequent. However this one is backed by tweaked algorithms that deal with low-light efficiency. The result’s primarily comparable with the same digital camera setup on the 24-inch Apple iMac, and much superior to what you’ll be able to count on from standard 720p laptop computer webcams. It doesn’t assist face recognition for FaceID logins, nonetheless. It’s probably that including depth sensors for FaceID would lead to a fair larger notch, so I’m high quality with that omission.
Audio high quality, in the meantime, on the 14-inch MacBook Professional is phenomenal, with a complete of six audio system (together with 4 force-cancelling woofers). It’s much more immersive than the sound output from both the 13-inch MacBook Professional or the 2020 MacBook Air. That is due partly to the variety of audio system, and to the addition of Spatial Audio, which the 2 smaller-screen laptops lack. And, with the identical speaker setup because the 16-inch MacBook Professional, which has a bigger chassis, there’s a further cause to decide on the 14-incher over its massive brother: It punches above its weight in audio affect.
The 14-inch MacBook Professional’s wi-fi connections embrace 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 wi-fi networking and Bluetooth 5.0. When you’re hoping for a 5G-capable MacBook Professional, you’ll in all probability must wait a few years.
The M1 CPU Conundrum: Ought to You Go for M1 Professional or M1 Max?
Beneath the hood, the 14-inch MacBook Professional provides a considerably improved model of the M1 processor within the 13-inch mannequin. The bottom configuration comes with an Apple M1 Professional processor with eight CPU cores—six of that are suited to resource-intensive duties equivalent to rendering or compiling code, whereas two deal with light-duty duties equivalent to video playback or net shopping. You additionally get 14 graphics cores for picture output and GPU-accelerated duties. The chip is paired with 16GB of reminiscence and a 512GB SSD.
The model of the M1 Professional chip within the base mannequin is not the one model of the processor, nonetheless; Apple additionally provides M1 Professional variants. The upgraded configuration I examined has an M1 Professional, however this model provides two extra high-performance CPU cores and two further graphics cores (for 16). The general configuration additionally doubles the reminiscence to 32GB and the SSD storage to 1TB. These silicon, RAM, and storage hop-ups tack $900 onto the already-high $1,999 beginning worth, nudging the MacBook Professional into the neighborhood of Intel Xeon- and Core i9-powered Home windows workstations with Nvidia Quadro GPUs, such because the Dell Precision 7560, the HP ZBook Power G8, and the Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2. In actual fact, many of those Home windows-based laptops price way over $3,000 within the configurations we examined.
For our benchmarks, we in contrast the 14-inch Professional not solely in opposition to its 16-inch sibling and the older M1 Apple MacBook Professional 13-Inch, however a number of workstation-grade laptops talked about above, in addition to a few Core i7 and Core i9 gaming machines from Alienware and Lenovo.
Our assessments under present that the 14-inch MacBook Professional has no downside maintaining with these techniques on all kinds of demanding workflows. Extra surprisingly, additionally they present it has no bother maintaining with the M1 Max processor within the 16-inch MacBook Professional we examined on our preliminary benchmarking classes. The one noteworthy variations between the M1 Max and the model of the M1 Professional in our check unit are a bunch of additional graphics cores (a most of 32) and a doubling of the reminiscence bandwidth to 400GBps.
Though we didn’t have the chance to check them, there are some particular conditions through which the Apple M1 Max ought to make a big efficiency distinction. This primarily entails workloads carried out utilizing Apple’s personal software program, or apps that harness Apple applied sciences like ProRes. For instance, the top-end M1 Max configuration has two ProRes {hardware} encoder/decoders, which implies it’s able to concurrently processing seven streams of 8K video—seven! Not even the Apple Mac Professional desktop, which has only a single ProRes decoder and no encoder, can try this out of the field.
Until any of which means something to how you’re employed each day, there’s little cause to spring for the M1 Max configuration over the 10-core model of the M1 Professional. (See more about how we test laptops.)
Benchmarking the 14-Inch MacBook Professional: Workstation Efficiency in a Slimline
To see why, try the chart under, which reveals efficiency on non-Apple-specific workflows like transcoding video within the open-source Handbrake app, rendering 3D photographs utilizing Blender and Maxon’s Cinebench R23, or simulating numerous on a regular basis duties utilizing the Geekbench CPU benchmark. All of those situations could be finished on a Home windows laptop computer or the MacBook Professional, and it’s clear that the 14-inch MacBook Professional holds its personal in opposition to each the workstation laptops talked about earlier and beastly gaming laptops just like the Alienware x17 and the Lenovo Legion 7i.
Additionally notice that typically, the M1 Professional-equipped 14-inch machine scores shut sufficient to the M1 Max-equipped 16-incher that we would as nicely name it a tie. In the meantime, each machines trounce the efficiency of the M1-equipped 13-incher, illustrating why you’re higher off avoiding that mannequin, if you happen to can afford to.
All of our benchmarks run natively on Apple silicon and Intel silicon except the PugetBench check for simulating picture enhancing in Adobe Photoshop, produced by workstation maker Puget Systems. I’ve included this benchmark, which runs within the Rosetta 2 emulation layer, to see what sort of efficiency you’ll be able to count on when performing demanding duties utilizing older software program initially designed for Intel-powered Macs. On this case, there’s a slight efficiency hit, with all the Home windows machines performing higher. (Their Intel processors do run the check natively.) Nonetheless, the distinction isn’t nice if it’s essential use older software program solely often.
The MacBook Professional is a content material creation workstation, not a gaming laptop computer, however the line between the 2 is more and more blurred lately, so it’s value a fast have a look at gaming efficiency as measured by the cross-platform GFXBench suite. (We’ll look extra at gaming and graphics efficiency in a follow-up article; there wasn’t time earlier than these laptops’ onsale date to run detailed gaming benchmarks.) Essential notice: Take a look at these assessments extra as a comparative measure between laptops than as an absolute one for the body charges you must get in any given sport. Additionally notice that the GFXBench assessments are run in an offscreen buffer, so the benchmark measures the relative muscle of the graphics techniques within the check laptops no matter their native display screen resolutions.
On the much less demanding of the 2 assessments we ran (the 1080p Automotive Chase scene), the M1 Professional’s graphics cores simply held their very own in opposition to these within the Nvidia-powered Home windows laptops and the M1 Max. Nonetheless, the 14-inch MacBook Professional stumbled a bit on the extra demanding Aztec Ruins scene, on which the 16-Inch MacBook Professional sailed forward. This particular M1 Max end result will bear a lot additional examination on real-world video games within the coming days, because the M1 Max outpaced the RTX 3080-based gaming laptops within the Aztec Ruins scene; we’ll must see if that holds up in precise sport titles.
Battery Life Exams: It’s a Operating-Time Champ
Among the finest options of earlier MacBook Execs is that they’ve been in a position to eke out marathon battery life regardless of utilizing power-hungry CPUs and GPUs. The alternative is true of {powerful} Home windows workstations and gaming laptops, which usually final for just a few hours earlier than needing a recharge. That state of affairs endures with the 14-inch MacBook Professional, whose 19-hour battery life trounces that of its Home windows competitors, as you’ll be able to see within the chart under.
For all the assessments above, together with the video battery rundown trial, we left the MacBook Professional’s efficiency settings at their default values. You may be capable of get higher battery life outcomes if you happen to allow Low Energy mode in System Preferences, which throttles again the ability to extend battery life. This setting additionally diminishes noise from the cooling system, which did trigger a good quantity of fan noise throughout a number of the extra intense benchmarking assessments. Conversely, in contrast to the 16-inch MacBook Professional, the 14-inch mannequin doesn’t have a Excessive Energy mode, which will increase cooling functionality and processing energy.
Verdict: A No-Brainer Improve, if You’re a Professional within the Know
The 14-inch MacBook Professional is a serious leap ahead for Apple laptops in a means that the 13-inch Professional mannequin will not be. It’s the plain selection for artistic professionals who want a cell workstation for content material creation that juggles the three competing calls for of portability, affordability, and energy. If two of these legs—portability and affordability—matter much less to you, the 16-inch MacBook Professional might be a greater choice due to its bigger display screen. However it doesn’t supply a ton of additional computing efficiency for non-specialized duties, and if you already know you’ll be able to benefit from the M1 Max’s specialised capabilities, you’ll be able to configure a 14-inch MacBook Professional with that improve too.
However, if you happen to simply want an Apple laptop computer for fundamental duties, you must keep away from any model of the MacBook Professional; it is just too robust a dose. The 2020 MacBook Air is the clear selection for you, because it provides practically the identical capabilities because the 13-inch MacBook Professional for a much more palatable beginning worth of $999.