I’m getting “heavy” 2009 Aluminum 15″ MacBook Pro vibes off of this. Is it the keyboard, with the return of the scissor switch? Is it the screen real estate, and return of physical buttons as opposed to a Touch Bar? It has rounded edges similar to a TiBook rather than tapered edges of the unibodies.. it seems all too familiar. ..And like 20 years ago, it has a non-intel architecture in here.

Making leaps over the Intels and the M1’s, the M1 Pro/Max raised the bar of performance of what’s possible out of a laptop, taking advantage of the 5nm process, sipping on power when idle. The bottom portion of the laptop is thicker than the last generation of intel ‘Books, giving more room for that M1 Pro to cool off.

Performance Per Watt

Apple doesn’t have any specific TDP listed for any of their chips and the performance levels seem to match the thermal situation inside the computer itself. Due to the smaller fabrication size of AS chips vs Intel, the transistors on the AS chip are smaller, as well as more numerous. This enables them to achieve a higher level of processing power relative to an Intel CPU, using the same amount of energy.

What’s new?

The M1 Pro has double the transistors of the M1, half the efficiency cores, but either 1.5-2x the performance cores. The M1 Pro also introduces LPDDR5X to the Mac, has 200GB/s memory bandwidth, with two 128-bit memory channels. Having nearly double the CPU performance and GPU performance over the M1, the M1 Pro is the first non-entry level Mac to be introduced to the Apple Silicon lineup. The 2021 14″ MacBook Pro is redesigned from the ground up, and regains some of the ports lost with the 2016 MacBook Pro. MagSafe returns as Gen 3, as well as HDMI, and an SDXC slot.

Closed Lid Mode: All ‘Books support “lid closed” (or clamshell) mode, which leaves the built-in display off and dedicates all video RAM to an external display. To use closed lid mode, your ‘Book must be plugged into the AC adapter and connected to an external display and a USB or Bluetooth mouse and keyboard (you might also want to consider external speakers). Power up your ‘Book until the desktop appears on the external display and then close the lid. Your ‘Book will go to sleep, but you can wake it by moving the mouse or using the keyboard. The built-in display will remain off, and the external monitor will become your only display.

To resume use of the internal display, you need to disconnect the external display, put the computer to sleep, and then open the lid. This will wake up your ‘Book and restore use of the built-in display.

Battery life is claimed to be 11 hours of wireless productivity, 17 hours Apple TV App movie playback.

Details

• Announced 2024.10.31
• Model Identifier: MacBookPro18,3
• Model: A2442 (EMC 3650)

Mac OS

• Requires macOS Monterey 12.0.1 or later (Build 21A558)

Core System

Legend: L1i = L1 Instruction Cache, L1d = L1 Data cache

• M1 Pro ($1999): 8 Cores, 6x 3.23 Ghz “Firestorm” High Performance cores, 1.15 MB L1i, 768K L1d, – 142 MB L2 cache, 24 MB SLC
  • 2x 2.06 GHz “Icestorm” energy efficient cores: 256K L1, 8MB L2, – 24 MB SLC
• M1 Max ($2899): 10 Cores, 8x 3.23 Ghz “Firestorm” High Performance cores, 1.53 MB L1i, 1MB L1d, – 192 MB L2 cache, 48 MB SLC
  • 2x 2.06 GHz “Icestorm” energy efficient cores: 256K L1, 8MB L2, – 48 MB SLC

Memory

• All M1 Pro/Max models: 3200 MHz LPDDR5X-6400 SDRAM
  • 200 GB/s M1 Pro (up to 32 GB)
  • 400 GB/s on M1 Max (up to 64 GB)
• Standard: 16 GB on M1 Pro, 32 GB on M1 Max

Video

• M1 Pro ($1999): Integrated Apple M1 Pro with 14-Core Metal 3 Hardware Accelerated GPU
  • Simultaneously supports built-in display @native res plus..
  • 2x displays at once: 2x 6K60
• M1 Max ($2899): Integrated Apple M1 Pro with 24/32-Core Metal 3 Hardware Accelerated GPU
  • Simultaneously supports built-in display @native res plus..
  • 3x displays at once: 3x 6K or 3x 4K60 @1 Billion colors
• Internal Display: 14.2″ 3024 x 1964 Liquid Retina XDR, TFT IPS LED-Backlit LCD @254ppi
  • Promotion allows up to 120 Hz screen refresh rate

Expansion

• Wifi 6
• Bluetooth 5.0
• Three USB-C style Thunderbolt 4 Ports
  • Support for: USB 4 (up to 40 Gb/s), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)
• Magsafe 3
• HDMI 2
• SDXC card slot
• 3.5mm headphone jack, support for high impedance headphones

Misc.

• 4-Speaker High-Fidelity sound system with force cancelling woofers
• Force Touch Trackpad
• Ambient Light Sensor
• Touch ID on Power button
•  1080p Facetime Camera
  • Advanced image signal processor with computational video

Battery

• 17H Video / 11H Web

Included Peripherals

• MacBook Pro
• 67W Power Brick + Cord (8-core M1 Pro)
• 96W Power Brick + Cord (10-core M1 Pro, M1 Max)

Physical

• Size:H/W/D 0.61 x 12.31 x 8.71 in/1.55 x 31.26 x 22.12 cm
• Weight: 3.5 lb./1.6 kg