New MacBook Pro Announced
Today Apple announced new M2-based MacBook Pro laptops. Also announced new M2 Mac Mini computers.
These look great, but probably not worth the upgrade from 2021 MBP. Definitely a stat bump, and fixes a few issues, so an easy choice for buying otherwise, and I’d probably upgrade as a professional user if I had something older than the 2021 MBP.
Same physical design. Existing design is great, so probably a non-issue.
As a CPU, M2 Max is “better” than the M1, but outside of video editing, maybe not needed. There might be some other applications — AI, some GPU tasks — where it makes sense. M2 Max is mostly a graphics/memory/neural engine upgrade over the M2 Pro.
As for memory: 96GB is now possible (and not a huge cost upgrade), vs. 64GB maximum before. This is useful for obscure tasks like…running a web browser. But also very useful for VMs and some other tasks. Storage still tops out at 8TB.
Connectivity got a bit better —WiFi 6E instead of just 6. 6E is common on high-end cellphones, not yet on most laptops, but is great in high-bandwidth production environments or high-density offices (although not yet common in enterprise access points).
Battery life is now as high as 22 hours!
Biggest upgrade is probably 8K HDMI support (HDMI 2.1). On the Max:
“Up to three external displays: Up to two external displays with 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one external display with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or one external display with 4K resolution at 240Hz over HDMI”
So, overall, substantial incremental improvement and fixing some stuff which was lacking, but as the owner of a 2021 MBP 16 64/8TB with M1 Max, I don’t feel a need to upgrade this cycle. This would change if there’s a really compelling application for the new performance (AI), or if I do a lot of video editing or other CPU intensive tasks, or if I get an 8K display.