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Image Credits:<\/strong> Brian Heater<\/p>\n<\/div>\nI suddenly found myself attempting to navigate the labyrinthian Forums shops at Caesar\u2019s at 8:00 p.m. on a Tuesday. My external SD reader had completely given up the ghost sometime between my last in-person event and CES. A relatively unique set of circumstances, certainly, but it drove home how much I\u2019d missed having a built-in card slot after jumping from the Pro to the Air. If you\u2019re a professional photographer (I\u2019m certainly not claiming to be one, mind), I don\u2019t need to tell you how essential a tool it is.<\/p>\n
Like the Air, the Pro sports a pair of USB-C ports on the left side, just below the MagSafe connector. One of my highly specific issues with the Air is the decision to place the two USB-C ports on top of each other. Putting one on either side makes more logical sense in instances where the plugged-in object blocks the second port. Here, thankfully, the third sits on the other side. I\u2019m among those who welcomed the return of MagSafe. It was one of the more beloved features of MacBooks past, and an odd thing to drop along the way.<\/p>\n
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Image Credits:<\/strong> Brian Heater<\/p>\n<\/div>\nIt\u2019s worth noting that, in spite of being custom built for the purpose, it actually charges a bit slower than USB-C. But the magnetic detachment is a little extra peace of mind for the clumsier among us (I do claim to be one of these, however), and it frees up the other ports for other, noncharging tasks. The final port is an HDMI output that supports 8K displays \u2014 a first for the MacBook line and an extremely appealing feature for the creator class.<\/p>\n
What strikes you first on unboxing the new Pro, however, is the weight. The thing is heavy. The default weight of the 14-inch model is 3.5 pounds. The Air is 2.7 pounds. The 12.9 iPad Pro is 1.5 pounds (sans-keyboard case, mind). If you anticipate that the device will spend 50% of its time in your backpack, this is certainly something worth factoring in here. At 12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches, the footprint is also larger than the Air (11.97 x 8.46 x 11.97) in every dimension.<\/p>\n
Not that any of this is surprising, of course. That\u2019s kind of the whole deal. The Pro delivers a lot more horsepower and bells and whistles. Being a bit more stationary just sort of comes with the territory. This is also due, in part, to the Air\u2019s smaller display, which is 13.6 inches to the Pro\u2019s 14.2. A larger surface area is a foregone conclusion. In addition to being larger, the screen is simply a thing to behold. The Air\u2019s 2560 x 1664 Liquid Retina display gets a big bump to a 3024 x 1964 Liquid Retina XDR. It\u2019s really gorgeous and bright at up to 1,600 nits for HDR content or 500 (the Air\u2019s overall peak) for SDR. The refresh rate maxes out at a smooth 120 Hz \u2014 double that of the Air. Is any of this necessary for watching Netflix? Not really. Is it nice to have? Obviously. And it\u2019s certainly a great mobile screen for those whose job descriptions involve creating visual content. macOS is still a long ways from becoming a gaming powerhouse by any stretch, but it\u2019s come a long way over the past decade, and first-party silicon is a big piece of that. (Steam doesn\u2019t hurt, either).<\/p>\n
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Image Credits:<\/strong> Apple; M2 Max<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe baseline ($1,999) Pro sports an M2 Pro chip with a 10-Core CPU, 16-Core GPU, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The review unit Apple sent isn\u2019t quite<\/em>\u00a0top of the line, but it\u2019s pretty close. It\u2019s got the M2 Max with a 12-Core CPU and 38-Core GPU, 64GB or RAM and 2TB of storage. As configured, it\u2019ll run you $4,100. If you really<\/em> want to go all in, you can bump the RAM up to 96GB and storage to 8TB. Suddenly, you\u2019re tipping the scales at $6,300. That\u2019s more than 3x the cost of the base unit \u2014 a $4,300 increase. In other words, you can really trick this baby out, but it\u2019s gonna cost you. And then some.<\/p>\nPerformance is certainly reflected in the Benchmarks. The Max chip hit 1952 on the single-core and 15249 on the multicore GeekBench 5 tests (average of three tests). That\u2019s a truly impressive gain over 1,922 and 8,974 we got with the M2 Air. The M1 Ultra still blows them all away with a 20,000+ multicore score, but that\u2019s to be expected with desktop architecture. It frankly boggles the mind to consider the future of the Mac desktop (Mac Pro, perhaps?).<\/p>\n
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Image Credits:<\/strong> TechCrunch<\/p>\n<\/div>\nIn the meantime, it\u2019s extremely impressive to see the gains made for notebook processors over the past two years. Unlike the Air, the Pro\u2019s got a fan and a pair of vents on either side of the engraved MacBook Pro logo on the bottom of the system. A quartet of rubber feet elevate the system a bit, to give the outgoing warm and incoming cool air somewhere to go. Truth is, you\u2019re not likely to trigger with most day-to-day activities, but when the time comes to truly push the system to its limit, you\u2019ll be very glad Apple didn\u2019t go fanless across the line.<\/p>\n
At 84888, the GeekBench Metal score handily beats the M1 Max (~64000-66000), courtesy of those 38 cores. Again, the M1 Ultra still beats the M2 Max\u2019s GPU scores (>90000). The staggered rollout of silicon iterations may get a bit muddied for consumers, but the quick rule of thumb here is that the M2 Max trounces existing Mac laptop chips and even comes within spitting distance of the M1 Ultra. The native macOS port of Resident Evil Village<\/em>, for instance, played smoothly (remind me to get a Bluetooth control), though the bottom of the Mac got quite warm to the touch. I was able to get it downright hot playing some Steam titles. Was I just looking for an excuse to replay Disco Elysium<\/em>? Who can say, really?<\/p>\nPerformance was great, probably keep it on a desk when you game (oh, and maybe pick up a decent Bluetooth controller while you\u2019re at it). While extremely efficient, Apple silicon isn\u2019t beyond the need for cooling with resource-intensive tasks. With daily tasks, it stays cool. However, you don\u2019t have to push the system to the limit to noticed a marked difference in processing power. Things I do on the regular, like opening apps and editing podcast audio are perceptively zippier, coming off using the latest Air as a daily driver.<\/p>\n