M2 MacBook Professional vs. 14- and 16-Inch MacBook Professional Purchaser’s Information

Apple introduced a big replace for its high-end MacBook Professional fashions closing 12 months, with the brand new machines that includes a whole redesign, the M1 Professional and M1 Max chips, greater mini-LED presentations with ProMotion, an HDMI port and SD card slot, full-sized serve as keys, and extra. This month, Apple up to date the 13-inch MacBook Professional with the M2 chip, so how do the machines evaluate?

Regardless of each being MacBook Execs, the ‌M2‌ style and the high-end fashions are very other machines, so will have to you imagine buying the lower-cost MacBook Professional, which begins at $1,299, to save cash, or do you want the higher-end 14- or 16-inch MacBook Professional, which prices no less than $700 extra? Our information is helping to respond to the query of methods to make a decision which of those two Apple silicon MacBook Execs is right for you.

Evaluating the 13-Inch MacBook Professional and 14- and 16-Inch MacBook Professional

The 13-inch MacBook Professional and high-end MacBook Professional proportion numerous necessary options akin to an Apple silicon chip, extensive stereo sound, and Contact ID. Apple lists those similar options of the 2 units:

Similarities

• Show with P3 extensive colour and True Tone
• Apple silicon Device on Chip (SoC)
• Media engine with hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW, video encode and decode engines, and ProRes encode and decode engines
• 16-core Neural Engine
• 16GB unified reminiscence choice
• 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB garage choices
• Ambient gentle sensor
• FaceTime HD digicam with complex symbol sign processor with computational video
• Large stereo sound
• Studio-quality three-mic array with excessive signal-to-noise ratio and directional beamforming
• ‌Contact ID‌
• Backlit Magic Keyboard
• Drive Contact trackpad
• 3.5mm headphone jack with complex enhance for high-impedance headphones
• No less than two Thunderbolt 4 ports
• 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0
• To be had in House Grey and Silver

Apple’s breakdown displays that the 2 MacBooks proportion numerous key options. Even so, there are some significant variations between the ‌M2‌ MacBook Professional and the 14- and 16-inch fashions which might be price highlighting, together with design, chip choices, battery lifestyles, and show brightness.

Variations

Design

Each the entry-level and high-end MacBook Professional fashions are to be had in Silver and House Grey, however their designs range. Even supposing the machines are round the similar thickness, the 14-inch and 16-inch fashions don’t function tapered edges, making them seem thicker and bulkier. The keyboard house of the high-end MacBook Professional may be all-black. The size of the 3 machines are indexed underneath:

The 13-inch and 14-inch MacBook Professional are very equivalent in length, so the size of those two machines will have to no longer closely affect your resolution. As an alternative, chances are you’ll need to imagine that the 13-inch MacBook Professional includes a a lot older design with a tapered glance, in comparison to the rounder look of the high-end fashions. The high-end MacBook Professional’s design has since unfold to the ‌M2‌ MacBook Air and provides a extra fashionable glance, whilst the 13-inch MacBook Professional makes use of a design from 2016.

Contact Bar

The Contact Bar is an OLED Retina multi-touch show strip constructed into the keyboard the place the serve as keys historically move. It’s contextual and will carry out a spread of various purposes at the Mac relying on which app is in use.

The Contact Bar is a matte-style show that blends in with the remainder of the keys at the keyboard and it helps True Tone, permitting the white steadiness to be adjusted to compare the ambient lighting fixtures prerequisites. Interacting with the Contact Bar is completed via faucets, swipes, and different multi-touch gestures, with enhance for as much as 10 hands at a time.

The 13-inch MacBook Professional options the Contact Bar, whilst the 14- and 16-inch fashions merely have full-sized serve as keys. The 13-inch MacBook Professional is now the one closing tool with the function, however if you happen to benefit from the revel in of the Contact Bar, chances are you’ll want the 13-inch MacBook Professional.

Ports and Connectivity

The choice of to be had ports is a space of primary distinction between the 2 machines. The 13-inch MacBook Professional options simply two Thunderbolt 3 ports. The 14-inch and 16-inch fashions have 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, and an SDXC card slot.

Each machines function a three.5mm headphone jack with enhance for high-impedance headphones, however the 13-inch MacBook Professional can enhance just one exterior show, whilst the high-end style can enhance as much as 4 presentations in general with the ‌M1 Max‌ chip. This all makes the high-end fashions a lot more flexible in the case of connectivity, and can be of explicit worth to pros who use virtual cameras or wish to hook up with exterior presentations.

Show Dimension

The entry-level MacBook Professional’s show is strictly 13.3 inches in length, which is significantly smaller than the 14.2 inches and 16.2 inches of the high-end fashions. 13.3 inches continues to be larger than the biggest iPad Professional style, which is available in at 12.9 inches, and can be ok for many customers.

The 16.2-inch show can be a greater alternative for a desktop gadget and supply a lot more display area to prepare more than one home windows and use skilled programs that have the benefit of further show house. The 14.2-inch show continues to be greater than the 13.3-inch ‌MacBook Air‌ and MacBook Professional fashions from fresh years, however nonetheless provides to the entire length of the gadget. The bigger MacBook Execs additionally function slimmer bezels, a notch, and rounded most sensible corners.

Whilst the notch containing the webcam does devour into the show area very quite, each high-end MacBook Professional presentations are greater than earlier fashions, so there’s nonetheless extra show house total. As well as, the show house underneath the notch has a facet ratio of precisely 16:10, similar to earlier MacBook Professional fashions, to make certain that the notch does no longer obstruct commonplace show perspectives or staring at media.

In this foundation, if you’re involved concerning the notch, you will have to no longer essentially really feel obliged to get the bigger, 16-inch MacBook Professional. That being stated, for the reason that notch is similar length on each fashions, it can be quite much less noticeable at the 16-inch style. In the event you strongly dislike the notch, it’ll merely be more uncomplicated to go for the 13-inch MacBook Professional.

Show Era

The show applied sciences of each machines also are considerably other. Like maximum MacBooks in recent times, the 13-inch style has an LCD Retina show. The 14- and 16-inch fashions function Apple’s more recent mini-LED Liquid Retina XDR era for deeper blacks, higher dynamic vary, and progressed colour accuracy.

The XDR show can get a lot brighter, attaining as excessive as 1,600 nits of brightness at its height when appearing HDR content material. The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Professional fashions even have ProMotion presentations, permitting them to range their refresh fee as much as 120Hz. The 13-inch style does no longer have a show with a variable refresh fee.

It’s going to be price getting the high-end MacBook Professional fashions for viewing and modifying HDR content material, in addition to staring at high-framerate video akin to sports activities. The show of the 13-inch MacBook Professional will nonetheless be greater than ok for standard day-to-day use, however the high-end style, providing deeper blacks and smoother on-screen movement, merely gives a greater revel in.

Chip

The 13-inch MacBook Professional has the ‌M2‌ chip, whilst with the 14-inch and 16-inch fashions, you’ll be able to make a choice from the ‌M1 Professional‌ or ‌M1 Max‌ chip. The ‌M1 Professional‌ and ‌M1 Max‌ are scaled-up variations of the M1 chip.

The ‌M1 Professional‌ and ‌M1 Max‌ permit for a CPU with as much as two further CPU cores, 24 further GPU cores, 56GB extra reminiscence, and 6TB extra garage, in comparison to the ‌M2‌ chip. The ‌M2‌ chip is way nearer to the ‌M1‌ than it’s to the ‌M1 Professional‌, prioritizing potency over efficiency. The ‌M2‌ levelled the taking part in box in some senses by means of adopting the features of the ‌M1 Professional‌’s devoted media engine and the chip is extra robust in single-core duties with its greater 3.49GHz CPU clock pace, however the ‌M1 Professional‌ and ‌M1 Max‌ are significantly higher in multi-core and graphics duties. See our detailed ‌M2‌ vs. ‌M1 Professional‌ information for more info:

Whilst the ‌M2‌ is ostensibly a extra fashionable chip, being fabricated with next-generation 5nm procedure and providing the newest core era, the ‌M1 Professional‌ and ‌M1 Max‌ stay extra succesful because of their scale. With considerably extra transistors, efficiency CPU cores, and GPU cores, to not point out greater amounts of unified reminiscence and better reminiscence bandwidth, the ‌M1 Professional‌ and ‌M1 Max‌ are robust chips for pros with hard workflows. The ‌M2‌, however, is extra of a consumer-oriented chip taken with turning in spectacular efficiency for day by day duties and very good potency to stay temperatures down and extend battery lifestyles. For extra detailed details about every of Apple’s customized silicon chips for the Mac, check out our useful guides:

Digital camera

The high-end MacBook Professional has a significantly higher 1080p webcam in comparison to the 13-inch style’s 720p digicam. In the event you steadily use the integrated webcam for video calls, you’re going to have a noticeably higher revel in with the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Professional.

Audio system

The 13-inch MacBook Professional has excessive dynamic vary stereo audio system. With the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Execs, Apple totally redesigned its audio system with a brand new six-speaker gadget that helps spatial audio when taking part in song or video with Dolby Atmos.

Each speaker setups are very succesful for a computer, however if you happen to depend closely at the integrated audio system, you’re going to have a greater revel in with the high-end MacBook Professional fashions.

Battery Lifestyles

The 13-inch MacBook Professional gives 3 further hours of battery lifestyles over the 14-inch MacBook Professional, however one hour lower than the 16-inch MacBook Professional. Consistent with Apple, the 13-inch MacBook Professional can ship as much as 20 hours of battery lifestyles all over video playback. One the opposite hand, the 14-inch MacBook Professional can ship 17 hours of battery lifestyles and the 16-inch style can ship 21 hours of battery lifestyles.

Charging

The high-end MacBook Execs function ‌MagSafe‌ 3 for simply connecting and disconnecting the charging cable from the gadget the usage of magnets. The 14- and 16-inch MacBook Execs also are in a position to rapid charging.

Different MacBook Choices

If you’re searching for a extra reasonably priced Apple silicon MacBook, there’s the ‌M1‌ ‌MacBook Air‌, which sports activities the similar processor because the ‌M1‌ MacBook Professional, a 13.3-inch show, ‌Contact ID‌, and ports, in addition to maximum different {hardware} options, for a worth beginning at $999. For informal customers, which means the extra $300 to get the ‌M1‌ MacBook Professional is also tough to justify. This is a extra consumer-oriented and quite much less succesful gadget in comparison to the MacBook Professional, however is greater than ok for many customers.

‌M2‌ MacBook Professional nonetheless has quite a few enhancements over the ‌MacBook Air‌, providing quite higher efficiency, a brighter show, the Contact Bar, progressed microphone and speaker high quality, two further hours of battery lifestyles, and an lively cooling gadget. If you need quite higher efficiency than the ‌M1‌ ‌MacBook Air‌, in addition to higher battery lifestyles, show brightness, and speaker and microphone high quality, the MacBook Professional is the easier choice.

Likewise, customers who intend to accomplish numerous graphics-based duties will have to skip the ‌MacBook Air‌ totally and purchase the ‌M2‌ MacBook Professional for the reason that eight-core GPU ‌MacBook Air‌ configuration is simplest $50 lower than the MacBook Professional, which gives ten GPU cores, however that is simplest the case if you happen to don’t want greater than 256GB of garage, as a result of a garage improve would additional push up the MacBook Professional’s worth.

Ultimate Ideas

General, the 13-inch MacBook Professional is the most suitable option for standard shoppers. The 13-inch MacBook Professional is in truth extra comparable to a ‌MacBook Air‌ than its high-end siblings, being greater than excellent sufficient for the wishes of informal customers. It’s lighter, smaller, and extra transportable than the 14-inch MacBook Professional. Beginning at $1,299, the 13-inch MacBook Professional will have to be the default selection for the common person who’s searching for one thing that is a bit more than the ‌MacBook Air‌.

Pros who require greater and extra correct presentations, further ports, extra reminiscence and garage, {hardware} acceleration for media, and an excessively excessive point of efficiency will have to glance to the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Professional, and the $1,999 and $2,499 worth issues of those machines displays this. Those high-end MacBook Execs don’t seem to be centered at on a regular basis shoppers, being obviously adapted to creatives and pros who depend closely at the features in their machines.

If you need the most efficient conceivable efficiency, connectivity, show era, and audio system, the high-end MacBook Professional is the most suitable option. The 16-inch MacBook Professional specifically may be probably a excellent desktop alternative gadget because of its massive show.

The 14-inch MacBook Professional begins at $1,999, which is $700 greater than the $1,299 beginning worth of the 13-inch MacBook Professional. That being stated, if you’re taking a look to configure the 13-inch MacBook Professional with 16GB of reminiscence and no less than 512GB of garage, which brings it nearer to parity with the 14-inch base-level style, it prices $1,699. For the extra $300, it is going to be profitable for those customers to get the 14-inch MacBook Professional as a substitute.