Review: Apple MacBook Pro (16-Inch, 2024)

The arrival of a new MacBook with fresh Apple silicon always brings plenty of excitement, but this year you can already feel that things are more sedate. Subdued, even. The online mood, as I read it, is downright cautious. Faster, onward, upward … sure. No one complains about things being better than before. But is the new MacBook Pro, featuring Apple’s M4 CPU, getting you $3,649 worth of better?

If you’re currently running an M3-based MacBook, the cautious answer is almost definitely not. If you’re on an M2 or even an M1, the calculus still seems to be wavering. Chalk it up to the zeitgeist, perhaps, but I’m not expecting lines out the door this time. Allow me to explain.

If It Ain’t Broke

There’s no blame here, no calling anyone to the mat. Apple’s latest MacBook Pro—I tested the 16-inch model with the M4 Pro CPU—is every bit as good as any other MacBook Pro you’ve likely laid hands upon. And that is the problem. When it comes to hardware, the new machine is, on the surface, functionally identical to the M3 version.

Aside from some new color options that hit last year, the MacBook Pro chassis is almost indistinguishable from its 2021 incarnation. Today’s ports include three USB-C ports, HDMI, and an SD card slot. MagSafe 3 is still in the mix. None of that is new except for the USB port speeds; more on that in a bit. Rumors suggest we have another year with this design—Apple won’t revamp the MacBook Pro chassis until 2026.

But hey: If it works, don’t fix it, right? Well, let’s consider that. When it comes to usability, there’s been room for improvement that still hasn’t been addressed. As has long been the case, the 2024 MacBook Pro chassis features full-height function keys I never touch but teeny-tiny arrow keys I use all the time and can barely operate because they’re so small. The keyboard action is great, but the gargantuan trackpad gets in the way—and it’s very stiff to depress for a click. I ultimately had to dial the click force down to the lightest level and turn on tap-to-click to make it usable.

Then there's the display notch, where the webcam sits at the top of the screen. It's still an eyesore—and during my testing, it covered up dialog boxes more than once. Also, the MacBook Pro fan has always been extremely loud under load, and it’s just as noisy today, and the power brick is still white, even if your laptop is Space Black.

These aren't fresh concerns, and they're all minor complaints next to a fresh, weightier concern: At 4.7 pounds, the MacBook Pro M4 feels very heavy—and sure enough, it’s a full half-pound heavier than the M3 Max version I reviewed exactly a year ago. However, inexplicably, it is still 19 millimeters thick. Where has that extra half a pound gone? Must be the tantalizing internal upgrades that are going to blow our minds, right?

Power Boost

The obvious upgrade is Apple’s new M4 Pro CPU, which is the mid-level offering between the standard M4 and M4 Max, not including a rumored M4 Ultra in 2025. The new features on the M4 silicon are too numerous and too nerdy to list here, but the short of it is that you’re getting more cores on both CPU (14 on this configuration) and GPU (20), and (also as configured here) 48 GB of unified memory, which is designed to speed up everything from video processing to DNA sequencing, if that happens to be your hobby.

Naturally, there’s the amply hyped, upgraded Neural Engine, now at 16 cores, designed to power on-device AI workloads (and the new Apple Intelligence) at three times the speed of the M1. My tested configuration also added a 2-terabyte solid-state drive, so this rig is about as loaded as it gets.

Aside from the motherboard, there are new features that may be more immediately visible—three to be exact. First, the USB ports support Thunderbolt 5 (120 Gbps/sec) for faster data transfer speeds. A new 12-MP webcam features “Desk View,” which lets you share a livestream of your desk while you’re screen-sharing. Lastly, there’s a “nano-texture” screen upgrade option, which is Applespeak for its glare reduction technology that debuted on the Studio Display. I have the feature on my test machine, and if nothing else in the MacBook Pro M4 gets you excited, this should. It makes the screen feel like you’re looking at a photograph. (The upgrade will cost you $150.)

So what does all this get you? Compared to benchmarks of the 2023 MacBook Pro M3 Max, the M4 Pro eked out scores that were 3 to 7 percent faster on CPU-centered tasks, and anywhere from 5 to 24 percent slower on GPU-centric tasks. The M4 Pro lost about an hour of battery life, from 19 hours and 21 minutes to 18 hours and 26 minutes—still exceptional, but clearly, that extra half-pound hasn’t gone into the battery.

Of course, I didn’t run any comparative gene sequencing tests, but for what it’s worth, provided benchmarks show a 28 percent improvement there versus the M3 Pro. There’s no shade here: The M4 Pro certainly sings at anything you throw at it, including the Apple Intelligence tests I was able to run. (Some of the most anticipated features have yet to launch.)

The catch is that I had the same observation about the M3 Max a year ago. And customers said as much about the M2 the year before that. And the M1 before that. These have been great laptops for four years running since Apple’s first silicon debuted, and while they’re getting better and better, the improvements are probably not impacting more than a vanishingly small proportion of power users who need every last nanosecond to be productive.

Short of gene sequencing professionals—who, let’s be frank, are not using a MacBook for their work—most users will not notice an improvement that justifies an outlay of, gulp, $3,649. (The base price of the 16-inch MacBook Pro is a mere $2,499.) Apple has been a victim of its success. The company didn’t know it then, but it turns out it came out of the gate too strong.

I fully realize that I too am guilty of boosterism. My last review of the MacBook Pro was, in retrospect, perhaps too breathless. But since the M4 Pro doesn’t have the searing graphics performance of the M3 Max, it is easier to see the value proposition more clearly. In other words, sure, you can upgrade to an M4 Pro today and you’ll probably be thrilled with it—if only to find yourself rather poorer for your trouble. Or perhaps you’re skipping a generation, and figure you’ll jump from the M2 to the M4? My hunch is that if you felt you could wait for the M4, well, you can probably hold out for the M5.