First impressions – the new 14-inch MacBook Pro
It’s always fun to get a first taste of where Apple is going with a major product line.
Today I began testing the brand new 14-inch MacBook Pro. I’ve had it for less than twelve hours, so this is by no means a full review, but I wanted to share some first impressions, because boy does this thing make some. The unit I’m testing is the entry level 14-inch MacBook Pro that retails for $1,999. It has an M1 Pro chip with an 8-core CPU, a 14-core GPU, 16 GB of unified RAM, and 512 GB of SSD storage.
Nothing I do is super resource intensive, and I’d been using a 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro for a year, so I knew the entry level 14-inch model would be more than fast enough for me. I also knew that I didn’t want something as large as the 16-inch MacBook Pro. My work doesn’t require that much screen real estate. Most of the time at work I’m connected to two large external displays anyway. Moreover, I’ve personally come to really value portability in a laptop, and this one is just the right size for me.
The first thing you notice about the new MacBook Pro is that it’s a chunky fellow. It was hard to tell in photos and videos just how much thicker these new models are. Honestly it’s in some ways a testament to just how well the previous generation models hid their maximum thickness. Those models were thick in the middle, but tapered to the edges, giving the illusion of extreme thinness. On paper, the new 14-inch MacBook Pro has exactly the same thickness as the old 13-inch model at 0.61 inches. But that thickness isn’t just at the center, it extends all the way to the edges. These machines are like slabs of aluminum. They look really thick. They’re also half a pound heavier than the previous generation models at 3.5 lbs to 3.0 lbs.
Whether or not you like this change is going to depend on what you prioritize in a laptop. Many vocal pro users online have been demanding just this change in the MacBook Pro line for the last five years. “Make it thicker and heavier so that there’s more room for more powerful components and bigger batteries,” they said. It’s an understandable request from that segment of the user base, and the corporate tech press has been in lockstep in sharing the priorities of those users. I do worry about a segment of MacBook Pro buyers who seemingly never get considered by tech journalists, but who are by far the largest purchaser base of MacBook Pros: students and rank-and-file office workers. Those users might be genuinely (and understandably) unpleasantly surprised when their next MacBook Pro is thicker and heavier than their old one. I certainly appreciate that Apple is catering its pro laptop toward its pro customers and takes their feedback seriously, but it irks me some that only one customer segment’s priorities are ever addressed by most tech journalists.
My initial impression of the additional heft that these laptops carry is that it’s a really satisfying heft. These feel like solid, incredibly well-built machines. As with the increase in weight and size between the iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro, these new MacBook Pros feel a bit more luxurious as a result of their heft. I’ll be curious to see over time if that feeling remains, or if they begin to merely feel heavy to me.
The display feels positively gigantic on this machine. I personally can’t imagine needing the extra real estate afforded by the 16-inch model for my particular use case. Seeing the new 14-inch MacBook Pro sitting next to last year’s 13-inch model, the difference in screen size is striking. The way the bezels maintain a uniform size along the top and sides looks great, and I love the way the top corners of the display are curved as they are on the iPhone and iPad. Of course those thin top bezels are possible due to the “notch” in the center of the screen which houses the camera lens system, sensor, and ambient light sensor. While it would undoubtedly be better if we could have our cake and eat it too: have our HD camera system and a uniformly thin bezel. But since we can’t, I think this was the right compromise to make. I actually really prefer the experience of using an app in full screen on this display. Pre-notch you’d move your mouse to the top of the screen to get window controls and the Menu Bar. I always found that to be a somewhat awkward experience. Now when you move your mouse to the top of the screen the menus just appear above the window without interfering with the window.
ProMotion is a huge deal. That’s Apple’s term for its variable refresh rate display technology, also found on the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPad Pro. This display can soar up to 120 Hz when called for, so scrolling a website or swiping between pages in Launchpad looks incredibly smooth. But it can also cycle down to a much lower refresh rate when high refresh rates aren’t needed, which helps save battery life.
The keyboard is incredible to type on. I’m typing this piece on the 14-inch MacBook Pro while watching game one of the World Series (go, Braves!), and this is easily the nicest MacBook Pro keyboard ever. Though I’m seemingly the only tech writer who really dug what Apple was doing with the Touch Bar, its presence or absence isn’t a make-or-break thing for me. It’ll take me some time to adjusting to life without it though. (When I wrote the header for this very piece I instinctively reached up to tap the text styles button on the Touch Bar only to feel a twinge of disappointment that it wasn’t there anymore.) That said, these full-height function keys are really nice, and the power key/Touch ID key feels very satisfying to use. I love big power keys. I like that the F6 key is dedicated to toggling Do Not Disturb on and off. That’ll come in really handy. In fact, if you’re going to go with static function keys versus a dynamic Touch Bar, I think the choices they made for what functions are presented are exactly the right ones. I do wish the Touch ID circle lit up. It’s like a cityscape where every house has it’s lights on but one when you’re typing in the dark on this thing.
The sound quality of this MacBook Pro’s speakers is absolutely incredible given that we’re talking about laptop speakers. I don’t know how they engineer these things to provide real spatial separation when listening to Dolby Atoms audio, but they pulled it off. They’re loud and very clear. I doubt I’ll spend much time listening to music through these, but even system alert sounds are fuller through these speakers. You notice that.
I’m looking forward to spending more time with this machine over the coming weeks, and I’ll have more to say about it after I make myself at home on it.