Apple overhauled its MacBook Pro laptops in late 2021 with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. That brought RAM up to 64GB, CPUs with up to 10 cores, and GPUs with up to 32 cores. Other additions were a 1080p webcam, Liquid Retina XDR Display with mini-LED backlighting, an updated I/O array with HDMI, SD, and MagSafe returning.
Now the M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pro machines have arrived with increased performance, better battery life, up to 96GB RAM, 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 8K HDMI, Wi-Fi 6E, and more.
New MacBook Pro now official: M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, 8K HDMI, Wi-Fi 6E
Note – the 13″ MacBook Pro updated with the M2 chip in 2022 is most comparable to the M2 MacBook Air rather than these MacBook Pro machines.
Let’s get into all the differences between the M2 Pro/Max MacBook Pro and the M1 versions!
The overall transistor count has gone from 33.7 billion on the M1 Pro to 40 billion on the M2 Pro and from 57 billion on the M1 Max to over 67 billion on the M2 Max.
Like their predecessors, both the M2 Pro and M2 Max feature dedicated media engines to offer hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW support.
Apple says the new media engine has “twice the ProRes support to dramatically accelerate media playback and transcoding.” The new M2 Max chip continues to include two video encode engines like Apple did with the M1 Max.
Display
A major advancement for the 2021 MacBook Pro notebooks was the Liquid Retina XDR Display. It features double the sustained brightness via mini-LED backlighting, ProMotion with up to 120Hz refresh rates, an increased resolution/pixel per inch density, and greatly reduced bezels.
The M2 MacBook Pro machines feature the same display with identical specs.
The M2 MacBook Pro features almost all the same ports with the same layout as the M1 MacBook Pro. That includes an HDMI port, SDXC card reader, and MagSafe (officially called MagSafe 3). There are also 3 Thunderbolt 4/USB-C 4 ports.
But M2 Pro and M2 Max do take external display support a bit further with an upgrade from the HDMI 2.0 to 2.1 port that supports up to 8K output at 60Hz. That also allows for multichannel audio output.
Two more upgrades include Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
Correction: The chart below for the external display row was updated to reflect accurate details. The M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pro laptops certainly offer some notable upgrades, but naturally, they aren’t as impressive as the jump from Apple’s Intel MacBook Pro to M1 Pro/Max models were.
If you’re a creative pro or other professional who needs the latest and greatest from Apple, the upgrade may be worth it. The new MacBook Pros will also be great for those who are coming from an Intel MacBook.
However, for anyone who already has an M1 Pro/Max MacBook Pro and/or doesn’t have workflows that necessitate the absolute fastest performance, passing on these new releases may make the most sense.
Author : Arshad.S
