Just like the shock album Beyoncé dropped a decade in the past, the model spankin’ new MacBook Execs got here out of the woodwork on Jan. 16 in two chipset flavors (M2 Professional and M2 Max) and sizes (14 and 16 inches). As Apple’s sudden announcement electrified the web, many are questioning, “How do they differ from their predecessors?”
In any case, some folks already personal a previous-generation 14-inch MacBook Professional, so that they’re questioning whether or not the brand new variants ship a important generational leap that warrants an improve. Others don’t personal a MacBook Professional in any respect, however wish to know whether or not they’d get extra bang for his or her buck by securing an older mannequin — or wouldn’t it be extra prudent to get a brand new one?
When you fall into any of the aforementioned camps, fear not, as a result of we’re about to dive right into a comparative evaluation that ought to expel any confusion. This explicit face-off pits the 14-inch M2 Professional MacBook Professional towards the 14-inch M1 Professional MacBook Professional, serving as a microcosm pattern of whether or not Apple’s next-generation laptops ship a serious generation-over-generation enchancment worthy of an improve or buy.
| M2 Professional MacBook Professional (14-inch) | M1 Professional MacBook Professional (14-inch) | |
|---|---|---|
| Beginning worth | $1,999 | $1,999 |
| Show | 3024 x 1964 px | 3024 x 1964 px |
| Chipset | M2 Professional | M1 Professional |
| RAM | As much as 32GB | As much as 32GB |
| SSD | As much as 8TB | As much as 8TB |
| Ports | 3 Thunderbolt 4; headphone jack; SDXC reader, HDMI | 3 Thunderbolt 4; headphone jack; SDXC reader, HDMI (superior) |
| Battery Life (hrs:min) | As much as 22 hrs (claimed) | 14 hrs and eight minutes |
| Geekbench (efficiency) | 15,130 (in line with leak) | 12,477 |
| Measurement | 12.3 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches | 12.3 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches |
| Weight | 3.5 kilos | 3.5 kilos |
M2 Professional MacBook Professional (14-inch) vs. M1 Professional MacBook Professional (14-inch): Worth
Does Apple need you to have any cash in your checking account? No. However at the very least you should utilize your shiny new MacBook Professional as a coin collector if you beg for change on the streets. All jokes apart, each the M2 MacBook Professional and the M1 Professional MacBook Professional — whew, that’s a mouthful — have a beginning worth of roughly $2,000.
I say roughly as a result of, sure, the current-gen MacBook Professional at present prices $1,999 on Apple’s official web site (opens in new tab), and also you’ll discover its predecessor for $1,999 on Greatest Purchase (opens in new tab), however some retailers, like B&H Picture, are discounting the bottom mannequin of the M1 Professional MacBook Professional for to as little as $1,799. (opens in new tab)
With the M1 Professional MacBook Professional, the bottom mannequin will get you an 8-core CPU, a 14-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 67W USB-C energy adapter. Conversely, the most affordable M2 Professional MacBook Professional gives a 10-core CPU, a 16-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and the identical charger.
Again in 2021, in the event you needed to bump your specs as much as a 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM on the M1 Professional MacBook Professional, you’d need to shell out a gnarly $2,899. It additionally got here with a 10-core CPU, a 16-core GPU, and a 96W USB-C energy adapter (B&H Picture (opens in new tab) is at present promoting this configuration for $2,799).
For a similar sticker worth ($2,899) on the M2 Professional MacBook Professional, you will get a 12-core CPU, a 19-core GPU, alongside all the identical RAM, storage and adapter as above.
When you actually wish to go nuts, the priciest M2 Professional MacBook Professional — I’m talkin’ a 12-core GPU, 19-core GPU, 32GB of RAM, an 8TB SSD, a 96W USB-C energy adapter, Last Lower Professional, and Logic Professional — be ready to promote your soul to Devil. It is going to price you a whopping $5,598.98, which is only a euphemism for “holy sh**, this laptop computer is almost $6,000!”
Though the 14-inch M1 Professional MacBook Professional can be configurable with as much as 8TB of storage, I may solely discover variants with this storage tier outfitted with the extra highly effective M1 Max chip (and a RAM bump to 64GB), setting you again practically $5,299 on B&H Picture. (opens in new tab) (As you will see within the efficiency part, the M2 Professional delivers a important efficiency bump over the M1 Max, so it is not the neatest thought to get the aforementioned configuration over the brand new M2 Professional MacBook Professional).
The ethical of the story is right here is that you simply’re not going to avoid wasting an enormous chunk of change by buying the last-gen mannequin, so that you’d be higher off snagging the brand new one.
You may purchase the M2 Professional MacBook Professional (opens in new tab) now, however it gained’t begin transport to customers till Jan. 24.
M2 Professional MacBook Professional (14-inch) vs. M1 Professional MacBook Professional (14-inch): Design
I don’t know why this part is even right here — the distinction between the M2 Professional MacBook Professional and the M1 Professional MacBook Professional is zilch! Ideally, to mock how monotonous equivalent they’re, I wish to simply drop the notorious Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man meme right here and name it a day, however y’know, I’m a tech journalist and I’ve to be tHoRouGh! *Sigh*
Each the M2 Professional MacBook Professional and its predecessor share the identical width (12.31 inches), depth (8.71 inches), and thickness (0.61 inches). Additionally they weigh precisely the identical. Just like the 14-inch M1 Professional MacBook Professional’s chassis, its successor contains a squared-off design with sharp corners and a flat lid.
On one other word, why is Apple making an attempt to bore me to demise with uninspired, uninteresting grey hues that proceed to be the only choice for the MacBook Execs? I want this yr have been completely different, however nope, you get to decide on between one other “wide selection of colours” this yr: Area Grey and Silver. Whoop-dee-doo! On the plus aspect, you possibly can’t deny that the MacBook Professional’s chassis is glossy, refined, and urbane — nothing says “Take a look at me, I’m a giant shot!” like lugging round a laptop computer with a lustrous half-eaten Apple as its brand.
Not like the 13-inch MacBook Professional (2022), you gained’t discover a Contact Bar on the deck, which I’m positive nobody is throwing a tantrum about. Seeing because the M2 Professional MacBook Professional is externally no completely different from its predecessor, I checked out our evaluate of the 14-inch M1 Professional MacBook Professional, and Laptop computer Magazine Editor-in-Chief claimed that it’s outfitted with the “greatest iteration of the Magic Keyboard up to now,” gushing over its springy suggestions and cozy keys. There’s little doubt in my thoughts that the brand new MacBook Professional will ship the identical implausible expertise as a result of, nicely, they’re precisely the identical damnit.
M2 Professional MacBook Professional (14-inch) vs. M1 Professional MacBook Professional (14-inch): Show
In one other episode of Transfer Alongside, Nothing to See Right here, the M2 MacBook Professional continues to jack the M1 Professional MacBook Professional’s fashion within the show division. It’s value noting that whereas Apple touts these two laptops as having 14-inch panels, they’re truly 14.2-inch shows. That additional 0.2-inch comes from the notch space that homes the 1080p FaceTime HD digital camera — thrilling stuff, huh?! (Sure, that was sarcasm.)
Each mini-LED panels are outfitted with ProMotion expertise, permitting the adaptive refresh fee to climb as much as 120Hz. As such, if you wish to dive into some zippy mild gaming and ferocious enhancing, the display ought to facilitate your fast-paced workflows. The Liquid Retina XDR shows on these laptops ship a local decision of 3024 x 1964 at 254 pixels per inch.
Because the M2 Professional MacBook Professional’s show is a carbon copy of its predecessor, we determined to faucet into our check outcomes of the M1 Professional MacBook Professional. It measured 77.6% on the DCI-P3 coloration gamut, which is mediocre — particularly because it falls beneath the colour gamut protection of the common premium laptop computer (83.9%). Nonetheless, the M1 MacBook Professional delivered a killer Delta-E rating of 0.19 (nearer to zero is best), which signifies that it’s elite in terms of coloration accuracy. The colour accuracy rating of the common premium laptop computer is 0.25.
Though Apple claimed that the M1 Professional MacBook Professional can ship a sustained brightness of 1,000 nits (and it’s making the identical declare for its successor), the most effective we’ve seen was 488 nits. As such, I’m positive we are able to anticipate the identical lies — er, I imply “luminance” — on the M2 Professional MacBook Professional.
M2 Professional MacBook Professional vs. M1 Professional MacBook Professional: Ports
The snoozefest nonetheless continues right here, however there are some minimal upgrades value mentioning.
On the suitable aspect of each fashions, you’ll discover an HDMI port, Thunderbolt 4, and an SDXC card slot. On the left, you’ll discover two extra Thunderbolt 4 ports, MagSafe 3, and a headphone jack. What’s completely different, nonetheless, is the brand new HDMI port, which now helps 8K shows as much as a refresh fee of 60Hz.
Since we’re speaking about connectivity right here, it’s value noting that the brand new M2 Professional MacBook Professional provides Wi-Fi 6E to the combo (up from Wi-Fi 6).
M2 Professional MacBook Professional vs. M1 Professional MacBook Professional: Efficiency and graphics
Candy aid! We’ve escaped the drudgery of uniformity and entered an enviornment the place competitors can lastly thrive. When you’re a content material creator in search of monstrous efficiency boosts, that is the place the M2 Professional comes into play.
The M1 Professional got here in two chipset flavors: one with a 10-core CPU and 14-core GPU or one other with a 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU. The M2 Professional, then again, comes with both a 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU or a 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU. In different phrases, with the M2 Professional chip sporting extra cores, which means it might probably do extra calculations and duties concurrently in comparison with its predecessor. Win!
“[The M2 Pro’s] highly effective media engine permits you to play and edit a number of streams of 4K and 8K ProRes video,” Apple boasted, “and the as much as 19-core GPU offers an enormous enhance in graphics efficiency.”
Based on Apple (opens in new tab), the M2 Professional-outfitted MacBook Professional can render titles and animations in Movement as much as 20% quicker than the M1 Professional MacBook Professional. Compiling in Xcode is 25% quicker and picture processing in Adobe Photoshop is 40% quicker. Wow!
our efficiency outcomes for the 14-inch M1 Professional MacBook Professional, which demolished its rivals, the M1 Professional knocked it out of the park with a stellar Geekbench 5.4 multi-core rating of 12,477. Based on a leak (thanks MacRumors), the M2 Professional chip delivered a spectacular multi-core rating of 15.130!
On the Handbrake video enhancing check, which checks how briskly a laptop computer can transcode a 4K video to 1080p, the M1 Professional-packed MacBook Professional left the competitors in its mud with a zippy transcoding time of 4 minutes and 51 seconds. The typical premium laptop computer takes 9 minutes and 36 seconds to finish the identical job. I’ve religion that the M2 Professional will assist the MacBook Professional slash that transcoding time to about three minutes, however that’s only a guess. We’ll replace this text as soon as now we have the outcomes.
No, the MacBook Professional isn’t the most suitable choice in the event you’re trying to play your favourite triple-A video games (as a result of it’s clear that Apple doesn’t actually care about MacBook gaming). However let’s put a pin in the truth that on the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark, the M1 Professional MacBook Professional ran the sport at 39 frames per second. As soon as we get the gaming outcomes for the M2 Professional MacBook Professional, we’ll examine it to its predecessor to see how a lot of a efficiency bounce we’re getting with the brand new chip.
M2 Professional MacBook Professional vs. M1 Professional MacBook Professional: Battery life
Check out our laptops with the most effective battery life web page. I don’t know if Apple thinks it’s Unhealthy Bunny (or possibly Taylor Swift), however it retains dominating the charts in terms of energy effectivity.
I at all times puzzled, “Which laptop computer would be the one to knock the 13-inch M2 MacBook Professional, boasting an 18-hour runtime, off its greatest battery life throne?” The underdog lover in me secretly hopes it’s a non-Apple laptop computer, however let’s be actual, there’s an excellent likelihood that the M2 Professional MacBook Professional may snatch the crown. In any case, in line with Apple, the M2 Professional MacBook Professional may ship as much as 22 hours of battery life. The Cupertino-based tech big says that is the longest battery life ever in a Mac.
Sometimes, in terms of battery life claims, I’m a skeptic, particularly when it crosses into 20-hour runtime territory. However my evaluation of how trustworthy OEMs are in terms of battery runtimes tells me that Apple, imagine it or not, is definitely probably the most reliable. As such, not solely will we doubtlessly get the longest-lasting Mac, however we can also get blessed with probably the most power-efficient laptop computer we’ve ever examined. Woot!
Backside line
With such minor tweaks to the M2 Professional MacBook Professional, it’s no marvel Apple quietly unleashed the next-generation mannequin with out a lot fanfare.
When you’ve discovered something from this comparative evaluation (in addition to the truth that I’m a sarcastic wiseass), I hope you bought the memo that the last-gen mannequin isn’t considerably cheaper in comparison with the current-gen MacBook Professional — at the very least not but. As such, you’d be higher off simply getting the brand new MacBook Professional (in the event you don’t personal one in any respect). Twenty-two hours of battery life and an additional kick of efficiency is simply too candy to cross up.
Nonetheless, in the event you already personal an M1 Professional MacBook Professional, must you improve? I am leaning towards sure. The generation-over-generation efficiency enhance is fairly important. The improve can be significantly helpful for on-the-go video editors, animators, and different skilled content material creators (particularly with Wi-Fi 6E now within the combine).
