Apple Announces New Mac Mini, Launches MacBook Pros With Next-Gen M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips
Apple has finally launched the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops housing the next-generation M2 Pro and M2 Max silicon.
The Cupertino tech giant touts the two new chips bring faster performance, enhanced connectivity and longer battery life.
The M2 Pro-equipped model features a 10- or 12-core CPU with up to eight high-performance and four high-efficiency cores for up to a 20% performance boost over the M1 Pro. Additionally, it includes 200GB/s of unified memory bandwidth and up to 32GB of unified memory, allowing it to handle demanding tasks with relative ease. It also has a GPU with up to 19 cores, delivering up to 30% more graphics performance and making Neural Engine 40% faster. The M2 Pro's media engine is also capable of tearing through the most popular video codecs, accelerating video playback and encoding without using too much power.
Meanwhile, the M2 Max-equipped model features a 12-core CPU with up to eight high-performance and four high-efficiency cores for up to a 20% greater performance over the M1 Max. It also includes 400GB/s of unified memory bandwidth and up to 96GB of unified memory. For graphics, it has a GPU with up to 38 cores that can handle intensive creative workloads, such as merging panoramic photos or creating 3D scenes. The media engine is also more powerful than that of the M2 Pro, with twice the ProRes acceleration to dramatically speed up media playback and transcoding.
As for connectivity, the new MacBook Pro models support Wi-Fi 6E, which is up to twice as fast as the previous generation. They also feature advanced HDMI with support for up to 8K displays.
The notebooks also boast a battery life of up to 22 hours, the longest yet in a Mac.
Other key features include Liquid Retina XDR display, 1080p FaceTime HD camera and a six-speaker sound system, among others.
Aside from that, Apple also announced a refresh to the Mac Mini with the new M2 chips as well. The Mac Mini will come with the M2 chip as the baseline configuration, with the option to upgrade to the M2 Pro chip if needed for extra RAM and storage. The M2 Pro model will also come with two additional Thunderbolt 4 ports for a total of four.
The new MacBook Pro models will be available to order starting Thursday, 19 January via Apple's website or the Apple Store app. They, however, won’t be available until Friday, 3 February. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at S$2,899, and S$2,679 for education, while the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at S$3,599, and S$3,309 for education.
The Mac Mini will be available to order from 30 January, with prices for the Mac Mini with M2 starting at S$849, and S$709 for education, while the Mac Mini with M2 Pro will start at S$1,849 or S$S$1,709 for education.
Apple today launched the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops housing the next-generation M2 Pro and M2 Max silicon.
The two new chips bring faster performance, enhanced connectivity and longest battery life ever in a Mac.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at S$2,899, while the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at S$3,599.
A refresh to the Mac Mini was announced as well, with the new M2 and M2 Pro chips available.