Apple’s latest laptops come in two sizes, 14-inch and 16-inch. This is a review of the 14-inch MacBook Pro, powered by the latest Apple M3 Max processor. You can buy the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro chip, if you prefer, or even the entry-level M3, which is more affordable but less powerful. Note that the larger, 16-inch MacBook Pro comes with a choice of M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, but not the M3.
I’ve been testing the MacBook Pro since just after it was announced by Apple, back on October 30.
Apple MacBook Pro 14-Inch Specs
Processor: Apple M3, M3 Pro or M3 Max (model tested: M3 Max) | Display: 14.2in, LED-backlit, 3,024 x 1,964 native resolution, 600 nits brightness, 1,600 nits peak HDR brightness | RAM: 8/18/36GB | Storage: 256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB/4TB Also 8TB M3 Max only | Dimensions: 12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches | Weight: 3.4-3.6 pounds | Colours: Silver, space grey (M3 only), space black (M3 Pro, M3 Max only).
1. Apple MacBook Pro 14-Inch: Design And Display
Apple updated its laptop design for its pro models two years ago, replacing the tapered edges with a flat lid and cliff-edge sides. No surprise that the design hasn’t changed since then, apart from one detail: a new color, which we’ll come to in a moment.
The look of the MacBook Pro is tremendous: business-like and classy, with a finish that turns heads. Even if it didn’t have the Apple logo in the middle, color-matched to the rest of the lid, the instantly-apparent build quality would make you think this was an Apple product.
Absent since the redesign is the legend MacBook Pro which sat beneath the display, perhaps because the bezels around the screen shrank at that point. It’s still labelled as a pro model but now it’s stencilled into the underside of the machine.
As always with a Mac laptop, the lid and base are perfectly balanced, so you can open it by lifting with one finger—on many machines this would see the base of the laptop tip up with you. It’s details like this that keep Mac users coming back.
Ditto the keyboard, which Apple calls the Magic Keyboard. There’s no actual witchcraft involved, you understand, but the experience of typing is highly appealing, thanks to a gently scooped shape which attracts your fingers to the center of each key, a solid placement that doesn’t shudder under your touch and decent travel (1mm). It also has a responsive and reliable Touch ID sensor in the power button at the right of the top row of keys.
The trackpad is also easy to use because it’s very big, supports multi-touch gestures and responds to different levels of pressure.
The new design element is the extra color, space black. It’s the first black laptop since the black MacBook, discontinued in 2008. It looks gorgeous. It’s a deep, almost-but-not-quite matte black with a special bonus when you touch it: no finger marks. I mean, look closely and you can see a little something, but it’s almost nothing compared to, for instance, the midnight finish on the MacBook Air.
It means the MacBook Pro more or less retains its pristine looks no matter how much you touch it. It looks great, but note that you only get it if you chip up to the M3 Pro or M3 Max: 14-inch MacBook Pro models with the entry-level M3 processor only come in silver or space gray.
The display hasn’t changed from the previous MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch models, but it’s really excellent, full of detail and high contrast. That’s down to the Liquid Retina XDR, an LCD screen with miniLEDs behind the LCD for sophisticated local dimming.
The display also has dynamic refresh rates, to ensure smooth motion when the content demands it, or saves battery life when you have something non-moving onscreen.
It still has a cut-out at the top of the screen, where the 1080p camera nestles, but this causes little to no issue at any point. And it means the laptop’s bezels are very thin.
2. Apple MacBook Pro 14-Inch: Performance
A new processor promises dramatic improvements and faster speeds. There are three here and while the M3 is certainly faster than its M1 and M2 predecessors, and which I’ve been testing on the new iMac, reviewed here).
But things get properly spicy when you move up to the M3 Pro and the M3 Max, which I’ve been testing for this review. This chip is very much aimed at creatives and professionals using hugely demanding programs for sustained periods of time. It’s to keep those programs running at tempo for longer that Apple has installed a cooling system in the MacBook Pro, something absent from the MacBook Air. You really have to work hard to hear this fan in action: for most people most of the time, it just won’t be called upon.
One of the main purposes of all this power is that it saves time in the most complex of workflows, something that’s especially important to creatives, who want to be bogged down in tiresome, slow tasks for as little time as possible.
A program like Final Cut Pro is a good example of how things that can be hard to do can be accomplished in nothing flat. Final Cut Pro has a feature called Smart Conform which can help you if you need to take landscape-orientation footage and turn it into portrait-orientation, without losing sight of what the point of the content is. The M3 Max, and, actually, the M3, can make this change in multiple files in just a few seconds.
The M3 Max can do much more than the M3, of course, and indeed seems to do everything faster than any Mac laptop I’ve ever used.
Let’s remember that there are still plenty of people using Intel-chipped Macs and M1 Macs, as well as M2. Everyone’s going to find this new laptop very fast, but the older your Apple computer is, the bigger the wow factor.
If you’re not a demanding creative (I mean demanding in the sense of needing a powerful computer, not someone who flounces off in a hissy fit if they don’t get their way), then should you really be buying a MacBook Pro?
The way I see it is, there’s no such thing as a computer that’s too fast, whatever you use it for. And the greater power you have under your laptop belt now, the longer it can last, so that as programs become more intensive, or you start gaming more, the headroom your processor has will still give you room to grow.
3. Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch: Battery Life
The other thing that changed out of all recognition when Apple switched from Intel chips to its own silicon is battery life. It shot up to such an extent that for a working day, you never really needed to cart a power brick around with you. That’s the case now, as well, and the latest MacBook Pros have matched the outstanding battery life of models with the previous generation of processor. With the M2 Pro or M2 Max, Apple has claimed battery life of up to 18 hours of movie playback, its particular way of counting the time the battery runs, though it also says you can be on the internet for 12 hours.
Interestingly, if you have the more affordable M3 chip, this laptop will last even long, up to 22 hours on that video metric, and 15 hours of wireless web surfing.
The larger, 16-inch MacBook Pro manages more, unsurprisingly.
Apple MacBook Pro 14-Inch: Verdict
The MacBook Pro is a very powerful machine. If you were thinking of buying one to upgrade from your M1 or Intel model, don’t hesitate. It’s the same price as the M2 Pro and M2 Max models were just a few days ago, and in some cases there are better storage or other configurations.
And then there’s the M3, entry-level model. Sure, it’s nowhere near as fast, and it has just 8GB of RAM at its most affordable level, but it still packs a punch. And the price, though not as low as the 13-inch MacBook Pro offered, is a lot less than a 14-inch MacBook Pro has ever been ($400 less), with a bigger, better display than the 13-incher managed, better connections and MagSafe charging. And no Touch Bar.
The truth is, though, that if you can benefit from the speed of a MacBook Pro, it’s the M3 Pro or M3 Max that should be drawing your attention. These are mighty powerful laptops, outclassing most if not all of the competition. And, unlike some of the processors recently announced, Apple’s are available right now.
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