Since Apple started its M1 rollout in 2020, I am yet to find a MacBook that I don’t like. The reason is simple: Apple has perfected making MacBooks. They are powerful, they come with exactly the kind of hardware and features that most people need on a day-to-day basis, and they have parts, such as speakers, that are near perfect. Yes, some areas still need improvements, gaming primarily. And the hardware upgrades — extra RAM, extra storage — are unreasonably expensive. Yet, it is safe to say that at their respective price points, the latest MacBooks are the absolute best one can get. The MacBook Pro 14, now with the new M4 chipset, is the same. It is kind of perfect.
I have my reasons to say that. The M4 chipset is one big reason. And so is the new nano-texture screen, which everyone will appreciate, including those who do photo or multimedia work. As I look at the new MacBook Pro 14 after using it for over a week, I can’t find one bad thing to say about it. Except the price, and the gaming part. And that too is going to be a stretch. But first a quick run through the specs of the laptop that you can see in this review.
I am reviewing the basic variant of the MacBook Pro 14 but with a nano-texture screen, which is an extra Rs 15,000 on the price of Rs 169,900. Of course, if you buy it with a student discount — either you are a student, or you are buying it for a student — you get a discount of Rs 10,000. This base variant uses the M4 chipset with 4 performance cores, 6 power-efficient cores and a 10-core GPU. It also has 16GB RAM — 16GB is now standard across MacBooks, including for the MacBook Air — and 512GB storage.
Similar looks, nano-texture in the mix
The new MacBook Pro 14 looks the same as the old MacBook Pro 14. This means the same design — rounded corners, somewhat flabby-looking shape with no sharp edges. The air vents, given that it is a Pro and hence comes with a cooling fan inside it, are in the same location. The round rubber feet are the same. There are two colour variants — silver and space black. In the photos here you can see the space black. The dimensions and the weight are the same, which means fairly compact and easy to carry with a weight of 1.55 kilograms.
The build quality is superb, under the two speaker vents on both left and right of the keyboard there is a six-speaker system. It is absolutely fantastic and sounds as good as an average external speaker. Last time when I reviewed a MacBook Pro I had called its speakers the best I have heard in a laptop. I have no hesitation saying the same about the MacBook Pro 14 M4 speaker system.
There is one change though: The new MacBook Pro 14 has an extra thunderbolt port. This is placed alongside the SD card reader on the right. More ports are always welcome. One important thing to note here is that Apple has introduced Thunderbolt 5 this year. But the base variants that use the M4 chipset don’t have it. They still remain with the Thunderbolt 4. To get Thunderbolt 5, which could be beneficial to people who are doing a lot of multimedia work through connected storage, users will have to move to the M4 Pro or the M4 Max.
Another change is in the screen, and this benefits the users immediately and in a more direct way. The resolution of the 14-inch screen remains the same but the display now has better brightness — 1000 nits vs 600 nits earlier — even while displaying SDR content. This is an improvement that I noticed immediately when I used the MacBook Pro 14 outdoors. Even indoors, the brightness seems marginally better. But a bigger difference is the arrival of the nano-texture option on the MacBook Pro 14. In a way this is the good old matte option, with discernible grain on the display, which used to be popular before the glossy screens took over the world.v Apple being Apple has refined it to perfection and has given it a new name.
Nano-texture is somewhat a pricey upgrade but is totally worth if you are a multimedia professional or a photographer. In a room full of blinding light or outdoors, it makes working on the MacBook Pro 14 so much better. How much better? Look at the photo below where I compare the MacBook Pro 14 nano-texture screen with the glossy screen of the MacBook Air 13. Both the displays are at 100 per cent brightness and I have deliberately opted for a dark wallpaper. On the Air screen you can barely see the image and colours due to the glare from the outdoor light. The Pro 14 screen, meanwhile, is so much better.
The power of M4
Of course, the big news with the new MacBook Pro laptops is their use of the M4 chipset. There are three variants — the M4, the M4 Pro and the M4 Max. As the name suggests, the M4 is the most humble of these. I have written a bit about the M4 chipset here, so you may want to check that. But in this review, I am going to talk about just what the M4 brings to the table when used in a laptop like the MacBook Pro 14.
In terms of day-to-day performance, I don’t find any significant difference between the M4 in the MacBook Pro 14 and the M3 in a previous laptop like the MacBook Air 13. These are fast chipsets, capable enough to handle your day-to-day stuff — work documents, photo editing, web browsing etc — with ease. It helps that the macOS Sequoia is absolutely fantastic, and a solid operating system that is significantly better than the Windows. The M4 also runs cool and in regular use I never heard the fans of the MacBook Pro 14 spin. In some benchmarks, though, I did hear the whooshing sound. Talking of benchmarks, I ran several to figure out just what sort of speed and value the M4 brings to MacBook users. And to give it some context, I ran the same benchmarks on the M3 MacBook Air. The M3 chip I am comparing the M4 against too has 16GB RAM, paired with 512GB storage. It also has 4 performance cores and 10-core GPU, similar to the M4. However, compared to the M4 that has 6 efficiency cores, the M3 has 4 efficiency cores, so it is at a slight disadvantage in multi-core benchmarks. Also remember that the MacBook Air 13 doesn’t have a cooling inside it, while the Pro 14 has one. In a way it is not an Apples to Apples comparison, but it should give you an idea.
Now take a look at the benchmarks, and as you do I will also explain what these benchmarks say.
First: GeekBench and Blender
In these benchmarks we see that the M4 is, right off the bat, around 20 per cent or better than the M3. The single-core CPU score shows that a machine powered by it is potentially going to be smoother and more fluid, particularly for daily computing needs. The GPU score also shows a healthy increase. Blender, meanwhile, is an application relevant for multimedia professionals. Although, machines that are primarily used for Blender, need to be significantly more powerful — think M4 Max and similar — than the base MacBook Pro 14. The scores here are just to give you an idea of how well the new MacBook Pro 14 can handle multimedia work.
Next: Cinebench and Geekbench AI
Cinebench, which renders a still photo using CPU or GPU, is an excellent test to check the performance of a new computer. The scores by the M4 are extraordinarily good here, another sign that the MacBook Pro 14 is a good enough machine for semi-professional — read not Hollywood-grade — multimedia work. GeekBench AI, meanwhile, tests how well a computer can run AI models or do calculations that power AI features. And here too we see some gains in the M4, although gains through the new Neural Engine in the M4 are significantly more impressive. Talking of which, here is the next batch of benchmarks:
These are very important benchmarks: DaVinci is a program used by top Hollywood studios and production companies. The latest blockbuster that you watched was most likely colour-corrected in DaVinci. Affinity is a Photoshop-like application and its benchmark reveals how well the MacBook M4 can handle professional photo-editing. And the Speedmaster 3.0 reveals how well a computer handles web-browsing. In all three benchmarks, the MacBook Pro M4 shows healthy gains. I am particularly astounded by its 6000 score in DaVinci, something that would have been unthinkable in a laptop a few years ago.
Final two benchmarks: Xcode and 3DMark. Xcode is particularly important here because it gives you an idea of how fast the MacBook Pro 14 can compile code. It is relevant for software engineers, the obvious target users of the MacBook Pro. 3DMark, meanwhile, shows how well the MacBook Pro 14 can run video games and its score of over 9000 points makes it one of the fastest computers for games this side of Mac.
While the benchmarks reveal some objective numbers, the key takeaway here is how fast the new MacBooks are in general. At their respective price-points these are the fastest laptops you can buy. Period. They are much faster than anything else out in the market. In fact, they are breezily running benchmarks — DaVinci and Blender and so on — that many laptops in their price range cannot even attempt. And the best bit: All the benchmarks here were run on battery and not on power adapter.
When you pair the overall quality and polish to this performance, it makes the MacBook Pro 14 unbeatable. It has got a great keyboard, and a trackpad that is spacious and remains the best ever put in a laptop. Another improvement this time is the new selfie and video cam. It has received a new 12-megapixel sensor, and is significantly a better cam than what we have seen so far in the MacBooks. The battery life too has improved. Apple highlights that it has a slightly bigger battery compared to what we saw in the previous Pro 14, and a couple of hours more battery life. With regular use, you would be able to squeeze up to two days of battery life.
Apple MacBook Pro 14 review: Perfect and yet
There is no doubt that the MacBook Pro 14 is the perfect general purpose laptop I have tried. Yet, I have two (minor) gripes. One, despite its great hardware, including a powerful GPU, the lack of AAA games continues to keep the MacBook Pro from realising its full-potential for certain users. It is a great machine for work, and a great general-purpose laptop. But lack of popular AAA games means it is missing some fun quotient. Apple is working on improving the game library on Mac — Resident Evil games for example — but it is not there yet. And two, some of the upgrades seem overly expensive. For example, the nano-texture display. Or extra RAM and storage.
At the same time, the Apple Silicon is so good that it has created a problem of plenty for MacBooks. The M3 machines from last year are still potent for most users, which dulls the appeal of the M4.
Having said that, if you are out in the market looking to upgrade from your old M1 MacBook, or from a Windows laptop, do consider the MacBook Pro 14. It is a perfect blend of size and performance. It’s just that it straddles a sort of no man’s land because the MacBook Air is a much better value for money for regular users, whereas the laptop powered by M4 Pro — around Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 extra — or the M4 Max would be meaningfully more useful for multimedia professional or software engineers.