Say hello to Apple’s most baffling laptop, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 chip. It was already a confusing computer when we reviewed the M1 model in 2020, which was overshadowed by the fanless MacBook Air. But now that there’s a new MacBook Air with a bigger screen and more modern design, the 13-inch Pro looks a bit like a relic from another era. It’s from a time when Apple had to build machines around Intel’s hottest and least efficient chips, instead of making the most of its own hardware.
To be fair, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is still a very nice computer and the M2 chip gives it a decent performance boost. But it’s also something I can’t really recommend, not when the new Air offers much more, and the 14-inch MacBook Pro has a much better display, in addition to the ports professionals need. Apple claims that the 13-inch MacBook Pro is still one of its most popular models, and that’s not too surprising, as it’s the cheapest “Pro” laptop in its lineup. Still, it’s 2022 and this MacBook Pro design has been around for years. Popularity is no excuse for being lazy.
Pros
- The M2 chip is very fast
- Long battery life
- The build quality is still excellent
- Excellent keyboard and trackpad
Cons
- No ProMotion screen
- Thick screen bezels The touch bar is still annoying
- Only 2 USB-C ports
Gallery: 13-inch MacBook Pro (M2, 2022) | 12 photos
Gallery: 13-inch MacBook Pro (M2, 2022) | 12 photos
Now, I guess it makes sense for Apple to arrive a bit. The MacBook Pro’s unibody aluminum case still surpasses the vast majority of computers on the market. And, given the numerous design and supply chain constraints we face amid the ongoing pandemic and chip crisis, it would probably be smarter for Apple to focus on the new Air as well as the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros. It’s a shame that these priorities leave the 13-inch model with the same thick screen and the same selection of anemic ports we’ve seen for years.
And no, the Touch Bar doesn’t help at all. Just when we thought we would get rid of Apple’s second screen crash, it tortures us again with the function keys disappearing and the application shortcuts constantly changing. It’s almost as if Apple has some Touch Bar stock that they just have to download and we’re paying the price. Developers aren’t doing much more to take advantage of it, so in a few years it will be a useless appendix, like the last protohuman with a tail.
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget
Now that I’ve taken out my frustrations, we can talk about what’s good: Apple’s new M2 chip. It offers 8 CPU cores and up to 10 GPU cores, which Apple claims will offer multi-threaded performance 18 percent faster and graphics speeds up to 35 percent faster. The real upgrade for professionals, however, is that it now supports up to 24GB of RAM (instead of being limited to 16GB) and also has twice the memory bandwidth. Along with support for ProRes encoding and decoding, the M2 should make the MacBook Pro a much better option for video editors who don’t want to make the leap to the more expensive 14-inch model.
Our review drive, which featured the M2 chip (10 GPU cores) with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, was noticeably faster at almost every benchmark. It scored nearly 9,000 points in the Geekbench 5 multicore test, while the MacBook Pro M1 was closer to 7,000 points. The M2 chip also flew the M1 to Geekbench’s Compute benchmark, as well as Cinebench R23, where it scored 1,300 points more than the M1 machine. The performance boost isn’t enough to dump the MacBook Pro M1 if you’ve already bought one, but it’s still nice to see Apple make a decent profit with its sequel chip.
Cap
CPU Geekbench 5
Geekbench 5 Compute
Cinebench R23
13-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Apple M2, 2022)
1,938 / 8,984
27,304
1,583 / 8,719
14-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Apple M1 Pro)
1,767 / 11,777
38,359
1,515 / 12,118
16-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Apple M1 Max, 2021)
1,783 / 12,693
60,167
1,524 / 12,281
13-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Apple M1, 2020)
1,696 / 7,174
18,556
1,492 / 7,467
Dell XPS 15 (Intel i7-12700H, RTX 3050 Ti, 2022)
1,680 / 11,412
60,205
1,724 / 13,100
Here’s the thing: We haven’t compared the new MacBook Air yet, and in my experience with the latest model, I expect it to get about the same as the MacBook Pro. Again, Apple’s big selling point for this computer is that it has a more elaborate fan and cooling system, which allows it to handle sustained workloads like video encoding or 3D rendering. The MacBook Air doesn’t have a fan yet, so it’s likely to significantly speed up performance as it warms up.