MacBook Pros are becoming worthy of their “Pro” moniker again. Apple[1] just refreshed its line of professional laptops, a move that had been recently rumored. The new MacBook Pros, which go on sale today, get a bump in processor speeds, RAM, and internal storage. They also allow you summon Siri at all times by using just your voice.
The announcement shows how Apple is leaning heavily into its marketing around creative professionals, just as its education announcement[2] a few months ago leaned heavily into the creative aspects of education devices. And that makes a lot of sense for Apple. At the same time, though, these updates aren’t addressing all of the issues that users have had with recent generations of MacBook Pro, nor do the updates apply to the entirety of the Mac laptop line.
For example, the new MacBook Pros also have new keyboards. But the keyboards haven’t been completely redesigned, which is notable considering the reams of grief[3] caused by the previous design. This also means there could potentially still be issues with Apple’s ultra-thin, butterfly-switch keyboards, even on the new machines.
Enhance!
The updates are coming to two laptop models: the $2,399 15-inch MacBook Pro and the $1,799 13-inch MacBook Pro. The 15-inch model now has a six-core processor. It’s been upgraded to an 8th generation, Intel Coffee Lake CPU (core i7 and, for the first time in this laptop, a Core i9), with 2.9 gigahertz and with Turbo Boost up to 4.8 gigahertz. It ships with Radeon Pro discrete graphics, and can be configured with up to 32 gigabytes of DDR4 memory and up to 4 terabytes of solid-state storage, double the amount in the previous model.
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