Why Apple Made the M2 MacBook Pro

Why Apple Made the M2 MacBook Pro

 Why did Apple actually make this laptop? You see, a few weeks ago, I compared the new M2 MacBook Pro with the M1 MacBook Pro, and not to spoil the ending there, but there isn't really much of a difference. Like, don't get me wrong, we are getting a newer and more powerful chip, and at the same time, there are some issues with SSD speeds, which I'll cover in a minute, but when we look at what Apple offers, as far as laptops, this product just didn't make a lot of sense, and that's out of character for Apple, so, I started thinking more about why this product actually exists, and there are two ways in which this product could act as a stop gap. 

One has to do with design, the other one has to do with mindset, and I'm still not sure that it does either of them very well. As far as the overall design, there's nothing new about the M2 MacBook Pro, it's exactly the same as the M1 MacBook Pro, it's the same height, the same width, the same depth, same weight, and if I put them both side by side, open or closed, you wouldn't know which was which. You're also getting the same display, the same number and type of ports, and you're still getting the Touch Bar, which some people would think of as a pro, and some would think of as a con. So, by putting a newer chip in the same form factor, 

Apple is essentially buying time until they're ready for a new design. They're essentially saying if this is the form factor that you want, if you're a fan of the Touch Bar, and no judgment, I actually like it, but, again, if this is the form factor that you want, then you're getting it with a more powerful chip. Well, sort of. Now, the M2 is more powerful than the M1, there's no question about that, the high-performance cores are more powerful, and we're also getting the benefit of the high-efficiency cores being more efficient than what we have on the M1. But I also think that it's important to consider the M1 Pro, that's available on the 14-inch MacBook Pro. And, in that case, the single-core performance goes to the M2 chip, and then the multi-core performance goes to the M1 Pro. 

So, the question is, what are you really looking for in a Pro device? And let's come back to this, now, another advantage of the M2 chip is that it has a higher maximum unified memory limit, so, you can go up to 24 gigabytes, which is 50% more than the 16 gigabyte maximum on the M1. With the M1 Pro, you can get 16 or 32 gigabytes, so, again, you can see that the M2 is somewhere in the middle. And I have to say that I do think that the 24-gigabyte option is meaningful. Like, most of the time, with my M1 devices, I wish I had more RAM, much more than I wish I had more processing power. So, while I understand the idea of positioning the M2 MacBook Pro between the M1 MacBook Air and the 14-inch MacBook Pro, the problem is that there's an M2 MacBook Air. 

You see, you can get the M2 chip, you can get additional RAM, you can get a better display, a better speaker, and a better camera for less money by buying the new M2 MacBook Air, and what you'd be giving up on is the active cooling system, or the fan, which leads to sustained performance. Basically, the fan in the MacBook Pro can keep the chip cool, so that it doesn't need to throttle back performance in order to prevent overheating. And this is actually true for the M2 MacBook Pro, and we can see that in a 30-minute Cinebench R23 multi-core test, which pushes the CPU to a 100% for 30 minutes straight, shows the same level of performance as a much shorter multi-core test. 

But the same is true for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, which also has a fan. So, even if we're only talking about performance, users who only push their CPU for spurts of a few minutes, can, for the most part, do that with the M2 MacBook Air, and those who need 30 minutes or more of sustained performance, would actually benefit from the higher multi-core performance of the 14-inch. Now, it's not really fair to talk about performance without discussing price. And when you first look at it, you might say, "Sure, "the 14-inch MacBook Pro is more powerful, "but it's also a lot more expensive." Well, not really, and there also aren't any questions about SSD speeds, but first, let's look at the pricing. The M2 MacBook Air (cash register chimes) starts at $1,200, and the M2 MacBook Pro (cash register chimes) starts at $1,300, and both of them come with eight gigabytes of unified memory and 256 gigabytes of storage. Now, the 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,000, (cash register chimes) and comes with 16 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage. 

So, on the surface, we're seeing a $700 difference, but we're talking about a Pro device here, and if you're saying that the M2 MacBook Air isn't enough for you, and you're going to push this machine harder, eight gigs of unified memory and 256 gigabytes of storage aren't going to be enough, and, at the very least, you're gonna need to match the 14-inch MacBook Pro with 16 and 512. Now, if you were to do that, you'd be adding an additional 400 bucks (cash register chimes) to the M2 MacBook Pro, and now there's only a $300 difference, so, even if we're still only looking at performance, and we're saying that I'm buying a Pro machine for work, and I need sustained performance, that type of user should value the additional processing power, and the time savings, much more than the $300 difference. Now, I'm trying to be as fair as possible and only look at performance, but if you include the significantly better display on a 14-inch MacBook Pro, and trust me, it's a very noticeable difference, the 14-inch is obviously bigger, it's Liquid Retina XDR versus your retina, it's high resolution, it's much brighter for HDR content, and it has ProMotion, which is Apple's name for the adaptive refresh rate of up to a 120 Hertz, on top of that, you're getting more thunderbolt ports, you're getting ports on both sides. you're getting an SD card slot, and MagSafe for faster charging. 

This isn't a dedicated comparison, so, I'm just gonna stop there, but I wanna show you that you are getting a lot more for 300 bucks. So, it would be very hard for me to make a case for the 13-inch MacBook Pro. But even after saying all that, here it is, a 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro, and Apple is very thoughtful about the products they create, and how those products are positioned and perceived in the marketplace. There's a host of enterprise clients, as well as a portion of the target audience that simply want a device that's Pro, even if it's just in the name, a lot of them don't actually need the sustained performance and can get by short-term with a lower unified memory and storage options. For many of those users, the M2 MacBook Air would work just fine, it might actually work better, but it lacks the perception of a Pro device, because it's not in the name. And if the entry-level into the MacBook Pro lineup was the $2,000, 14-inch, and the only other option was the non-Pro M2 Air, that would be a significant barrier to entry into a MacBook Pro. With the 13-inch model, Apple is able to fill the gap, and the value, even if mostly perceived, is still valuable. 

Now, I wanna mention the SSD speed issue that was reported. So, essentially, on the 256-gigabyte models of the M2 MacBook Pro, there were noticeably slower read and write speeds. Now, I had both the 256- and the 512-gigabyte models, and I can confirm that the M2, with 256 gigabytes, was significantly slower than the 512-gigabyte model. It was even a lot slower than the M1 MacBook Pro with 256 gigabytes. I already mentioned that I don't recommend getting 256 gigabytes in a Pro machine, because I think a lot of users will run into storage issues, long-term, and this disk speed is a totally separate reason why you may not wanna do that in this particular case.