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- So this is the M2 Max MacBook Pro.
Let's talk about it.
So this week, Apple updated the 14 inch
and 16 inch MacBook Pros with a press release
and an 18 minute YouTube video
that featured a bunch of creators at the beginning,
which was cool, and then basically a whole prerecorded event
that kind of looked like it was cut out of another event.
Matter of fact, it's rumored that
this basically was cut out of an event
that they were rumored to have late last year.
Honestly, I buy it,
like the URL and the file name of the video had 2022 in them
and the AR files for the new laptops
were compiled in October, 2022,
suggesting that these things were ready to go months ago.
But whatever, none of that matters.
What matters is they're here now
and what you need to know is on the outside,
they're basically identical,
but on the inside, instead of M1 Pro and M1 Max,
it's M2 Pro and M2 Max,
and a couple other tiny improvements also.
So the first Apple Silicon MacBook Pros,
when they came out in October, 2021,
honestly some of the most unanimously well-liked computers
I have ever seen.
They added back the ports, they got rid of the touch bar,
they brought back MagSafe,
they bumped up to
an excellent high refresh rate mini LED display,
and the performance is incredible.
Like across the board,
I don't think I've met a single person who got one
and was like, "Oh, nah, I made a mistake with this one."
So when you see a new one a year and a half later,
there isn't really a ton that we're expecting to change
because the big leap was from the Intel MacBook Pros
to the Apple Silicon ones.
Now we're back to more incremental improvements.
So as you can imagine,
yeah, completely identical on the outside,
same sizes, same colors,
the only way I can differentiate this new one
from my old 16 inch M1 Max
is the icon skin I've had on the back.
Of course, channel sponsor dbrand
is already selling these for the 2023 model,
so if you want your laptop to look a little different
than every other MacBook Pro in the world,
then, yeah, this is your best bet, link below.
So the bulk of what's new
is coming from the new chip inside.
M2 Pro and M2 Max.
They are essentially the same price tiers
and configurations across the board as before
but Apple is quoting now 20% more CPU performance
and 30% better GPU performance.
This in front of me here
is a maxed out M2 Max with the 38 core GPU
and the new maximum of 96 gigs of shared memory.
Shocker, this thing rips.
So under the hood, it's built on
a new second gen 5 nanometer process,
and they've added some cores,
two more high efficiency CPU cores
and three more GPU cores on the Pro,
so it's a 19 core GPU on the M2 Pro.
And a 38 core GPU on the M2 Max.
Also, the neural engine and media engine
are improved to handle machine learning
and media playback and transcoding
even faster than they already did.
If you're into synthetic benchmarks,
I did run Geekbench 5
and the single core score
is now the highest I have ever seen, just over 2,000,
while the multi-core score was north of 15,000.
Here's some context to give you an idea
of how impressive these numbers are.
And yes, that is about
the 20% CPU improvement that we expected.
And then, in Cinebench, again,
it had a chart topping single core score
and here's how the multi-core stacks out.
So overall capabilities,
basically the ceiling has been raised up
by the 20 to 30%, which is great, but as I mentioned
in the original M1 Max review a year and a half ago,
it's not so much about the raw processing power
as much as it's about the things
that it allows you to do better or faster than before,
hence the name Pro, theoretically.
So like I noticed this in things
where I have parts of my workflow
that work just right with it.
So I have this same I do
where I screen record with ScreenFlow
and it'll do a full resolution screen recording
and then I'll export that and use it
and bring into Final Cut Pro.
The exporting of that screen recording
into ProRes 422 was dramatically improved
when we got the media engine with Apple Silicon.
So a 16 core Intel Mac Pro
with a Vega Pro II Duo
that retailed for over $15,000,
took a three and a half minute screen recording
and churned that out in 56 seconds.
But the M1 max laptop did it in 32 seconds,
So that was so sick,
that's one of those things
you instantly notice is way faster.
This new M2 Max did it in 23 seconds.
So again, a pretty substantial improvement.
Like, clearly the outgoing machines weren't lacking
but they've taken basically everything that was good
about the old ones and improved it,
just bumped it up a little bit, which is sweet.
For everyday daily non-demanding tasks
as you can probably imagine,
these are still great, totally great.
Like, I've already told you all about
the excellent mini LED display
that has a questionable amount of light bleed
but still looks pretty great most of the time.
I've already told you about the top-notch design
and all of the metal build quality,
the huge track pad, the high quality headphone jack,
the return of the built-in SD card slot,
I've already told you about all that,
but what about those other tiny improvements
I mentioned earlier that aren't the M2 chip?
Well, there's a couple things.
So first of all, the extra efficiency cores
that I mentioned earlier are great,
of course, for battery life.
Not only is the battery life still really good
but there's also a claimed extra hour
on both the 14 inch and 16 inch of battery.
I'm not seeing a dramatic difference,
but, hey, the fact that it's better at all, it's sick.
And then these laptops still fast charge
but there's also now a color matching MagSafe cable.
Now this is a slight difference
since these laptops are really only silver
or slightly darker silver, but there you go,
it's darker now with a space gray one, it matches,
color matching all the way up
until the white plastic USB-C nub on the other end.
And then there's a few other capabilities
WiFI 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and HDMI 2.1.
So HDMI 2.1 was actually something
I was confused about missing on the last version
since it had been out for a little bit.
But it's now here and that allows for
up to 8K 60FPSs through one cable via the HDMI port.
So that's about time.
WiFi 6E is just sort of starting to roll out now,
that's gonna be great for future proofing.
We literally just got WiFi 6E routers in the studio
for the first time and the MacBook Pros
have consistently been like the fastest thing
on our wifi network,
and it continues to stretch that lead in that department.
And Bluetooth 5.3, again,
very much future proofing, but that's welcome.
But really the Apple Silicon transition has come a long way
since the very first M1 Max that we saw
when they first started doing this.
There are a lot more well optimized apps,
it's a lot more obvious what the benefits are.
It's still not complete, of course,
because we don't have a Mac Pro yet,
and also it kind of feels like they forgot about the iMac.
That's just chilling, still stuck at M1, for some reason.
But really, yeah, these are a level up from the rest.
And I think my overall recommendations about what to buy
at certain spots in the lineup basically stays the same.
So if you're after battery life,
M2 Pro is gonna be awesome,
if you're after maximum power
at the expense of some of your battery life,
then M2 Max is probably the move.
And really my pretty textbook conclusion here
is these laptops aren't for people
who already have the M1 Pro and M1 Max laptops
that just came out,
they are for people who have older laptops
that now have a better machine to upgrade to,
unless you're one of a tiny fraction of people
who got the old ones
and was pushing it to its limits
and just needs that 30% more power,
in which case, you know who you are.
Matter of fact, for those people on older laptops,
I think looking for sales now
of the M1 Pro and M1 Max,
when you start to find deals on those,
those are gonna be really good laptops.
Now, you might have also seen the rumors
that it's possible that the first of the M3 laptops
is gonna be coming out later this calendar year
on a three nanometer process,
and you might be wondering if you should wait for that.
To which I would say, you should actually wait
till quarter three of 2027 when we have the M5s
because that'll be 30% faster than the M4s
which is 30% faster than the M3s,
and you can see where I'm going with this.
Like, if you're gonna be waiting for the next thing,
you'll just be waiting forever
'cause that's just the way tech is.
These are great machines,
they're more than most people need,
and if you can get your hands on the M1s,
those are gonna be really good for most people too.
Either way, make sure you get subscribed
because I think,
I think actually the new M2 Mac Minis
are a way more interesting machine,
so stay tuned for that video.
Also, I said something in in my last review.
With that being said,
if the next version of this laptop
still has a notch this big and doesn't add Face ID,
I'll wear socks and sandals for a day, like Linus.
Like, they gotta be planning on
putting it there eventually, right?
Well, all day today,
I'm a man of my word.
Thanks for watching,
catch you guys in the next one, peace.
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