14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 review – power and performance that need to be seen to be believed

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RATING

Apple has reached new heights with its MacBook Pro powered by the M4 family of chips. They offer power and performance that must be seen to be believed while at the same time offer an incredibly long battery life – it is modern day alchemy.

• VERDICT

Just when you thought the MacBook Pro couldn’t get any better, Apple has released the brand new 14-inch and 16-inch models running the latest M4 family of Apple’s very own silicon.

Tech Guide reviewed the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the base M4 chip.

Our review model had the M4 with 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB unified memory and a 1TB SSD drive.

It also includes the new Nano-texture display which greatly reduced annoying glare and reflection.

This configuration of the 14-inch MacBook Pro is priced at $3,029. The 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,499.

On the design side the new M4 MacBook Pro is identical to the previous model.

The 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR Display offers stunning colour with remarkable contrast and support for a billion colours with a peak brightness of 1600 nits.

And the new optional Nano-texture really eliminates the distracting glare and reflections.

We took the MacBook Pro out in the sun and we could still see the screen clearly despite the external brightness.

It also had ProMotion onboard with refresh rates up to 120Hz, so everything looks smoother whether you’re scrolling, watching a movie or playing a game.

The M4 chip onboard, while being the base model, can still hold its own for users who enjoying gaming, editing videos and creating content.

It is a great choice for a student who would use a variety of applications and perform a number of complex tasks.

It can even handle tasks like 3D rendering – it can perform this task 10.1x times faster than the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M3.

For our workload, which involves editing photos, videos and audio along with producing written, audio and video content plus editing our Tech Guide website, the M4 chip did not get out of first gear.

Naturally, the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips can push the envelope and smash through tasks in seconds that years ago would have taken hours.

We ran the MacBook Pro through some benchmark tests on Cinebench to see just how the M4 chip stacks up.

This benchmark testing put the GPU and CPU through its paces.

In the GPU testing, the M4 was only just a few points behind the M1 Max chip was one of Apple’s fastest chip in 2021.

In CPU single core testing the M4 outperformed the M1 Max.

When it came to multi-core the M4 was behind the M1 Ultra but ahead of the M1 Max.

And of course the M4 chips are designed for Apple Intelligence – Apple’s own personal intelligence system that will allow users to create text and images and take action across their apps to improve their productivity and efficiency.

Apple Intelligence offers writing tools, photo editing tools and ways to organise and summarise your mail and messages and notifications while also making Siri more capable.

Apple Intelligence will be available in December – and if you have a MacBook Pro with M4 you’ll be ready from day one of release

The front 12MP camera has an ultra-wide sensor so you’re going to look great but also onboard is Centre Stage which can keep you centred in the frame if you move around whether you’re alone or in a group.

On the connectivity side the MacBook Pro with M4 has Thunderbolt 4 which can transfer data at high speeds as well as connect other monitors at up to 6K resolution.

But with M4 Pro and M4 Max models users have Thunderbolt 5 which supports transfer speeds up to 120GB/s so connecting to docks, hubs and external hard drives is blazingly fast.

M4 Max can support up to four external 4K monitors at full native resolution and up to three 6K monitors.

M4 Pro can handle two external displays which can include a 6K monitor.

So if you have a MacBook Pro with an M4 chip onboard you can easily create a multi-monitor set-up as well an enjoying the onboard Liquid Retina XDR display.

The MacBook Pro with M4 also has a SDXC memory card slot, three Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports, a full size HDMI port, a headphone jack and the MagSafe 3 charging port.

We’re disappointed the MacBook Pro didn’t include Wi-Fi 7 – it supports Wi-Fi 6E – that added speed on a Wi-Fi 7 would have been welcomed.

What we love about the MacBook Pro is that while it can deliver incredible performance to complete our work it also delivers that same amazing performance when we want to be entertained.

The stunning screen is backed up by a six speaker sound system with four force cancelling woofers and two tweeters so that your movies and games look and sound amazing.

It even has Spatial Audio onboard so you can immerse yourself when listening to music or watching a movie with Dolby Atmos.

The other amazing benefit of Apple’s new silicon aboard the MacBook Pro is power efficiency.

It is quite an achievement for Apple to have chips that perform so incredibly well yet have miserly power usage. This is close to the computing Holy Grail.

As a result, the 14 inch MacBook Pro with M4 has up to 24 hours of battery life as does the 16 inch MacBook Pro.

The M4 Pro and M4 Max models of the 14-inch MacBook Pro will get up to 22 hours of battery life.

For our review we were able to run the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 for two full work days before we had to reach for the charger.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 starts at $2,499, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro starts at $3,299 and the 16-inch MacBook Pro start it $3,999.

All M4 models of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro go on sale today.

VERDICT

Apple has reached new heights with its MacBook Pro powered by the M4 family of chips. They offer power and performance that must be seen to be believed while at the same time offer an incredibly long battery life – it is modern day alchemy.