Apple Unveils Redesigned MacBook Pro With Notch, Added Ports, ProMotion Mini-LED Display, M1 Pro or M1 Max Chip, and More

Monday October 18, 2021 10:32 am PDT by Hartley Charlton

Apple today announced its long-awaited major redesign for the MacBook Pro, featuring configurations with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chip, a mini-LED display with ProMotion, an HDMI port and SDXC card reader, charging with MagSafe 3, a notch housing a 1080p webcam, and more.

macbook pro 14 16 inch
The MacBook Pro features a new design and is available with 14.2-inch and 16.2-inch display sizes. The 14.2-inch model is 15.5mm thick and weighs 3.5 pounds, while the 16.2-inch model is 16.8mm thick and weighs 4.7 pounds. The all-new aluminum enclosure also contains a completely new thermal design. It continues to be available in Silver and Space Gray.

There are now more ports available, with the right side of the machine offering an HDMI port, a Thunderbolt 4 port, and an SDXC card reader. The left side of the machine features a ‌MagSafe‌ 3 port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a headphone jack. The keyboard now has a full-height function key row in place of the Touch Bar and the entire keyboard area is black.

The MacBook Pro features significantly reduced display borders that are 3.5mm thick, with a notch out of the top of the display for the webcam. The webcam now offers a 1080p resolution with a wider aperture, a larger image sensor, and benefits from an improved image signal processor.

The display itself is a mini-LED Liquid Retina XDR display, which also features ProMotion for refresh rates up to 120Hz. The Liquid Retina XDR display offers 1,000 nits of sustained brightness, 1,600 nits of peak brightness, and a million to one contrast ratio.

The new MacBook Pro also features improved studio-quality mics and speakers that support Spatial Audio, with the 16-inch model containing a six-speaker system.

The MacBook Pro now features magnetic charging with ‌MagSafe‌ 3, which gives the device fast charging for up to 50 percent charge in 30 minutes. It remains possible to charge using the Thunderbolt ports. When playing back video, the 14.2-inch model offers up to 17 hours of battery life, while the 16.2-inch model can deliver up to 21 hours of video playback.

The redesigned MacBook Pro features configurations with two new Apple silicon chips. Apple's The ‌M1 Pro‌ chip is a scaled-up, more powerful variant of the M1 chip. The ‌M1 Pro‌ chip features an 8-core or 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, a more capable Media Engine, more Thunderbolt controllers, support for up to 32GB of unified memory, and more. The ‌M1 Max‌ chip features the same 10-core CPU as the ‌M1 Pro‌, but includes a 24-core or 32-core GPU with support for up to 64GB of unified memory.