Apple’s heavily rumoured 16-inch MacBook Pro has just been officially announced. The new refreshed MacBook Pro, which Apple is calling the “world’s best pro notebook”, offers new components that are claimed to deliver up to 80 percent better performance, and a new Magic Keyboard that should address long-standing complaints about the reliability of Apple’s previous butterfly-style key switches. The 16-inch screen is Apple’s largest ever Retina display on a MacBook model with a resolution of 3072×1920 and 226ppi pixel density. Apple says that each new 16-inch MacBook Pro will ship from its factories individually calibrated for gamma, white point, and primary colour accuracy.
Apple will offer this new notebook with Intel’s 9th Gen CPUs with six or eight cores, up to 64GB of RAM, up to 8TB of storage, AMD Radeon Pro 5000M graphics with up to 8GB of dedicated VRAM, and a 100Wh battery. The company also boasts of a new thermal design, a patented six-speaker sound system, a new high-performance microphone array, and improved battery life. Like its 15-inch predecessors, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro features Apple’s Touch Bar, a Touch ID sensor, Force Touch trackpad, and Apple T2 security chip.
The new Magic Keyboard features 1mm key travel and a “refined” scissor mechanism, as well as a rubber dome for a springy response. Apple also points out a more comfortable layout than on previous models, with a physical Esc key and spaced-out arrow keys. Apple has faced severe criticism over the failure rates and poor key travel of its ultra-slim butterfly key switches and is rumoured to be phasing them out across its products over the next year.
For connectivity, there are four Thunderbolt 3 ports that support USB 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps) and DisplayPort video output, and a 3.5mm audio socket. There’s also Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5, and a 720p FaceTime camera. The new 16-inch MacBook Pro measures 16.2mm thick and weighs 2kg. It ships with a 96W USB Type-C charger and 2m power cable.
The Cupertino-based company is targeting creative professionals including software developers, photographers, designers, and music and video producers. The 16-inch MacBook Pro incorporates more vents, a larger heatsink, and more powerful fans to improve its thermal design, which allows for better sustained performance under heavy load. According to Apple, Photoshop edits can be up to 1.5x faster, Xcode can compile code up to 1.7x faster, DaVinci Resolve can render effects up to 1.8x faster, and MATLAB simulations can run up to 2.1x faster. Even gamers are promised up to 1.6x better performance in Fortnite.
Battery life is rated at up to 11 hours of wireless Web browsing or video streaming using Apple TV. Users will also get all the features of macOS Catalina including Dark Mode and Sidecar.
The new 16-inch MacBook Pro will be available in Silver and Space Gray. Apple says it is “coming soon”, though there is no specific launch timeframe. Prices will start at Rs. 1,99,900. It will go on sale in the US this week starting at $2,399. The base model features a 2.6GHz six-core Intel Core i7 CPU, 512GB SSD, 16GB of 2666MHz DDR4 RAM, and AMD Radeon Pro 5300M GPU. Apple’s website no longer lists any 15-inch MacBook Pro models, but the 13-inch models remain.
Apple has also announced that the newly redesigned Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR will go on sale in the US in December. The new Mac Pro features Intel Xeon CPUs and a modular design, while the Pro Display offers a 6K resolution and 1,600nits of peak brightness. Pricing and availability for India have not yet been disclosed, but they will be priced starting at $5,999 and $4,999 respectively in the US.