Here I would like to write something like “the new MacBook Pro has already arrived in Russia.” But by the will of amazing events, they were in Russia long before the official announcement.
However, now they can be bought in Moscow. We took this one for testing in an advanced custom configuration: M4 Pro, 48 GB of memory, 20 video cores and 2 TB of storage. New color, Space Black. There is also a nanotexture.
We share the unboxing and first impressions, as well as several tests.
Briefly:
A few unboxing photos
New color Space Black instead of Space Gray, not for everyone
Nanotexture. Cool, but for everyone
How much did the screen brightness increase?
What’s with the parrots, that is, with productivity?
Does it get very hot and noisy?
While we continue to test
A few unboxing photos
What’s included in the kit is completely ordinary, is that it comes with a black MagSafe cable. The power supply is still white, no one is surprised.
Since we unboxed the nanotexture model, the insert included the classic Apple wipe and an explanation of how to use it. You will have to use it with the screen often, this has been tested for yourself after several years of owning an iMac with a nanotexture.
Otherwise everything is as before. And yes, the wallpaper on the new MacBook Pro hasn’t really changed. He who knows will understand.
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New color Space Black instead of Space Gray, not for everyone
If you fill the Space Black body with light from the heart, it becomes greyish. In other cases, it will be blue and black, almost a “stealth” coloring.
The Space Black color made its debut on the MacBook Air. He has both fans and prominent opponents. A couple of years later, the “pros” also disowned the Space Gray colorway. From now on, you can choose either a blue-black MacBook or a classic silver one. The old “space gray” simply disappeared from the strip.
What do I want to say about Cosmic Black? I’m not pretending to be unobjective anymore, but personally I categorically don’t like this color.
The Space Black color emphasizes the thickness of the MacBook Pro.
MacBook Air in the form of an ultrabook from some completely different company, an inconvenience from Apple. The MacBook Pro in a modern body that is not ashamed of its (visual) thickness increases, while looking like something “office” from the world of the old Windows laptops. Compared to my 16-inch Pro in Silver, the second one looks thinner and neater.
Moreover, the main problem of Space Black is still relevant. This is not just a fingerprint magnet, Apple’s endless fingerprinting. Even if you have squeaky clean hands, you won’t be able to pick up the Pro in this color without leaving marks on both your palm and every finger. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to completely erase them; you need to rub and rub with microfiber several times, and then deal with the large stain in this place. What can I say if even a drop of clean liquid represents stains that are difficult to erase…
It is clear that fans of the all-black and stern creature will not be convinced. But personally I don’t like this. Thank you for keeping the classics in the lineup, Silver.
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Nanotexture. Cool, but for everyone
On the left is a MacBook Pro without nanotextures, on the right is with legs. On the new product, there was almost no reflection of the light bulb directly above the laptop.
We already have a lot of problems with nanotexture in both the iMac and iPad Pro. All the pros and cons are relevant after a few years.
Obviously, nanotexture in a MacBook is much more relevant than in a stationary iMac or the same iPad. This device is more often used outdoors than a candy bar or tablet. The efficiency of reflection scattering is covered by this. Even powerful spotlights and reflections of solar lamps cover the nanotexture either completely or more than 80%, leaving only dim ones, which further outlines.
The legendary Apple wipe is included, and it will become your companion if you buy a model with nanotexture.
This is very cool, but there are four downsides to keep in mind. Disadvantages if there is one more MacBook:
▪ black color will be gray if any light falls on the screen
▪ color saturation decreases as reflections diffuse
▪ microscopic “sand” will be barely visible in the image
▪ there is a risk that button prints will also become more noticeable.
As a Mac user with nanotexture, I recommend that you think twice before using this option.
It’s sad, but after many years, the problem of fingerprints on the outlines of buttons on MacBook displays has not gone away. In some people it was discovered after a couple of years, in others earlier. I saw a MacBook Pro on M3 with such a “jamb”. Since the nanotexture appears on the surface of a regular glass display, it is more likely to start making contact with laptop keyboards earlier than on a screen without it.
Time will tell if I’m right about this point. The other three are simply facts that should be taken into account when planning to purchase a new MacBook Pro.
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How much did the screen brightness increase?
Under normal conditions, the difference between the screens is minimal. On the left is a MacBook Pro on an M1 Max, on the right is a MacBook Pro on an M4 Pro.
The new generation of MacBook Pro has finally introduced the requirement to increase the screen resolution. Now the maximum is 1000 nits, almost twice the usual 600 nits. Many wondered if it would be possible to use such brightness always, and not just with super-bright lighting around.
As it became clear to us very quickly, the new low brightness in the system cannot be turned on manually. To see it, you first need to turn on auto-brightness in Settings (it is by default). The light in the room, even if there was a lot of it, was not enough to activate the increased threshold of the upper floor. My average brightness in the hall is from 600 to 800 lux at table level, that is, up to one and a half times more than normal. Even these indicators were not enough for the feature to work.
You need to be outside, on a sunny day, and not in the shade. Or for you to shine a flashlight into the laptop camera. 1000 nits in such a situation instantly. The difference with previous generations of MacBook Pro is colossal.
1000 nits in action. Wow difference!
All 1000 nits make the image simply, sorry, “eye-popping”, with saturated colors, as if they were about to jump out of the screen. I’m sure that with sunlight this bright, you’ll actually be able to see more on the display than before. Even if you don’t take the Pro version with a nano-texture display.
The brightness is so high that some fine details on the screen in the room become difficult. But such a case is not provided out of the box, so there is no point in complaining.
I am also sure that this super brightness can be turned on manually through an external application for controlling the MacBook headphones.
Personally, I always miss just a couple of “divisions” on my M1 MacBook Pro when editing photos or videos. Therefore, we hope that later Apple will nevertheless raise the maximum brightness threshold for the screens of the new MacBook Pro under normal conditions. Moreover, in a decent part of the globe there is no bright sunlight for six months, and in winter no one in adequate condition will work on a MacBook for several hundred thousand rubles on the street.
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What’s with the parrots, that is, with productivity?
LM Studio and, in general, the deployment of LLM networks to the new Mac is a very adequate scenario using powerful Apple chips.
Every year, interest in synthetic tests of Apple processors is steadily declining. Even without them, we know very well how powerful chips are made in Cupertino. However, we still ran some basic tests.
▪ Geekbench 6, processor: 3899 (single core), 22731 (all cores)
▪ Geekbench 6, video chip: 69851 (OpenCL), 109590 (Metal)
▪ 3DMark, Wild Life Extreme: 19375 points.
▪ 3DMark, Solar Bay: 30698 points.
▪ Disk read/write speed (2 TB): 6590/5350 MB/sec.
The cumulative difference in CPU performance compared to my M1 Max (10 CPU cores, 32 GPU cores) is 1.5 to 1.9 times (2364/12167) when using the M4 Pro.
32 video cores are already theoretically the “old” M1 Max anyway Sometimes outperform the 20 video cores of the new M4 Pro in some graphics tasks, with the exception of 3D graphics with ray tracing. The comparison is completely unfair, I agree, but I haven’t tested the M4 Max yet. By the way, LLM models on the M1 Max with 32 video cores also work faster than on the M4 Pro with 20 video cores: in LLMStudio on the quantized model (8.5 GB) I get an average of 35 tokens/sec, whereas on the new firmware “I haven’t seen more than 27 tokens/sec.
I am focusing on this still completely unequal analysis of two different laptops only because on the secondary market in Russia the cost of a MacBook Pro with M1 Max in configuration 10/32/1024 is about 180 thousand rubles or less. For this money, it will be impossible to buy a MacBook Pro on an M4 Pro here for at least four months. And the M4 Max won’t drop below 200 until next fall. So if video performance on a MacBook is important to you, the advanced M1 Max models still don’t compare in terms of emissions/price ratio.
But in terms of processor, the difference in using the new product is small, and if you, for example, are an application developer or an Excel spreadsheet monster, then the M4 Pro will suit you much better than the old M1 Max.
Processor power is more important to most Mac users than GPU performance. And what is theoretically more “basic”, but three years later is cutting circles around the M1 Max, Apple is making excellent progress in developing chips.
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Does it get very hot and noisy?
Spoiler: no.
To hear the cooler of the MacBook Pro with M4 Pro, I had to turn it on manually.
Whatever task I give it, if it fits within my workload (Photoshop with 10 RAW files of 20 MB each; 20 tabs in Chrome, including playing 4K 60 FPS HDR video; LMStudio with Llama 3B deployed, Apple Music, Telegram, RDP client, text editor), active cooling did not shine at all, the temperature only occasionally exceeded 43 degrees.
When 14 processes were launched, it was pointless and the team’s heavy load yes > /dev/null & In the terminal, the chip temperature rose after 10 minutes and was fixed at 78 degrees. With the computer, this visual did not “slow down”, the case just warmed up and the coolers started working. This is a rather delusional load level, unrealistic. In a normal situation, the new firmware turned out to be a silent, surprisingly cold laptop.
I really wanted to get away Xcode testto give some really useful information here for software developers. But, alas, Xcode decided to download and install on a new Mac for more than 5 hours, which does not depend on the computer, just classic Xcode. Later in the review we will provide numbers for this test.
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While we continue to test
MacBook is a multifaceted and very multifunctional thing. It will take time to express more detailed opinions and conclusions. For example, it is still difficult to understand how things are going with constant battery life and heating in different tasks and scenarios. In the first 24 hours after launch, macOS optimizes the system and downloads user files from the clouds, so the device’s performance cannot yet be assessed objectively.
While we’re testing it and other new Mac models on the M4, ask in the commentswhat do you want to know about him. Maybe you need to test the use of a specific key? Deploy an LLM neural network and see how fast it works? Do you want to know something more down-to-earth? Ask, and we will answer here or in our reviews in the near future.
Personally, I have made one conclusion so far: Space Black is definitely not for me, and if I buy the firmware for the M4, it will only be in the Silver case.
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PS Where did we get the new MacBook?
Thanks to Tesla Connect for the opportunity to be one of the first to test the new MacBook Pro M4.
They transport not only Tesla electric vehicles, including Cybertruck, but also new top-end Apple equipment. By the way, you can buy or order anything from them custom Mac configuration
🗺 Geotagging in Yandex Maps: Moscow, st. Vasilisa Kozhina, 1 13
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📸 All photos in the article:
Source: Iphones RU
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
