Speaking of Studio Displays, Apple has introduced a nano-textured glass option. This reduces glare and is useful if you often work near windows or outdoors. As always, this is an add-on upgrade, so it costs an additional $150 and is available in all configurations.
The base MacBook Pro has three USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 (one more than the M3 version), HDMI, an SD card slot, a high-impedance headphone jack, and a MagSafe charging port. You can choose between space black and silver. Selecting versions with the M4 Pro and M4 Max chipsets offer three USB-C Thunderbolt 5 ports for faster data transfer speeds along with the same other connectivity options.
If you don’t need a super powerful chip, you can pair the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an entry-level M4 and 16GB of unified memory. However, this option does not exist on the 16-inch MacBook Pro. Must get with M4 Pro or M4 Max.
Photo: Apple
So what’s the difference between M4 Pro and M4 Max? M4 Pro can be upgraded to a 14-core CPU and up to 20-core GPU. The most powerful option is the M4 Max with a 16-core CPU and up to 40-core GPU. These chips are built on a second-generation 3-nanometer process that packs more transistors into a smaller space for increased efficiency and speed. M4 Pro and M4 Max enable features such as mesh shading and ray tracing. Apple says the ray tracing engine is twice as fast as the M3 chip.
