Apple’s big announcement day brought new 14” and 16” MacBook Pro notebooks powered by the new M3 chips. The entry-level is now a 14” device with the vanilla M3 chip and no Touch Bar - it is the natural successor of the 13” M1 MacBook Pro, but bigger and more expensive. The new chips are the big improvement on the inside, while on the outside, these laptops (only the M3 Pro and M3 Max options) now have a Space Black option - darker, compared to the Space Gray, and Apple claimed the new color is less of a fingerprint magnet.
Apple said the 16” MacBook Pro with M3 Pro
silicon should go for 22 hours on a single charge. The 14” versions come with
smaller batteries, so this result would be lower, while the M3 Max variants
will also cut into battery life, but we were given no specific number.
The 14” M3 MacBook Pro is the biggest
improvement over its predecessor. It gets rid of the thick bezels that were on
the 13” MacBook and go for a notch. It joins the family of bigger laptops with
the Liquid Retina XDR display too. The I/O on the new MacBook Pro laptops is
pretty much like the M2 counterparts - three Thunderbolt 14 ports, an HDMI
port, an SD card reader, and a MagSafe connector for charging. The screens are
said to reach 600 nits of brightness, which should be 20% more than before.
The base 14” M3 MacBook Pro starts from US$
1,599 with 8 GB Unified Storage and 512 GB storage, while going for the 1 TB
option would be US$ 200 more. The 14” MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro chip is
starting from US$ 1,999 with 18 GB Unified Storage and 512 GB storage, but
there is also an option with 1 TB and 96W USB-C Power adapter for US$ 2,399.
The top tier sports the M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Storage, 1 TB storage version and
costs US$ 3,199.
The 16” MacBook Pro has a starting price
of US$ 2,499 for M3 Pro, 18 GB Unified Storage, 512 GB storage and 140W USB-C
power adapter; the 36 GB Unified Storage version is US$ 2,899. There are also
two options with M3 Max - US$ 3,499 for the 36 GB variant and US$ 3,999 with 48
GB Unified Storage. The M3 and M3 Pro options will start shipping in seven days
- November 7. The M3 Max variants will arrive later, but Apple did not specify
when exactly. All variants are up for pre-order at Apple’s website.
