Apple announces new ‘game-changing’ MacBook Pro lineup with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips: Features and India price

Since the theme of the event was “Music and the Mac”, the focus remained on creative aspects of the Apple announcements.

Apple MacBook Pro 2021 lineup: The biggest highlight of Apple’s ‘Unleashed’ Event 2021 was the announcement of the new MacBook Pro lineup. Last year, the tech giant unveiled its first laptops running on its in-house M1 chips, making a major move away from Intel. The laptops were well received, with most praising the increased performance of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Naturally, this led to people anticipating the next lineup to see how Apple would outdo itself. And boy, does it have. During the Unleashed event 2021, Apple announced not just a new MacBook Pro lineup, but two new chips to enhance its M1 family.

Cupertino introduced M1 Pro and M1 Max chips to enhance the performance of its next laptops. Apple is claiming these to be the most powerful chips it has ever built, and they have been built on the M1 architecture.

Also read | Apple ‘Unleashed’ Event 2021: AirPods (3rd gen), new Apple Music plan and more; What’s new in Apple’s music offerings?

“The CPU in M1 Pro and M1 Max delivers up to 70 percent faster CPU performance than M1, so tasks like compiling projects in Xcode are faster than ever. The GPU in M1 Pro is up to 2x faster than M1, while M1 Max is up to an astonishing 4x faster than M1, allowing pro users to fly through the most demanding graphics workflows,” the company said in a statement.

Apple has said that these chips ensure better performance and more efficiency, with an “industry-leading performance per watt”. They also have increased memory and bandwidth. “M1 Pro offers up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth with support for up to 32GB of unified memory. M1 Max delivers up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth — 2x that of M1 Pro and nearly 6x that of M1 — and support for up to 64GB of unified memory,” Apple said.

The chips also have enhanced media engines, having dedicated ProRes accelerators especially for pro video processing.

Since the theme of the event was “Music and the Mac”, the focus remained on creative aspects of the Apple announcements. Hence, the new chips were positioned by Cupertino to be a high-end offering for graphic designers and videographers.

The new MacBook Pro

But coming to what everyone has been waiting for. Cupertino announced the all-new MacBook Pro in two variants – 14-inch model and 16-inch model. The company said that the new MacBook Pro was capable of providing high levels of processing, graphics and machine learning, regardless of whether it was plugged in or running on battery. They have also been equipped with Liquid Retina XDR display and a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, a whole range of ports. The laptop has been equipped with three Thunderbolt 4 ports, one HDMI port, one SD card slot, a headphone jack and also a MagSafe port, which is making its return to the laptop.

“MacBook Pro is designed for developers, photographers, filmmakers, 3D artists, scientists, music producers, and anyone who wants the world’s best notebook,” Apple said while enlisting its target audience.

As per Apple, the MacBook Pro also has the best ever audio capabilities in a Mac, with studio-quality mics and a high-fidelity six-speaker sound system. The sound system includes two tweeters to provide clearer soundstage, along with four force-cancelling woofers. The sound system also supports spatial audio for a theatre-like experience, the company said.

The new MacBook Pro models having M1 Pro and M1 Max chips are available for order on Apple Online store, and will also be available from Tuesday in select offline Apple Stores. The laptops are available in space grey and white colours. The 14-inch MacBook Pro model has been priced starting Rs 1,94,900, and at Rs 1,75,410 for education. Meanwhile, the 16-inch MacBook Pro model has been priced starting at Rs 2,39,900 and Rs 2,15,910 for education.