Last October, Apple announced the M4 MacBook Pro.On the surface, it looks like yet another MacBook Pro spec bump.However, there are a number of key features that make it worth upgrading to, even if you already have an older 14″ MacBook Pro.
Why M4? There’s recently been a pretty big flip in MacBook Pro pricing, which gradually took place over the past year or so: First, Apple introduced a new entry-level MacBook Pro at $1599 in 2023 with baseline M3 Then, it upped the base memory to 16GB and removed some of the biggest compromises with M4 Those two events, in short, mean that you can now buy a MacBook Pro with 512GB of storage and 16GB of memory for $1599 directly from Apple, which previously started at $1999.Sure, you won’t be buying a Pro chip at that price.In my opinion though, all of the upsides outweigh that one loss.
Far better battery life Without having a Pro chip, you’re able to take a huge leap in battery life.Baseline Apple Silicon is a lot more power efficient.According to Apple’s website, the M1 Pro 14″ MacBook Pro can handle up to 11 hours of web browsing on a single charge.
With an M4 14″ MacBook Pro, you can get up to 16 hours.That’s a nearly 50% improvement – just in that one metric.Personally, I noticed around double the battery life between the two, mainly because power drain from background apps is reduced substantially.
M1 Pro only has two efficiency cores, versus the six of M4.Idle tasks aren’t going consume as much power with M4.It still blows my mind how large of a year over year leap there was in battery life.
I’m rarely recharging my MacBook Pro in the middle of the day now.Screen improvements While all 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pro models have miniLED displays, there’s a massive improvements with more recent models: standard brightness.With M1 Pro and M2 Pro 14″ MacBook Pro, Apple only offered up to 500 nits of standard non-HDR brightness.
M3 features up to 600.Now, with M4 MacBook Pro, you can utilize up to 1000 nits of standard brightness.That makes a huge difference for outdoor visibility.
With third-party apps like Vivid ($10 one time purchase if you’re interested), it was possible to unlock additional brightness on your older 14″ or 16″ MacBook Pro.After all, they all include mini-LED panels, which have the capability of going up to 1600 nits while consuming HDR content.These apps essentially allow you to tap into this HDR brightness, even while looking at standard content.
While third-party apps are a great solution, it’s just incredibly nice to have a high level of standard brightness.It goes a long way towards making my M4 MacBook Pro feel more like my M4 iPad Pro (which also offers 1000 nits of standard brightness).Improved webcam Apple toted new 1080p webcams with the 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pro in 2021.
While they were a decent upgrade over the previous 720p webcams, they were never particularly remarkable.With the M4 generation, Apple added the 12MP Center Stage camera to the MacBook Pro for the first time.This was a feature that initially debuted on the iPad, and later was introduced on the Studio Display.
Center Stage utilizes an ultra-wide camera.With its much wider field of view, you can fit much more into perspective.However, you can also enable face tracking, allowing your perspective to appear normal, whilst also tracking where you are in a room.
It’s pretty nifty, and makes MacBooks a far more viable device for FaceTime, something I previously reserved for my iPad.It also enables Desk View, which does exactly what it says on the tin.Not to mention the fact that these cameras are also higher resolution.
Performance You might think that going from an M1 Pro chip to an M4 chip would yield a performance downgrade.If your workflow is extremely reliant on GPU performance, this might not be the upgrade for you.If you don’t fall into that bucket though, M1 Pro to M4 is a net win, mainly because theres three years of performance leaps that really close the gap between a pro chip and a baseline chip.
In Geekbench 6, M1 Pro scores around 2386 in single-core performance and around 12344 in multi-core performance.M4? That scores around 3750 in single-core performance and 14704 in multi-core performance.That’s a 57% leap in single core and a 19% leap in multi-core performance, despite being a “lower-end” chip.
M4, while being 19% faster in multi-core, also takes a huge leap in neural engine performance, all at a fraction of the power draw.With Apple investing more and more in AI, having a newer chipset might pay off.Anecdotally, M4 will also kick up the fans less regularly, and won’t feel as warm on your lap.
Wrap up It may seem boring to upgrade between two MacBooks in the same design generation.However, despite looking the same, these two computers feel remarkably different.With tariffs around the corner, and Apple price hikes being imminent, it might not be the best idea to wait around for future MacBook releases.
There are some great deals right now, and we may not see these prices again for quite some time.Best 14-inch MacBook Pro deals: M4 (512GB/16GB) – $1429 on Amazon M4 (1TB/16GB) – $1619 on Amazon M4 Pro (512GB/24GB) – $1789 on Amazon M4 Pro (1TB/24GB) – $2199 on Amazon Best 16-inch MacBook Pro deals: M4 Pro (512GB/24GB) – $2249 on Amazon M4 Pro (512GB/48GB) – $2591 on Amazon M4 Max (1TB/36GB) – $3149 on Amazon M4 Max (1TB/48GB) – $3599 on Amazon Macs, particularly the higher configuration models, are more likely to receive imminent price hikes.Apple tends to keep low supply of those on-hand as they’re less popular.
If you think you need a new Mac, you should probably buy it as soon as possible.You can also check out the best MacBook Air deals before tariffs in our MacBook deals roundup.Some key countries in Apple’s supply chain, including Vietnam and India, are trying to negotiate tariffs with the Trump administration.
China, however, is not one of them.Mac supply chain is heavily reliant on China.My favorite Apple accessories on Amazon: Anker 25K Compact Power Bank with retractable cable MOFT Magnetic Wallet Stand, fits up to 3 cards AirTag 4-pack (on sale for 30% off!) Anker MagSafe 2-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand with Qi2 AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C) SanDisk Extreme 2TB USB-C SSD, up to 1050MB/s You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day.
Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop.Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel
