Apple’s big October event just wrapped and those snazzy new MacBook Pros are already available in the online Apple Store. While the two premium editions with the Touch Bar are available for pre-order on Thursday, they will not ship until November.
So what is new? The new MacBook Pro lineup features an across-the-board external and internal refresh, ditching the iconic MacBook Pro design in favor of something a little sleeker, a little more streamlined. All three new notebooks are missing the glowing plastic Apple logo, and instead feature a glossy, metal engraving on the back of the screen. It is a premium look at a premium price.
The entry-level MacBook Pro — without the Touch Bar — starts at $1,500, while the 13-inch with Touch Bar starts at $1,800, and the high-end 15-inch starts at $2,400. That is a pretty hefty price increase from the previous MacBook Pro options, which were $1,300 and $1,800, respectively.
All three are currently on the Apple Store, so their specs and features are all laid bare for your perusal. The 13-inch MacBook Pro, without the fancy Touch Bar, is meant to replace the 13-inch MacBook Air and is reportedly smaller, thinner, and lighter than it.
The internal hardware also received a refresh, with Apple rolling out sixth-generation Skylake processors to the entire lineup, along with some expanded internal storage and RAM offerings. All three can be upgraded up to suit your needs, but given their introductory prices, you might be thinking twice about adding a little extra RAM.
The three MacBook Pros share some common features, including a much bigger trackpad, which Apple claims is a new-and-improved version of the previous Force Touch trackpad, offering up a more responsive experience. The keyboard also got a refresh, with new butterfly switches for a better typing experience and a greater sense of key travel.
The entry-level 13-inch starts shipping on Thursday, while the other two will ship in about two to three weeks.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.