It has the exact same chassis, complete with a 13-inch LCD display, a 720p webcam, a Touch ID sensor, the infamous Touch Bar, two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, and a 3.5-mm headphone jack. Just about the only difference is the added support for high-impedance headphones in the audio jack, so you can get a bit more fidelity if you plug in nice cans.
The biggest upgrade isn’t visible to the naked eye: the M2 chip. A successor to the M1, the M2 comes with an 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU—two more than its predecessor, giving it a boost in graphics performance. Apple also increased its memory capacity to 24 gigabytes, up from 16. This will cost you an extra $400, but if you’re buying the 13-inch Pro, you may as well bump the RAM up to the max.
Here’s the thing. If you don’t upgrade the MacBook Pro, you can get similar performance with the upcoming MacBook Air for less money. (Plus all those perks, like a 1080p webcam and quad speakers.) If you max out the MacBook Pro’s RAM, it’ll cost $1,699. Spend $300 more and you can get the base 14-inch MacBook Pro plus all of its upgrades, like the richer variety of ports.
The M2 might sound like it’s better, but it’s a base-level chip next to the M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra powering the $2,000+ MacBook Pro models. It’s easy to be swayed by Apple’s stats, which boast that the M2 processor has a 35 percent more powerful GPU, 18 percent faster CPU, and 40 percent faster neural engine compared to the M1. But it’s not quite enough for most professionals, who require more computing power. (The M2, just like the M1, still only supports one external monitor, unlike the M1 Pro and up.)
The M2 performed well. Most of the time, I didn’t run into any hiccups. On busier days, when I had about 20 tabs open on Google Chrome and multiple apps running in the background simultaneously, it felt a bit sluggish; there was some lag when switching between tabs and windows, and I managed to trigger the dreaded rainbow wheel a few times.
I uploaded 4K Pro Res files shot on the iPhone 13 Pro to Final Cut Pro and edited one stream on the timeline. I applied a light color grade, along with a few other built-in effects and saw some stuttering throughout. I didn’t really alter the footage that much, but this MacBook Pro struggled with even the slightest of color adjustments (and the rainbow wheel made a few appearances).
Editing photos with apps like Pixelmator and Adobe Photoshop felt a lot smoother. The Mac stuttered here and there while I adjusted sliders, added slight bits of rotation, and made minor changes to color. But it still managed to power through a multitude of layers and effects to achieve the desired look—without the fans ever kicking in.
