How Pro Is The New MacBook Pro? This Is Where Apple Cut Corners

By Manik Berry

Apple has finally unveiled the successors of the M1 chip as well as the MacBook Pro 16. This time, the company has gone with two different chip configurations and two different sizes. The M1 Pro and the M1 Max chips are available on the 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Apple has been experimenting and learning with Pro models. While it is a pretty expensive learning curve, Apple is finally getting the hang of it. Based on the feedback from previous generations, Apple removed the Touch Bar and put back the function keys, brought back the MagSafe connector, and gave the MacBook Pro more ports.

However, this time, Apple decided to quirk things up by adding a notch to the display. As if a notch on the iPhone was not bad enough, you have one on the Mac. However, it isn’t going to be as intrusive as that of the iPhone because it’ll usually be covered with black bars or sit flush with the top menu bar of macOS Monterey.

This is where Apple has cut the first corner. Despite a notch, and a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, there’s no Face ID on the new MacBook Pro. With the MacBook Pro heavily borrowing display tech from the iPad Pro, the exclusion of Face ID doesn’t make sense.

Another place where Apple did major cost-cutting, robbing the MacBook Pro of a truly pro external display connector is the HDMI port. While it has Thunderbolt ports for displays too, but the full-size HDMI port on the MacBook Pro is HDMI 2.0 instead of the 2.1. The difference is that the 2.0 can support a 4K display at 60Hz, but HDMI 2.1 can handle an 8K display.

Going further, you’ll find that the new MacBook Pro is still running Bluetooth 5 when Bluetooth 5.2 has been around for a while and Bluetooth 5.3 is also there now. So in a nutshell, Apple has cut corners in terms of connectivity, limiting the notebook’s capabilities.

The next point again has to do with the display. The MacBook Pro gets a similar mini LED display to that of the iPad. No doubt it is bright, sharp, and responsive, but it is still not OLED. We’re also yet to see if Apple has found a way around the display blooming seen on the iPad Pro 13.

Apple seems to have got it pretty tight with better thermal management, more RAM, faster storage, and more connectivity options for the rest of the package. The MacBook Pro 14 and 16 are Pros in terms of I/O. It would’ve been a better package if Apple were to offer Face ID and OLED even as an optional add-on. However, the notch has made its way to the notebook, so we expect Face ID to follow in the future.

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