In the Intel MacBook days, I always considered myself a “power user” in that I loved having the latest technology and I could almost always take advantage the extra processing power I paid for by buying the top shelf MacBook Pro.
In the Apple Silicon era this simply isn’t the case and it’s making my buying decision (between 14” MacBook Pro and 13.6” Air) difficult. I want the quality of life features from the real MacBook Pro, but its power is simply ridiculous for my needs. The new MacBook Air is more than enough. The ideal machine for me, and I’m sure a ton of users, would be the 14” MacBook Pro with Mini-LED and promotion (though I’m willing to sacrifice on the frame rate if it’s not doable without a M Pro/Max chip), usable ports, great speakers, huge battery and an M2 chip. With the M2 chip and the same sized battery, you could probably get a work week of battery life from this thing in dark mode.
I’m not sure what difference in manufacturing cost is between the m series and the pro/max series, but I imagine it could be quite significant given how much bigger the pro chips are and how much Apple charges to upgrade to non-binned version of these chips. Apple would pass some part of these savings onto consumers.
I’d love to see the Macbook Pros with the new design and quality of life improvements with these specs and approximate prices, which would put them more in line with what we used to pay for MacBook Pros in the Intel days.
14” M2/256/8gb $1499 (maybe this one needs an IPS display to make the price work)
14” M2/512/16gb $1799
16” M2/512gb/16gb $1999
16” M2/1TB/16gb $2199
Configurable in all the ways M2 is (24gb ram, up to 2TB)
Alternatively Apple could just keep the current new designed MacBook Pros the same but allow a downgrade to the M2 at $200 cheaper than the M1 Pro. With the same line of thinking, it would also be acceptable to let us pay more for a MiniLED promotion screen in the MacBook Air.
I get that this model would still be limited to one display but it could be plugged in through hdmi or Thunderbolt like on Mac Mini. If Apple can’t do 3 TB4 ports on the M2, the third could just be USB C.
What are your thoughts on this? I think it would be much better than what Apple is doing with the budget MacBook Pro now (where it’s a worse machine than the MacBook Air at the same price). Plus, Apple should have pro-sumer computers in this price range like they have for years.
Before Apple silicon, there was no reason to differentiate the sku of Intel chip you got in the machine from the quality of life you get from the display/speakers/ports. Now this customer segment definitely exists (and is probably bigger than the segment that can legitimately benefit from the pro/max chips). It should be possible to get the best content consumption experience available on a Mac without paying for a processor suited for a workstation computer.
In the Apple Silicon era this simply isn’t the case and it’s making my buying decision (between 14” MacBook Pro and 13.6” Air) difficult. I want the quality of life features from the real MacBook Pro, but its power is simply ridiculous for my needs. The new MacBook Air is more than enough. The ideal machine for me, and I’m sure a ton of users, would be the 14” MacBook Pro with Mini-LED and promotion (though I’m willing to sacrifice on the frame rate if it’s not doable without a M Pro/Max chip), usable ports, great speakers, huge battery and an M2 chip. With the M2 chip and the same sized battery, you could probably get a work week of battery life from this thing in dark mode.
I’m not sure what difference in manufacturing cost is between the m series and the pro/max series, but I imagine it could be quite significant given how much bigger the pro chips are and how much Apple charges to upgrade to non-binned version of these chips. Apple would pass some part of these savings onto consumers.
I’d love to see the Macbook Pros with the new design and quality of life improvements with these specs and approximate prices, which would put them more in line with what we used to pay for MacBook Pros in the Intel days.
14” M2/256/8gb $1499 (maybe this one needs an IPS display to make the price work)
14” M2/512/16gb $1799
16” M2/512gb/16gb $1999
16” M2/1TB/16gb $2199
Configurable in all the ways M2 is (24gb ram, up to 2TB)
Alternatively Apple could just keep the current new designed MacBook Pros the same but allow a downgrade to the M2 at $200 cheaper than the M1 Pro. With the same line of thinking, it would also be acceptable to let us pay more for a MiniLED promotion screen in the MacBook Air.
I get that this model would still be limited to one display but it could be plugged in through hdmi or Thunderbolt like on Mac Mini. If Apple can’t do 3 TB4 ports on the M2, the third could just be USB C.
What are your thoughts on this? I think it would be much better than what Apple is doing with the budget MacBook Pro now (where it’s a worse machine than the MacBook Air at the same price). Plus, Apple should have pro-sumer computers in this price range like they have for years.
Before Apple silicon, there was no reason to differentiate the sku of Intel chip you got in the machine from the quality of life you get from the display/speakers/ports. Now this customer segment definitely exists (and is probably bigger than the segment that can legitimately benefit from the pro/max chips). It should be possible to get the best content consumption experience available on a Mac without paying for a processor suited for a workstation computer.
Last edited:
