Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The M2 MBP makes absolutely no sense
- Thread starter rm5
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Nope. New M2 Air is being given the 13.6" 'liquid retina' display. So better screen than M2 13" Pro, also larger, with wider colour gamut, with a 1080p video camera vs M2 13" Pro's 720p camera.
EDIT: also probably better speakers (assuming the M2 Air's speakers are at least as good at the M1 Air's)
Last edited:
“Liquid Retina” is marketing mumbo jumbo, it doesn’t tell you much. The Pro already has wide colour gamut so that’s nothing new. I’m more interested in the black levels of the new Air screen and it’s colour accuracy more than anything else, and this is where the Pro might be better.
Well it could be. But with the Air basically having a newer generation of screen, one billion colours and higher brightness (500 nits) compared to the older screen on the M2 13" MBP (p3 16.7 million colours, 400 nits), I expect it to have the better screen.
You can be sure the usual YouTube comparison channels will be giving you their opinion as soon as both models become available, and of course you will be able to check for yourself should you visit an Apple store or retailer.
Never before has it been more fair to compare the MBA to the 13" MBP now they're within a few groats of being fundamentally the same price in most territories outside of North America. I guess it's good they give us a choice of how to spend basically the same money.
Even though it remains a very good notebook, the MacBook Pro 13" still appears to be somehow outdated when compared to the others Apple devices: a less good display, a poor connectivity, an outdated camera... and still this useless TouchBar. More importantly: it is a relic of Jony Ive's era. Fortunately, Apple has (finally) decided to move forward and pay more attention to its customers by adopting a more pragmatic approach (notably with the MacBook Pro 2021). Sure, the design is important, but not as much as having a complete connectivity. So in my opinion, this is only a matter of months before Apple decides to stop producing the MacBook Pro 13".
There's only two reasons that I can see why the M2 MBP exists:
- To sell to companies (and maybe freelancer individuals) who need laptops that can do light photo/video editing. basically situations where the 14 inch MBP is too expensive and where the MBA will overheat. The video encode / decode engine on the M2 makes this is a great video editing workhorse.
- The Touch Bar is mystifying and I can only guess that Apple has loads of these components that they need to get rid of. Moving to MBP 2016 NTB redesign chassis would make more sense in a world where the TB is essentially dead.
- To sell to companies (and maybe freelancer individuals) who need laptops that can do light photo/video editing. basically situations where the 14 inch MBP is too expensive and where the MBA will overheat. The video encode / decode engine on the M2 makes this is a great video editing workhorse.
- The Touch Bar is mystifying and I can only guess that Apple has loads of these components that they need to get rid of. Moving to MBP 2016 NTB redesign chassis would make more sense in a world where the TB is essentially dead.
In my opinion it was useless, yes. It was funny to use at first (to adjust the sound, choose emojis...), but if Apple decided to get rid of it, they certainly had a good reason to do so. Turns out that it was the right choice: not so many users - including myself - seem to regret the TouchBar.
Not enough to make Apple keeps it on its notebooks. The overwhelming majority of the reviews on the MacBook Pro 2021 praised the new keyboard without TouchBar. I also liked the TouchBar at first, but in the end I'm personally more happy with a "real" keyboard.
Here in MR the sentiment was anti-TouchBar. So gathering data from this place isn't not an accurate picture.
In real life more MacBooks are sold without the touchbar than with. I don’t know by what magnitude because apple doesn’t publicly publish sales figures. But they told us the MBA sells more units. Then on top of that are the 14 and 16 sales.
I’m not making a deal of it because your preference is your preference. No one can take that away from you. But if apple’s research told them people preferred the Touch Bar, it would still be fitted to at least the MBA, probably to the other models too.
Except that I wasn't talking about MacRumors. Just take a look at the multiple reviews on Youtube (and other websites). Most people (and Apple) simply lost interest in the Touch Bar and I think it will never be implemented again.
True. It is important to mention that the TouchBar was a nice experiment which ended up being a cool thing, but not necessary. Developers either hated or loved it. It is that polarizing.
Exactly! It was an experiment; people had never seen that before and Apple made it. I would even say that Apple created it out of vanity, to show people what they are able to do.
Yet, the TouchBar does have it's uses as for instance several apps have now coded for it has support it. It has provided me some alternate access to some features.
Actually they just released a model with the Touch Bar.Not enough to make Apple keeps it on its notebooks. The overwhelming majority of the reviews on the MacBook Pro 2021 praised the new keyboard without TouchBar. I also liked the TouchBar at first, but in the end I'm personally more happy with a "real" keyboard.
They released nothing, they just kept the MacBook Pro 13" a bit longer (like they did with the MacBook Air M1) with a new chip but you can be sure that this model will be gone by 2023.
I'm just pragmatic. The MacBook Pro 13" just doesn't make any sense in the store next to the brand new MacBook Air M2 and MacBook Pro 2021. And that's precisely why this topic has been created; I can see that most people think exactly the same thing.
I disagree!!!! This is a small sampling of the world at large most of which are not on macrumurs but rather FB.
Well even if you are correct I won’t upgrade my intel model for another 3 years or so as part of my cycle. This model is the perfect upgrade if I had the funds today I would do it.
Leaked M2 Geekbench scores from today’s article:
Higher single-core score than M1 Pro (1919 vs. 1760) and the multi-core score (8928) is closer to the binned 8/14 core M1 Pro chip (9900).
The M2 MBP will take full advantage of the improved performance. Others are suggesting the M2 MBA will throttle a bit more often than M1 due to increased power consumption.
Even though I would liked an 15 Air to replace it, I realized that the M2 MBP still serves a purpose in the lineup especially with all of the supply chain shortages going on. A custom made 14-inch (heck even the base model in my area) won’t arrive until the middle of August which is a damn long wait. Whereas you can max out the M2 MBP and possibly have it arrive much earlier.
Higher single-core score than M1 Pro (1919 vs. 1760) and the multi-core score (8928) is closer to the binned 8/14 core M1 Pro chip (9900).
The M2 MBP will take full advantage of the improved performance. Others are suggesting the M2 MBA will throttle a bit more often than M1 due to increased power consumption.
Even though I would liked an 15 Air to replace it, I realized that the M2 MBP still serves a purpose in the lineup especially with all of the supply chain shortages going on. A custom made 14-inch (heck even the base model in my area) won’t arrive until the middle of August which is a damn long wait. Whereas you can max out the M2 MBP and possibly have it arrive much earlier.