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The New MacBook Pro 14 M3 MAX Black is darker than it looked in reviews…

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kryptticAZ said:
For those of you who bought a black one, do you see three small circles and two larger squares on the speaker grills that are slightly darker?

The circles are only on the left grill, but the squares are on both sides.
Click to expand...
Not seeing that on mine although I am not in office type lighting. I used my phone flashlight to look. I gotta say I am not a fan of the speaker grills after being used to the M2 MBA design. I will have to get used to it. Easy for tiny stuff to get stuck (hope I am wrong).
 
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kryptticAZ said:
For those of you who bought a black one, do you see three small circles and two larger squares on the speaker grills that are slightly darker?

The circles are only on the left grill, but the squares are on both sides.
Click to expand...
I saw the circles on the left grill today and decided to ignore them. That was in daylight. I can't see them now even in bright indoor lighting. I didn't notice any squares. I'll look again tomorrow in daylight.
 
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No circles on my 14" mbp max speaker side. As soon as i got it, i had a transparent case cover and keyboard cover on it right off the box. It gives it a translucent look. So far its great.
 
bevsb2 said:
I saw the circles on the left grill today and decided to ignore them. That was in daylight. I can't see them now even in bright indoor lighting. I didn't notice any squares. I'll look again tomorrow in daylight.
Click to expand...
I can only see it under certain lighting now. I can also see it on my Space Gray M2, but it's less noticeable because of the color.
 
Has more gray tones. Does not look deep black

IMG_5077.JPG
 
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yes, its clearly a dark grey ...midnight blue macbook air is clearly a darker colour but also more fingerprints
 
kryptticAZ said:
For those of you who bought a black one, do you see three small circles and two larger squares on the speaker grills that are slightly darker?

The circles are only on the left grill, but the squares are on both sides.
Click to expand...
Yep I see them as well
 
I picked up my MBP 16” yesterday and I was surprised with how black it is as I do agree that in the first hands in videos and pictures it didn’t look so dark.
I also checked out in store the MBA Midnight (I had never seen that colour live lol) and now comparing it with the MBP Space Black, man the Space Black is so much nicer, you can actually feel the aluminium instead of a paint coating.
I am used to using a Silver MacBook so I was curious to see how visible would smudges be but I haven’t noticed any fingerprints or smudges on my machine after a couple of hours using it.
 
In some of the YouTube reviews it looks like space grey, until they put it next to an actual space grey one and it looks way darker. It also looks very reactive to the lighting conditions which explains why some of the videos make it look very black.
 
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I'm actually seeing some brown tones rather than grey in these photos. I think it looks very nice, but went for silver as I really don't like fingerprints and less risk of wear around the USB ports.
 
ProfessionalFan said:
It is SO black, I am actually stunned.
Click to expand...

It is a beautiful color don't get me wrong... But to me in person it looks more like a darker gray than it does black. Not sure why Apple would call it "Space Black" which to me would denote a really dark black shade. When in reality its a really dark Gray shade.
 
Went to the Apple Store yesterday to take a look at the new Space Black color. While it's definitely more of a dark gray than a true black, it was also much darker than it appeared in some of the YouTube videos from Apple's "Scary Fast" event. The fingerprint resistance is also very noticeable compared to the MacBook Air in Midnight. It's very attractive!

While I really like the new color, it's a bit disappointing that Space Gray is no longer an option in the M3 Pro and M3 Max chip configurations. Seeing the various M3 MacBook Pro's side by side in Space Black, Space Gray and Silver, it would have been nice to see Apple offer all three color options in all of the M3-series chip configurations.
 
The Upper West Side Apple Store must have really unnatural lighting. It makes the Space Gray MBP look slightly blue (shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max).The lack of differentiation between keyboard and case color comes across as really drab.

I thought I'd be switching to this color because I've grown tired of my MBP's Space Gray, but now I'm thinking I'll go in the opposite direction and get Silver next time.

tempImage351fH8.png
IMG_0130 copy.jpeg
 
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Thanks for the photos all. It's a shame and predictable that apple would limit the space black to the upper trims like a greedy, cheap... never mind.
 
prospervic said:
The Upper West Side Apple Store must have really unnatural lighting. It makes the Space Gray MBP look slightly blue (shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max).The lack of differentiation between keyboard and case color comes across as really drab.

I thought I'd be switching to this color because I've grown tired of my MBP's Space Gray, but now I'm thinking I'll go in the opposite direction and get Silver next time.

View attachment 2309372View attachment 2309370
Click to expand...
I guess in really cool lighting it gives it a midnight blue hue. When I put my 15Pro Blue Ti next to my screen of this pic, they look almost identical 🙂
 
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