Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 is now available to order

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 SoC is seemingly arriving ahead of schedule. he new machine, along with the company's redesigned MacBook Air, broke cover during the WWDC keynote earlier this month. Apple at the time said both laptops were on track to ship in July but that no longer appears to be the case.

Apple is now accepting orders for the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2. It, along with the new Air, have been featured in Apple's online store since the reveal but weren't available to actually buy.

The new MacBook Pro starts at $1,299 and includes an M2 with an eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU, 8GB of unified memory and 256GB of SSD storage. It's being offered in your choice of silver or space gray and will ship early on June 23.

Apple's new MacBook Air with M2 remains unavailable to order as of this writing but that could change at any moment. Pricing on that system starts at $1,199 which gets you a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, an eight-core CPU, an eight-core GPU, 8GB of memory and a 256GB SSD.

Benchmark results from the new M2-powered Macs leaked out earlier this week. The Geekbench 5 runs highlighted modest improvements on the CPU side (11 percent faster in the single-threaded test and 18 percent better on the multi-threaded test) compared to the M1. Things were more impressive on the GPU side but this was likely a result of the two additional GPU cores featured in some M2 variants.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/94991-apple-new-13-inch-macbook-pro-m2-now.html

 

[VitalyT]

Funny, the Macbook Air in top spec is about 20 euro more expensive than Macbook Pro 13". That's a first. The consensus online, the Macbook Air is better a purchase, as it features all the same guts, whilst lighter, minus fans and the stupid touch bar.

* Air price top spec in Europe
* Pro price top spec in Europe

 

[Lew Zealand]

That's weird, in the US the prices come out to be the same at $2499. If I understand correctly, the 13" MacBook Pro has a fan and the Air doesn't so for longer CPU-intensive jobs, the Air could hit thermal throttle earlier while the Pro will much later if at all.

 

[VitalyT]

That's weird, in the US the prices come out to be the same at $2499.

True, Europeans always gets screwed in every way possible, paying $671 more than it costs in the US (for Macbook Air top spec)

 

[YouShallNotPass]

How could Apple still put out MacBook with just 8GB of memory in 2022.

 

[RedBlu]

How could Apple still put out MacBook with just 8GB of memory in 2022.

AND 256 GB of storage.

What a farce.

 

[kiwigraeme]

How could Apple still put out MacBook with just 8GB of memory in 2022.

I haven't look at it - but I'm sure they do the std marketing ploy
Crappy one to make entry price seem ok
Super duper one - crazy priced to pick up whales and kraken
Then some still expensive but fair chunk cheaper - on that's the one do get . When it's still really expensive for upgrade of memory and SSD
Really like phones most people only need a $200 to $400 phone
Same Laptop most only need a $400 to $800 laptop - to browse media , techspot and facebook and Wordle

 

[VitalyT]

How could Apple still put out MacBook with just 8GB of memory in 2022.

With the new ARM architecture, and relying on all native optimized code, such a machine needs about the same RAM as a premium phone these days, in order to work well. Note that with the basic setup, those machines are even priced under iPhone Pro Max (which has 6GB).

 

[Dimitriid]

Apple's new MacBook Air with M2 remains unavailable to order as of this writing but that could change at any moment.

I guess this confirms that Apple knows the Air M2 is a much more compelling product than the Pro M2 and don't have enough confidence their feature ladder will work as intended in this case.

 

[Dimitriid]

With the new ARM architecture, and relying on all native optimized code, such a machine needs about the same RAM as a premium phone these days, in order to work well. Note that with the basic setup, those machines are even priced under iPhone Pro Max (which has 6GB).

That case gets made often but:

1) The reason why these M1/2 products haven't taken over more x86 market share even though they're supposed to be more efficient, simpler and more powerful all at the same time is simply because Apple relies on optimized native code. Meaning it's a tremendous barrier of entry for anyone looking to write software for them for a still comparatively tiny market share. Rosetta 2 was supposed to help mitigate the transition but now that we should consider that transition if not done on the last phase at least, there's no compelling reason to most people developing x86 software to create almost completely new code for a company that has very little market share for PCs and will take 30% of your sales anyway.

2) It still doesn't explain the even more woefully inadequate storage options at just 256gb to start with: This is the kind of storage you see on entry level Windows laptops the ones you find at Walmart for 400 to 500 USD during sales. Sorry it's still a very sore point that Apple wants to aim these at 'Creative professionals' but gives them so little storage that they'll have to rely on external hard drives pretty much 100% of the time: sure the device itself is a battery life champion and makes portability a breeze...Except if you actually need to get any work with it done at which point you will still need to carry your project files SSD with you at all time, probably more than one. Not the promised convenient portable workstation anymore now.

 

[VitalyT]

e at least, there's no compelling reason to most people deve

That case gets made often but:

1) The reason why these M1/2 products haven't taken over more x86 market share even though they're supposed to be more efficient, simpler and more powerful all at the same time is simply because Apple relies on optimized native code. Meaning it's a tremendous barrier of entry for anyone looking to write software for them for a still comparatively tiny market share. Rosetta 2 was supposed to help mitigate the transition but now that we should consider that transition if not done on the last phase at least, there's no compelling reason to most people developing x86 software to create almost completely new code for a company that has very little market share for PCs and will take 30% of your sales anyway.

2) It still doesn't explain the even more woefully inadequate storage options at just 256gb to start with: This is the kind of storage you see on entry level Windows laptops the ones you find at Walmart for 400 to 500 USD during sales. Sorry it's still a very sore point that Apple wants to aim these at 'Creative professionals' but gives them so little storage that they'll have to rely on external hard drives pretty much 100% of the time: sure the device itself is a battery life champion and makes portability a breeze...Except if you actually need to get any work with it done at which point you will still need to carry your project files SSD with you at all time, probably more than one. Not the promised convenient portable workstation anymore now.

With all that said, my personal experience with Apple laptops has been like this... I've had 2 Macbook Pro-s over the years, with the current one is 2019 Macboo Pro 16", which I barely use, sadly. But the one I really loved was Macbook Air from 2010. I can say with confidence, the weight is everything. That, combined with supreme quality, and you got yourself a winner. I'm now very tempted to switch to the latest Macbook Air, from my Macbook Pro 16", purely because of the size + weight. I want to be able to carry it everywhere, and my Macbook Pro 16" is just way too big and heavy for that.

I think their new Macbook Air is gonna be the new champion of sales

 

[Dimitriid]

With all that said, my personal experience with Apple laptops has been like this... I've had 2 Macbook Pro-s over the years, with the current one is 2019 Macboo Pro 16", which I barely use, sadly. But the one I really loved was Macbook Air from 2010. I can say with confidence, the weight is everything. That, combined with supreme quality, and you got yourself a winner. I'm now very tempted to switch to the latest Macbook Air, from my Macbook Pro 16", purely because of the size + weight. I want to be able to carry it everywhere, and my Macbook Pro 16" is just way too big and heavy for that.

I think their new Macbook Air is gonna be the new champion of sales

Not sure if the champion because I would expect more changes from Apple. But maybe, I'd put a caveat on it: they might get a champion type product that grabs a lot of market share away from x86 eventually as they seem to be doing the same thing they do with phones and tablets: very steady and small increments over time taking several years to establish the product line and not just one single product.

Because I actually agree with the rest of your post: My job provided me with a Laptop but if I could just have my pic of whatever laptop I wanted to code, I'd go with an Air M2 definitively: don't really need the hard drive space and while most of the software optimizations wouldn't be critical for me, the IPC and battery life would help quite a bit and coding is basically dependent on various servers for me anyway so downside and I would gain something like 3x the battery life on half the weight of my current laptop with no trade offs whatsoever.

 

[Faelan]

I haven't look at it - but I'm sure they do the std marketing ploy
Crappy one to make entry price seem ok
Super duper one - crazy priced to pick up whales and kraken
Then some still expensive but fair chunk cheaper - on that's the one do get . When it's still really expensive for upgrade of memory and SSD
Really like phones most people only need a $200 to $400 phone
Same Laptop most only need a $400 to $800 laptop - to browse media , techspot and facebook and Wordle

Apple has mastered the whole upsell strategy. I’ve lost track of how many times I go to their website, look at something, then say to myself that the price isn’t all that bad. But of course there’s always something with the base model that is kinda subpar and then you start customizing it, only to realize that if you want more of this, you also need something else to go along with it. Something that you don’t really need, but have to pick because they only offer certain combinations.

In the end, what started out looking not too bad typically ends up in the range of pretty bad, if not outright silly prices for what you get, but at that point you’re salivating and trying to convince yourself that it’s so much better and you really need it.

That’s when I just close the webpage and fire up my gaming PC. At the end of the day, my 2018 15” MacBook still does what I need it to do.