Does the M2 MacBook Pro still make sense?

WWDC 2022 finally introduced the widely anticipated M2 MacBook Air redesign. Alongside it, Apple also introduced the somewhat puzzling M2 MacBook Pro. While the M2 MacBook Air received most of the attention due its all new design and improved features, the M2 MacBook Pro has been largely puzzled over its relevance in the new M2 era of Macs.

While I am a big fan of the original M1 MacBook Pro, Apple’s announcement of the M2 MacBook Pro featuring the exact same design with only the internals being upgraded to the new M2 chip did leave me slightly confused as well.

Let me first explain why this was such a puzzling update to me and then we’ll talk about whether it still makes sense to buy one.

Design language
While a spec bump is nothing new, last year’s introduction of the 24" iMac, 14" and 16" MacBook Pros, and the new M2 MacBook Air represents a completely new design language for Apple’s non-headless Mac lineup. The key features of this new design language are the more squarish edges and the introduction of a notch on their laptop displays to house a new 1080p webcam.

The 13" MacBook Pro however retains its current design and simply gets a spec bump with the new M2 chip. This naturally leaves it sticking out like a sore thumb with its antiquated design language amidst the new generation of Macs.

You could argue that the original M1 MacBook Air is still being offered as well, however that model did not receive a spec bump which squarely identifies it as a last generation budget offering.

Hardware features
Design aesthetics aside, all the new MacBooks offer a better 1080p webcam, more ports and physical function keys instead of a Touch Bar. Even the M2 MacBook Air receives a new MagSafe charging port which is one more than what the M2 MacBook Pro has.

For the displays, although the M2 MacBook Air does not get the new Mini-LED display on the 14" and 16" MacBook Pros, it does get a new 500 nit display(same as the Pro) that supports a billion colours(16.7 million on the Pro).

In fact the only thing the Pro does have over the Air is an active cooling fan and some would argue, a Touch Bar. While the Touch Bar does have it fans(no pun intended), of which I am one of them, the majority of people do not seem to agree with it.

Given the reasons I keep hearing for not liking the Touch Bar however, it makes me wonder how many people actually realise that the Touch Bar can be configured as a standard row of function keys. This is exactly how I have mine set up along with some customisations to it. But anyway.

The active cooling fans on the other hand, while nice to have, haven’t really shown that much of a performance increase when compared on the existing M1 chips. This makes the fans mostly irrelevant to the large majority of users who don’t push their machines to the limit for sustained periods of time and thus is ultimately a lesser value.

Relative performance
Where performance is concerned, if the difference in performance between the original M1 MacBooks is anything to go by, it’s probably safe to say that the gains from the active cooling system will be pretty marginal and isn’t going to matter to the majority of users. Those who do need that extra performance will probably be better served by the M1 Pro and M1 Max models.

I do however think there could be an off chance that the M2 chips might actually end up running hotter than the M1 in order to achieve their improved performance. If that is indeed the case, the active cooling on the MacBook Pro could actually result in much bigger gains than we are expecting.

Alas the only way to find out is to actually test them when they do become available. Anything else for now is mostly an educated guess.

Lastly when it comes to battery life, although it is a fair argument that an extra 2 hours isn’t that big of a difference when you’ve already got about 15 hours of battery, I would still lean towards the MacBook Pro simply to offset the effects of battery degradation in the long term. This was in fact one of the factors that made me pick the M1 MacBook Pro over the Air and is still something I would consider for the new M2 MacBooks.

Price gap (or lack of)
Now the pricing is where things get really confusing. In US dollars, we have the binned M2 MacBook Air(8 GPU cores instead of 10) coming in at just $100 less than the base MacBook Pro. However if you spec it up to the full M2 chip you’re literally paying the same price, and that’s without the 67W charger that comes as standard with the Pro. Further upgrading the storage does however get you the 67W charger or the 35W dual charger upgraded for free.

Interestingly though, in countries like Singapore, the price of the full M2 chip and 67W charger upgrade arrives at exactly the same price as the Pro. Further upgrading the storage also gets you the 67W charger or 35W dual charger upgraded for free therefore you pay slightly less than a base M2 MacBook Pro. Interesting.

Either way however, Apple is basically making you choose between a new fan-less design with a better display, webcam(and notch), speakers and MagSafe charging, or an older design with a fan, Touch Bar and slightly longer battery life. You could also just save $200 and get the older M1 MacBook Air for $999 if that’s all you really need.

And a last thing to note, as Apple charges the same amount for SSD and Memory upgrades across the board, speccing either of these laptops up too highly(up to 24GB of memory and 2TB of storage) increasingly diminishes their bang for the buck value as it will quickly bring you very close to 14" MacBook Pro territory.

So why does it still exist and who is it for?
The M2 MacBook Air to me is pretty straightforward, it is the new redesign that replaces the previous ultraportable M1 MacBook Air. Also, it isn’t all that surprising that it got a price increase given the new design along with everything that’s been going on in the world lately.

The M2 MacBook Pro on the other hand, I can really only think of two reasons it still exists, the first one being that Apple simply needs to clear inventory and the only way to make it enticing enough without heavily discounting it is to put their latest chip in it.

The second reason is that it is meant for people who can’t afford or don’t wish to spend that much on a 14" MacBook Pro but still need as much power(and battery life) as they can get. Think of it as a sort of MacBook Pro SE, something like how the iPhone SE got the latest A15 chip in an antiquated iPhone 8 chassis.

Conclusion
So what can we say about all this? I personally think that more choices is seldom ever a bad thing, it just makes it a bit harder to decide what is most suitable. In this case Apple has priced the two new M2 Macs very closely together while offering quite differing sets of features.

I would say that while the M2 MacBook Pro does still have a market, that market is growing smaller by the day as it really only suits a niche segment of buyers now. For the majority of people, either the M1 or M2 MacBook Air will be the ideal choice to go for while most professional or more power intensive users will be better served by the 14" and 16" MacBook Pros.

I really would not be surprised to see the current M2 MacBook Pro eventually take the shape of a MacBook Pro SE or perhaps simply a “MacBook”. However that still remains to be seen as the M1 MacBook Air could easily fill that spot in the lineup as well.

Get involved in the comments and let me know what is your pick and why you would or wouldn’t go with the M2 MacBook Pro.

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