Several months following the release of their latest iPhone model, the iPhone 11, and its Plus Pro and Pro Max versions, Apple has announced a new 16-inch MacBook Pro, touted by the tech giant as the “the world’s best pro notebook.” They also announced the all-new Mac Pro and Apple Pro Display XDR, both available in December.
“Our pro customers tell us they want their next MacBook Pro to have a larger display, blazing-fast performance, the biggest battery possible, the best notebook keyboard ever, awesome speakers and massive amounts of storage, and the 16-inch MacBook Pro delivers all of that and more,” said Tom Boger, Apple’s senior director of Mac and iPad Product Marketing, in a statement.
Apple has announced several upgrades to the latest version of the MacBook Pro, both in software and hardware. At 16 inches, the latest MacBook Pro features the largest Retina notebook display yet, with a resolution of 3072×1920 and a higher pixel density of 226 ppi. It is fitted with the latest 6- and 8-core 9th-generation processors with Turbo Boost speeds up to 5.0 GHz and comes with up to 64GB of memory. The newest Pro “uses the most advanced thermal architecture ever in a Mac notebook,” allowing it to sustain up to 12 more watts during intensive workloads than the previous design. Additionally, when compared to the previous model, the standard configuration will see 2.1 times faster graphics performance than the previous standard configuration, while the highest-end graphics options will see up to 80% faster performance than the previous high-end configuration. The 16-inch Pro will be powered by the largest-ever MacBook battery at 100Wh, providing an additional hour of battery life, running up to 11 hours of wireless web browsing or Apple TV app video playback. Apple’s latest MacBook Pro can be configured with 8TB of storage, marking the largest SSD ever in a notebook. Standard configurations are set at 512GB and 1TB.
A new Magic Keyboard with a refined scissor mechanism is part of the latest Pro, “delivering 1mm of key travel and a stable key feel, as well as an Apple-designed rubber dome that stores more potential energy for a responsive key press.” Additionally, the new keyboard will have a physical Escape key and an inverted-“T” arrangement for the arrow keys, along with Touch Bar and Touch ID.
Running on macOS Catalina, the Mac notebook will implement a new feature called Sidecar, a system that allows users to leverage an iPad as a secondary display or as a tablet input device.
Starting at $2,399, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is available on Apple’s website and the Apple Store app. It will be in Apple Stores and “Apple Authorized Resellers” in the U.S. later this week, and coming soon to stores around the world. The Mac Pro starts at $5,999 and the Pro Display XDR starts at $4,999—both will be available to order in December.