Apple announced a new 14-inch MacBook Pro on Tuesday, swapping last year's M5 chip for the M6 and keeping the starting price at $1,999. Pre-orders open October 28, with the laptop reaching buyers on November 6.
The update lands the same day as a refreshed M6 iMac, and a day before Apple is widely expected to unveil its first OLED MacBook Pro models with touchscreen support. It also follows this week's launches of the iPhone Duo and an updated iPad mini.
The new base-tier MacBook Pro uses an M6 chip with a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU that Apple says is up to 30 percent faster at graphics than the M5 version. Apple is also claiming a 25 percent jump in on-device AI performance, according to Engadget, handled by a dual 16-core Neural Engine. None of these figures have been independently verified outside Apple's own comparisons.
Connectivity moves up to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, a jump from the Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 on the outgoing model. Ports stay familiar: HDMI, MagSafe 3, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, an SD card slot and a headphone jack, plus a 12MP Center Stage camera for video calls.
Charging gets quicker too. Paired with a high-wattage adapter like Apple's 96W brick, the new MacBook Pro can reach 50 percent charge in 30 minutes. Apple is citing up to 24 hours of battery life on a single charge, per Engadget's reporting on the announcement, though that figure reflects Apple's own testing rather than any outside measurement.
What you get for $1,999
The entry configuration ships with 16GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage, in silver or space black. That's the same starting price Apple charged for the M5 model it replaces, so the generational jump comes without a price increase, at least at the base tier.
This M6 refresh only touches the 14-inch Pro. The 16-inch MacBook Pro is still running on M5 silicon for now, and Apple hasn't said when it'll get bumped. Apple is also continuing to sell M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro configurations alongside the new M6 base model, at least until whatever comes next.
And something is coming next, fast. Rumors circulating ahead of Tuesday's announcement point to OLED MacBook Pro Pro and Max models with touchscreen support arriving within a day of this M6 refresh, a design change Apple hasn't offered on a MacBook before. Nothing is official yet, and Apple hasn't confirmed a touchscreen laptop of any kind. If the leaks hold, buyers eyeing a new MacBook Pro may have a very different decision to make by the end of the week.
CDFiled by The Computing Desk
Laptops, desktops, processors, graphics cards and the operating systems that run on them.
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