Apple rolled out a new 14-inch MacBook Pro on Tuesday built around its M6 chip, and the headline so far isn't the laptop itself. It's how little has actually changed.
The new model starts at $1,999 for an M6 chip, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, up from the $1,599 starting price of last year's M5 MacBook Pro. Apple quietly raised that baseline by $300 back in June, so this isn't technically a fresh hike on paper, but buyers are still paying more than they were a year ago. In the UK, pricing starts at £1,999. Pre-orders open Wednesday, October 28, with units shipping from November 6.
What you get for that money is, by Apple's own account, mostly a spec bump. The M6 chip moves to a 2-nanometer process and carries a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, each two cores up on the M5's 10-core counts, plus a Dual 16-core Neural Engine. Apple says the GPU delivers up to 30 percent faster graphics and up to 25 percent faster AI workloads than the M5 chip, and that Neural Accelerators built into each GPU core should help with on-device AI tools.
The laptop also picks up Apple's N1 wireless chip, which first showed up in the iPhone 17, bringing Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 to replace the outgoing Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. Apple says that should mean lower networking latency, better throughput, and steadier range tracking for accessories like game controllers and headphones, along with sturdier AirDrop and Personal Hotspot connections.
Battery life gets a bump too. Apple claims up to 24 hours of use with up to 14 additional hours for anyone still on an Intel MacBook and up to four more hours for M1 owners making the jump.
Everything else is identical to what shipped in 2024. Same 12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61-inch aluminum unibody, same 3.4-pound weight, same Silver and Space Black color options. The 14.2-inch Mini-LED display still runs at 120Hz with ProMotion, the notch at the top of the screen is still there, and there's still no touchscreen. Ports haven't moved either: three Thunderbolt 4/USB4 connectors, HDMI, an SDXC card slot, a headphone jack and MagSafe 3.
The machine ships with macOS 27 Golden Gate, which brings the next version of Apple Intelligence and Siri, and it lands alongside a new M6 iMac announced the same day.
Anyone still running an M1 or M2 MacBook Pro, or an older Intel model, should see a real jump in speed and battery runtime. M4 and M5 owners have a thinner case for upgrading right now.
That case gets even thinner by Wednesday. Apple is widely expected to unveil a redesigned MacBook Pro with an OLED display and the higher-end M6 Pro and M6 Max chips as early as tomorrow, with the current aluminum design reportedly held over for an M7 refresh next year. If that machine lands as rumored, this M6 MacBook Pro could end up looking like a placeholder within 24 hours of going on sale.
CDFiled by The Computing Desk
Laptops, desktops, processors, graphics cards and the operating systems that run on them.
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