Today, I have something pretty exciting to show you guys. So this is the new 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro. And even though it didn’t get a design update, the new M2 SoC is pretty impressive. It even beat out my 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro in some pretty common tasks. So let’s take a look, and let’s start with the unboxing.
Contents
Unboxing And First Impressions
So this is what the box looks like. It has some new wallpapers, and then there’s also plastic wrapping. So let’s peel that off, and it’s pretty satisfying, as always. And let’s open up the box. And here is the new M2 MacBook Pro.
Here’s the M2 MacBook Pro. Let’s open it up.
Also a little paper thing. Let’s see what else is in the box with the M2 MacBook Pro. So there is this paperwork thing. Here it is. Two gray apple stickers.
And then just got the charging brick and the USB C to C wire. And yeah, there’s nothing else in the box. That’s everything. Okay, so I got the base model 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro in the space gray color. It actually has Apple’s old MacBook design from, I think, like, 2016.
So it’s definitely missing some quality-of-life updates. The speakers on the screen are all old, but I think they’re still pretty good. I think the design of this is pretty good. All right, now let’s get into what you’re probably the most curious about M2 MacBook Pro.
Benchmarks And Tests
So I’ve had some time to play with and test out the new M2 SoC, and it really is quite impressive.
One of the most underrated aspects of the new M2 Macbook Pro is its improved single-threaded CPU performance. Because for the past year, all of the M1 products, ranging from the M1 to the M1 Pro and Max, all have pretty similar single-threaded performance.
And the M2 is beating all of them. So here’s my MacBook that I use every day. It’s the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro chip that has ten CPU cores and 16 GPU cores with 32 gigs of Ram.
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And the M2 MacBook Pro is an eight-core CPU and ten-core GPU version with 8 gigs of Ram. So for the geekbench five single core, the M2 actually scored 1921, while my M One Pro scored 1740. So the M2 scored about 10% better. And this high single-thread performance can definitely be super useful during everyday use. Right now, I’m a capsized student, and I feel like in my daily work, besides doing video rendering, most things are either lightly or single-threaded.
So having the four higher clock performance cores on the M2 is actually more helpful than having more slower cores on the M1 Pro. I timed one of my school assignments, which was a pathfinding algorithm written in Python, and it took the M2 MacBook Pro 256 seconds to finish running it, whereas the M1 Pro took 273 seconds. So in this case, the M2 actually finished it about 7% faster.
And that can definitely add up, especially when you have to do something over and over again because I think I ran this thing a hundred times during debugging. And not just code, but many apps, such as Photoshop has lots of tasks that only use a single thread.
Applying these filters are all single or lightly threaded, and here you can see the time it takes to apply a filter to the same image on both of these computers. The M2 is actually able to apply lots of these filters a bit faster than my M1 Pro MacBook and ask for multicore performance in the center bench R 23 benchmark, the M2 scored 8558, while the M1 Pro scored 12,317.
So the M2 is about 69% the performance of the M1 Pro ten-core CPU, which is about the same as the max out M1 Max. So considering the M1 Pro has eight performance cores, while the M2 only has four performance cores, the difference is honestly smaller than I expected. I also tested out the M2’s GPU performance in the Wildlife Extreme Unlimited test.
The M2 scored 6831 with 40.9 FPS while the M1 pro scored 10,407 with 62.3 FPS. So score-wise, the M2 only has about 65% of the performance of the M1 Pro with 16 core GPU. And this does translate to real life. So for rendering out a ten-minute long 4K video in DaVinci Resolve, the M2 took eight minutes and 47 seconds, while the M1 Pro took five minutes and 9 seconds. So my M1 Pro is about 70% faster in this instance.
So, yeah, the M2 is definitely a pretty big improvement over the M1. But the 16 GPU core M1 Pro that I have here is still quite a bit faster.
Now, another thing that’s pretty surprising about M2 MacBook Pro is that at the same spec so with the GPU upgrade to ten cores on the Air, the M2 MacBook Pro, and the MacBook Air are actually the same exact price. So I feel like if you’re thinking about upgrading the GPU on the MacBook Air, then it might make more sense to actually just get the MacBook Pro, especially since they’ll be the same price. But you’ll have better-sustained performance, which could be especially useful if you do lots of things like video rendering or if you just live in a hotter environment.
Of course, I’ll have to test out the thermal performance of the M2 MacBook Air. But I feel like unless the M2 MacBook Airs cooling is somehow magical, it’s likely that you’ll run into thermal problems when you’re doing sustained work on it. If you’re upgrading the Air’s GPU, perhaps for things like video rendering, then the Pro might be the more logical option, despite the dated looks, the worst webcam, and circular bezels.
But if you’re not going to be doing lots of super heavy things, then the Hgpu core M2 Air for $100 less is definitely an option to consider. Now, if you don’t like the old MacBook design and you want a MacBook with the new design, then you’ll actually have to pay at least $300 more for the base model 14-inch M1 Pro with an eight-core CPU and 14-core GPU.
But of course, you’ll also be getting a better display with mini Led and 120 Hz and true HDR capabilities. But if you’re mainly doing single or lightly threaded things such as Photoshop stuff, or simple-ish Python code, in some cases the M2 will actually be faster than a completely maxed out 14-inch. So, yeah, I definitely feel like the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro makes the MacBook purchasing decision a little bit harder.
On its own, I don’t think it looks bad at all. So the old design’s top is more rounded and also kind of like bulges out almost, whereas the new design is very squared off and also flat on the top. The apple logo on the old design is a little bit smaller.
And also the old design has the text MacBook Pro written right here, while the new one actually doesn’t have it here, but it does have it engraved on the bottom of the MacBook, which you will probably never see. Now, this old design also has the Touch Bar, and I used to use a MacBook that had the Touch Bar and I did kind of like it, although I don’t really miss it on this new thing.
So I don’t mind having it, but I also don’t really mind not having it. The keyboard designs are different, so the old keyboard isn’t blocked out and you can see all of the aluminum peeking through the keycaps, whereas the new keyboard is completely blacked out. In between, the keycaps are all black. I do like the new design better. I think it looks more sleek and uniform compared to the old one.
But perhaps the more important thing is that both of these are magic keyboards. I do really like magic keyboards. Okay, and now for the ports. So the M2 MacBook Pro only has two USB C Thunderbolt ports and both of them are on the same side.
And then on the other side, it just has one headphone jack. This definitely isn’t as good as the new M1 Pro and Max designs, which have a variety of ports. Three USB C Thunderbolt ports in total, two on this side, one on that side, a Maxave, a headphone jack, HDMI, and also an SD card slot. Even the new M2 Air will have an extra max safe compared to this one. So, yeah, ports-wise, this one is definitely a little bit disappointing.
Now, as for the size, so it’s just slightly smaller than the 14-inch, but it does feel much thinner. What’s not thin are these bezels. They are really thick. I didn’t really like the notch on the new design, but side by side, I would take the notch with the thin bezels any day over these thick bezels. So, yeah, looks wise.
It is just a little bit outdated when looking at the new design. But honestly, on its own, it’s still a pretty sleek look beside the thick screen bubbles.
M2 Macbook Pro Webcam
Now, something else that might also feel a bit outdated is the speakers and the webcam on the M2 MacBook Pro. So the webcam is only 720p, which is worse than in the upcoming Air. And also the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros.
All of them have a 1080p webcam. This is the 720p webcam. I don’t think it looks terrible. I feel like it will still be fine for meetings and stuff like that. But this over here is the 1080p webcam, and I do think it looks a lot better.
I feel like the difference is pretty noticeable. So, yeah, this will definitely be a lot better for meetings and maybe even photo booth photo shoots.
M2 Macbook Pro Speakers
And the speakers on the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro are not bad, but they’ll likely be worse in the Air since the Air will be getting new speakers. But here’s a quick comparison between the 13 and 14-inch MacBook Pros, I don’t think the 14-inch MacBook Pro has better sounding bass.
And now I’m very curious about what the Air will sound like. And real quick about the battery life. So, the M2 MacBook Pro might last longer than the Air since it does have a larger battery. But of course, I will need to test it out more later on. And lastly, I just want to show you guys the wallpapers.
So there’s this green one, and also this pink one, this blue one and this orange one. Honestly, I don’t really like the new wallpapers. I feel like they’re just okay. I like the old Monterey wallpaper a lot more.
Overall, the M2 chip is really good. I’m pretty impressed with it. But I feel like this thing isn’t really a MacBook Pro in the traditional sense of a MacBook Pro. It’s much closer to a MacBook Air, and its price would indicate so as well. So I feel like it would be more appropriate to call this thing a MacBook Air Pro.
