Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: one of the best Pro laptops around just got better

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) : Two-minute review

Apple’s MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 is the full package, a near-perfect blend of price, performance, and utility. The M4 is the base edition of the newest and most powerful generation of Apple silicon (it’s the same chip that’s already running in the iPad Pro 13-inch) but it’s still bursting with power, and more than capable of doing most of the heavy-lifting you want from a pro-level portable machine, as ready to edit raw photos and 4K video as it is to stand in as an able gaming console.

I’ve long been a fan of the MacBook Pro design, especially since Apple refined it by removing the Touch Bar, a neat innovation that never reached its full potential. My M4 Pro review unit, supplied by Apple, is a sleek-looking Space Black that’s both elegant and wonderfully functional. The Magic Keyboard is still a typing gem, and I love the massive trackpad and all that space for resting my hands. And the stereo speakers that straddle the keyboard deliver powerful, crisp, and clear audio that could provide the soundtrack for your party in a pinch.

When I think about the reasons why you’d buy an M4 14-inch Mac Pro over the cheaper M3-running MacBook Air, the list is smaller than when I’ve compared the Pro and Air options previously, but there are a handful of standout features that make this MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024) a near-perfect choice.

For starters, you have the ports. Where the Air tops out at a Thunderbolt 3 port, you get a trio of speedy Thunderbolt 4 ports with the MacBook Pro (you’ll need to upgrade to the M4 Pro model for Thunderbolt 5). You also gain the SD card slot, an instant bonus for photo and video professionals. The larger body and ever-efficient 3-nanometer system-on-a-chip (SoC) means a promised 24 hours of battery life – for a Pro-level system, that’s unheard of. Naturally, real-world usage times varied widely in my testing based on activity (AAA gaming can quickly eat up battery).

The biggest difference between Air and Pro might be the display. This Liquid Retina XDR is an inch larger than the MacBook Air’s, and it offers a nano-texture option (an extra $150 / £150 / AU$230), something I highly recommend for cutting down on reflections in almost any situation.

With the MacBook Pro 14-inch M4, Apple has created a pro-grade portable that impresses in every respect. It joins Apple’s pantheon of outstanding laptops, and is set to take a well-deserved place at or near the top of our best laptops rankings.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Price and availability

• Starts at $1,599 / £2,149 / AU$3,199
• Nano-texture (which you want) will run you another $150 / £150 / AU$230

Apple unveiled the M4 MacBook Pro 14-inch on October 30, along with the new MacBook Pro 16-inch, Mac mini, and iMac. All these new Macs are running variations of Apple’s M4 silicon.

Pricing for the M4 MacBook Pro 14-inch starts at $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499 for the base configuration, which comes with the standard M4 chip and 16GB of unified memory. If you want the M4 Pro chip, pricing starts at $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,299, while the M4 Max model starts at $2,399 / £2,399 / AU$3,999.

My Space Black review unit is the base model (10-core M4, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage) but with one key enhancement: the aforementioned nano-texture Liquid Retina XDR display coating, which costs an extra $150 / £150 / AU$230.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Specs

The MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) comes in three main configurations: our test unit, the base M4; a pair featuring the M4 Pro chip with options of 16- or 20-core GPU and up to 1TB storage; and at the high end, the M4 Max model, which offers one configuration with a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 1TB of SSD.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Design

• Virtually the same design as the previous model
• All the key ports you need
• Fantastic screen

Over the last few years I’ve become an unabashed fan of Apple’s increasingly iconic laptop design. Where competitors often try different and sometimes odd design flourishes, Apple carefully peeled away all but what matters, leaving a MacBook Pro that looks and feels as if it was carved from a couple of pieces of 100% recycled black aluminum. Nothing feels like, or works like, it was left to chance. That impression starts when you put your finger under the lip of the display and flip open the clamshell to reveal the screen and keyboard. That hinge is as sure as it gets, offering the perfect blend of tension and smooth movement.

At 3.4lbs / 1.55kg. the MacBook Pro 14 M4 is not the lightest laptop or even the lightest MacBook. The excellent MacBook Air holds that distinction, and if you prize portability over power you might be reading the wrong review. On the other hand, the MacBook Pro 14 is by no means heavy (the 16-inch MacBook Pro, by contrast, weighs nearly 5lbs / 2.27kg).

Folded close, the MacBook Pro 14 is just 0.61 inches tall, 12.3 inches wide, and 8.71 inches deep. It slips into my backpack and, even though I’m used to carrying the M3 MacBook Air, I mostly forget it’s there.

Apple hasn’t adjusted the ports since the M2 MacBook Pro, which is fine with me. We still have the HDMI-out port if you want to extend your display to a giant, high-resolution screen. Next to that is one of the three Thunderbolt 4 ports and an SD card slot, which I used to transfer some raw images from my DSLR. On the opposite side is the MagSafe charge port, two Thunderbolt 4 (40Gb/s) ports, and the 3.5mm headphone, although I generally connect my AirPods Pros 2 for audio. If you need Thunderbolt 5’s 120Gb/s throughput speeds you’ll want to upgrade to an M4 Pro chip.

The full-sized backlit Magic Keyboard is a pleasure to use (I’m composing this review on it), with ample travel and a satisfying typing feel. It includes the arrow keys and a full line of function keys. On the right side of that is the Touch ID power and sleep button. During setup, it took me a few moments to register my index finger which I now use to unlock the laptop and log into some online services. Below the keyboard is the massive, nearly 6-inch diagonal, and very responsive Forcetouch trackpad.

One of the benefits of a larger laptop is that Apple can fit a pair of speaker grilles on either side of the keyboard. They provide fantastic sound, especially when playing spatial audio (try Territory on Netflix).

The system features a pair of four-inch vents, one on each side. You usually won’t hear the fan until you play AAA games or run benchmarks.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Display

• It’s gorgeous
• Better brightness for SDR
• The coating you want

While it might look like Apple left the Liquid Retina XDR display from the M2 MacBook Pro untouched, there are a couple of noteworthy differences. But let’s start with what’s the same.

It’s still the same mini-LED technology offering a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and one billion colors with a P3 wide color and ProMotion with up to 120Hz refresh rate. The resolution is still nearly 4K at 3096 x 1964 pixels. However, Apple has boosted the brightness a bit, with SDR content now getting up to 1,000 nits. HDR still gets a peak brightness of 1600. These numbers primarily matter outdoors, where you might be battling back the sunshine, and I found that the display was quite effective at remaining viewable and usable in direct sunlight. I attribute this, however, only in part to the heightened SDR nit capabilities.

My screen came with the optional nano-texture coating. This adds a fine texture across the entire screen that’s meant to diffuse direct sunlight (the MacBook Pro comes with a special cloth for cleaning the screen). It costs an extra $150 / £150 / AU$230, but it’s transformative technology. Not only does it effectively kill outdoor reflections, it also transforms how streaming and gaming content looks on the display. No more desk and overhead lamp bulbs peaking into the frame. No more window light killing your gaming groove. I honestly wonder why all laptops, Macs and otherwise, do not come with this texture. It’s a game-changer.

The 14.2-inch screen is big enough for lots of side-by-side app work. It’s the perfect canvas for photo editing in Adobe Lightroom and video work in FinalCut Pro. but is also well suited to lighter productivity (like my efforts to write this review), email, and web browsing. It’s not a touch screen because Apple refuses to bring that technology to Macs, even as the touch-friendly iPad Pro becomes more and more Mac-like. The trackpad is large enough that I don’t miss touching a screen (as I did for years for Microsoft Surface Pro) but I can’t help but wonder how a MacBook Pro with a touch, and Apple Pencil-friendly, display would alter the way we use this laptop.

The other display change relates less to what you’ll see on the Liquid Retina XDR panel and more to how others will see you through it. Apple has upgraded the FaceTime camera, which sits at the top of the display in a cutout notch, with a 12MP ultrawide that supports its Center Stage technology. Center Stage takes the full 12MP ultrawide frame and narrows the viewport so that you are always centered in the frame. It doesn’t matter if you lean left or right or get up and walk around the room, Center Stage will follow. It’s a useful feature in FaceTime – I tested it on a call with my wife who wondered why I kept moving around – and also on Zoom, where it worked well but was not useful in a broadcast video situation, so I turned it off. Center Stage did not work for me in Google Meet, where I conduct most of my video meetings.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Performance

• M4 has the Pro power most need
• macOS Sequoia is flexible and easy to use
• AAA gaming on a Mac is real

The last time we reviewed a 14-inch MacBook Pro, it was running an M2 Pro. The base M4 inside my test unit has similar but not equal specs. It’s still a 10-core CPU, but where the M2 Pro had a 16-core GPU, the M4 starts with 10 cores. However the M2 chips were all built on a 5-nanometer process, and the M4 line is on the more efficient three nanometers, which could lead to a better combination of power and efficiency.

The Neural Engine, which handles a lot of onboard machine learning and AI tasks, still has the same 16 cores.

Apple is now backing all of its new Macs with at least 16GB of RAM. This pays dividends in AI (Apple Intelligence is on board) and graphically intense operations like ray tracing, which helps make games like Lies of P look incredible on the MacBook Pro 14.

In benchmark testing, I found the numbers in line with the M4 performance I saw from the iPad Pro 13 inch. Geekbench 6.3 numbers measurably exceed those of the M3 in my MacBook Air.

When I played Shadow of the Tomb Radar, Steam’s internal frames per second counter showed I got anywhere between 42fps and 62fps. To my eyes, there was no tearing or dropped frames.

Numbers only tell you so much, and what matters most is real-world experience. I did do a fair amount of gaming on this MacBook Pro. As I noted above, the nano-texture screen makes games look amazing. In my Lies of P sessions (I connected an X Box controller via Bluetooth), I took note of the rich atmospherics, from rain to fire, and the level of detail that never descended into unwatchable blurs. Gaming on the MacBook Pro benefits from macOS Sequoia’s Game Mode, which prioritizes gaming tasks for truly smooth and responsive performance.

In FinalCut Pro, I edited four 4K 30fps streams at once, which played back smoothly in full-screen preview. However, when I tried the same thing with four 4K 120fps video clips shot on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, full-screen playback started dropping frames – an on-screen message confirmed this. It was one of the rare times I found the limits of Apple silicon.

Editing raw photos in Adobe Lightroom is a breeze. It’s also worth noting that I rarely shut down other apps while I performed these operations, and as I noted earlier, the only times I heard the fans were during console-grade gameplay and Cinebench 23 benchmarking.

Keep in mind that my tests were all with the base M4 Apple silicon; imagine what you can expect from the M4 Pro and M4 Max.

Connectivity is mostly what you would expect, with support for Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E. I am a bit disappointed, though, that Apple didn’t future-proof the laptop a bit with Wi-Fi 7 support.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Software

• macOS 15.1
• Some Apple Intelligence

macOS Sequoia (macOS 15.1) has a lot to offer. There’s the new Passwords app, which gives you a full-blown application for managing your passwords, and there’s the updated Notes, which can now transcribe recordings. It’s not as good as the transcription in Voice Recorder on Android (it doesn’t identify multiple speakers) but it’s still useful.

There are now Highlights in Safari that can take a 3,000-word-plus New Yorker article and boil it down to a one-paragraph summary. I worry that loses the nuance of such a piece, but if you’re in a hurry…

There’s also iPhone Mirroring, which lets you access and control your iPhone from the MacBook Pro. It’s supposed to be useful when you don’t have access to your iPhone (maybe it’s just in another room), and I found it easy to connect an iPhone 16 Pro and then have a virtual version of the iPhone on my MacBook Pro 14 desktop. What’s even wilder is how I can control the phone from the desktop system. I can message, browse the web, and even drag and drop between the desktop and the iPhone interface. I did notice that while I can open the iPhone camera, I cannot use the MacBook Pro 14 to take a picture with the phone.

Apple Intelligence is here within macOS 15.1, in the form of a redesigned Siri that supports Type to Siri and which can be dragged around the desktop. I found that I could ask Siri how to do things with the MacBook Pro, like find my Wi-Fi settings and opening an app like Notes.

Apple Intelligence puts email summaries at the top of email, and the writing tools are embedded throughout the system. In Notes, I asked the Writing Tools to rewrite my lengthy meeting notes. It did a really good job of boiling it all down to a concise bullet list, which I could also easily undo. This could be very useful.

This is not all of Apple Intelligence. There’s no Image Playground for instance, but that will show up with macOS 15.2, possibly by early December.

A taste of AI

During my testing, I did install the macOS 15.2 Developer Beta so that I could get a sample of this MacBook Pro 14 M4’s Apple Intelligence capabilities. Because this update is not intended for the public, my thoughts on this dev beta were not considered as part of my final software, performance and overall review score.

First, I was excited to see Clean Up now inside of the Photos app. It works just as it does in iOS 18 on the iPhone, and was useful for removing some unwanted items from my photos.

ChatGPT’s Siri integration, which I had to enable, is quite smooth, and looks and works as if it’s a part of Siri. I used it in the Type to Siri mode, entering my prompt about how to create a goods presentation. The answer I got from ChatGPT through Siri was solid.

Image Playground, the generative AI image tool which lives in an adorable kitty app icon in the Dock, is also part of this beta, but it’s still gated by an invite and, as I write this, I still await mine.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Battery life

• Rated for 24-hour video streaming
• Lasted more than 18 hours in our tests
• Battery life is dependent on activity

The MacBook Pro 14 M4 is, according to Apple’s promises, perhaps the first truly all-day laptop, rated to last up to 24 hours on a charge. Naturally, that’s if you do nothing but stream seasons 1 through 3 of Stranger Things. Once you start adding in activities like web browsing, and emailing, Slack, gaming, and photo and video editing, those numbers change.

In our Future Labs tests, we found that we could get 18.5 hours of web browsing, which is two hours more than Apple is promising. Once I started gaming, though, battery life took a fast tumble; the system is clearly hard at work rendering the exquisite detail in Lies of P. I heard the fans going full-blast, and noticed the bottom of the laptop got quite warm. My advice is if you want to use the MacBook Pro 14 M4 as a gaming rig, keep the included 70W charger and woven USB-C to MagSafe cable close by.

Speaking of that charger; when I drained the system to zero, I was able to use it to recharge the MacBook Pro 14 M4 to 43% in 30 minutes. That’s a bit less than the 50% I was expecting. To fully recharge, it took more than an hour.

I’ve had incredible battery experiences with the MacBook Air and its M3 chip. I can already see that, in normal use, the MacBook Pro 14 M4 is a sun-up-to-sun-down kind of system. That’s impressive, and a big win for Pro fans.

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024)?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Also consider

If our Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024) review leaves you considering other options, here are two laptops to consider…

How I tested the Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024)

• I spent more than a week with the MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024)
• I used it as an everyday productivity, creativity, and entertainment device
• I ran benchmarks

Apple provided me with the base MacBook Pro 14 M4 system, and I used it every day to test and help craft this review. I set it up as a work system, and as one for production and play. I used it indoors and outdoors.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed November 2024