Apple MacBook Pro (M1, 2020), what to expect?

The release of the refreshed 2020 Apple MacBook Pro featuring the Apple M1 Silicon chip has finally shipped to Rosman Computers! The new M1 chip exceeded a lot of expectations for our team in regards to battery life and overall performance.

Apple launched the new MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1, 2020) with big expectations for Apple’s own silicon chips and they sure did deliver the goods. The overhaul of the Intel i3, i5 and i7 CPUs in the MacBook Pros to the new Apple M1 has been a huge success. The M1 chip represents a great milestone for Apple - their own silicon CPU chips have been greeted with a warm welcome from the public.

The introduction of the M1 chip in both the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1, 2020), Apple MacBook Air (M1, 2020), as well as the Mac mini (M1, 2020), which have also been released, serves as a new chapter in the Apple Mac range. No longer using the Intel hardware for CPU processing or integrated graphics has required Apple to create an alternative: the new 5nm M1 chip was designed by Apple in-house.

• Apple MacBook Pro Sale

Apple has delivered on promises that the new chip will allow the line-up of Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1, 2020) laptops to perform better, with a longer run time compared to its Intel predecessors. Some of Apple’s claims are that the new MacBook Pro 13-inch is the undisputed compact ultra-book (for machine learning); in fact, it is up to 3x faster than Microsoft Laptops in the same class and up to 2.8x faster than the previous generation of the MacBook Pro (Intel CPU). These claims from Apple have been put to the test by Tom’s Guide, so how do these benchmarks really translate to day to day operations?

From a performance perspective, users have reported that both native apps from Apple and legacy apps on the new Apple MacBook platform are very impressive. Overall, the performance in the M1 chip outclasses the Intel CPU based MacBook Pro at the same price range. If there were any thoughts in the back of your mind that Apple was making a mistake by moving away from Intel, remove them now!

Apple has arguably been able to keep the pricing for the new and improved generation of MacBook Pros 2020 (M1) due to the move away from Intel. The pricing of the entry level MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1) is $1999 AUD for 256GB storage and 8GB RAM or $2299 for 512GB of storage and 8GB RAM both featuring the 8 core M1. Comparatively, the new Dell XPS 13 (2020 version) with similar specs will cost you around $150 AUD more at least.

Even though there is a lot to love about the new MacBook Pro, we believe that Apple could have done more with the design aspects of the model. A fresh new chassis which has better speakers, a smaller bezel, and a new keyboard would’ve been the cherry on top, but it looks like we will have to wait for the next model of the MacBook Pro 13-inch to potentially see these! Who knows - maybe the Apple MacBook Pro 2021 (M1) will have everything we want!