Apple Announces MacBook Pro And Mac mini With M2 Pro And M2 Max Processors In Surprise Launch

Apple on Tuesday launched the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max, which are the company's next-gen pro silicon. The new Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro has been unveiled too.

According to Apple, the battery life on the MacBook Pro is now up to 22 hours -- the longest battery life ever in a Mac. ( Image: Apple )

Apple on Tuesday officially launched the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max, which are the company's next-generation pro silicon that claims to bring more power-efficient performance and battery life to pro users. With M2 Pro and M2 Max the new MacBook Pro promises to tackle demanding tasks, like effects rendering, which is up to 6 times faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro and colour grading, which is up to 2 times faster. Apple also introduced the new Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro at an affordable price.

Compared to the previous-generation Mac mini, M2 and M2 Pro bring a faster next-generation CPU and GPU, much higher memory bandwidth, and a more powerful media engine to Mac mini, delivering extraordinary performance and industry-leading power efficiency. Both models feature an advanced thermal system for exceptional sustained performance.

According to Apple, the battery life on the MacBook Pro is now up to 22 hours -- the longest battery life ever in a Mac. Here's everything you need to know about the new MacBook Pros and the new Mac mini.

The new MacBook Pro models with M2 Pro and M2 Max have been made available for order starting today (January 17) on Apple’s official online store in 27 countries and regions, including in India. The devices will start arriving to customers starting January 24. Buyers can order the Apple Mac mini models today and their availability will start on January 24.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at $1,999 (US) and $1,849 (US) for education and the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at $2,499 (US) and $2,299 (US) for education. 

The 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at Rs 1,99,900 for the M2 processor and 10-core CPU variant. The 14-inch MacBook Pro 12-core CPU variant with the M2 processor starts at Rs 2,49,900. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max starts at Rs 3,09,900. The 16-inch model with M2 Pro starts at Rs 2,49,900 while the model with M2 Max starts at Rs 3,49,900. The new Mac mini starts at Rs 59,900.

“MacBook Pro with Apple silicon has been a game changer, empowering pros to push the limits of their workflows while on the go and do things they never thought possible on a laptop,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, said in a statement.

“Today the MacBook Pro gets even better. With faster performance, enhanced connectivity, and the longest battery life ever in a Mac, along with the best display in a laptop, there’s simply nothing else like it.”

With M2 Pro and M2 Max, the new Apple MacBook Pro is capable of transforming pro workflows. Users looking to upgrade from Intel-based Mac models will experience more dramatic improvements in terms of performance, battery life, connectivity and overall productivity. MacBook Pro also claims to maintain performance whether users are plugged in or on battery.

The Apple MacBook Pro with M2 Pro features a 10-core or 12-core CPU with up to eight high-performance and four high-efficiency cores for up to 20 per cent greater performance over the M1 Pro. With 200GB/s of unified memory bandwidth -- double the amount in M2 -- and up to 32GB of unified memory, users can tackle large projects and run multiple pro apps with blazing speed.

A next-generation GPU with up to 19 cores claims to deliver up to 30 per cent more graphics performance and the Neural Engine is 40 per cent faster, speeding up machine learning tasks like video analysis and image processing. The powerful media engine in M2 Pro also tears through the most popular video codecs, dramatically accelerating video playback and encoding while using very little power.

The new Apple MacBook Pro comes with support for Wi-Fi 6E, which is up to twice as fast as the previous generation. It also has advanced HDMI, which supports 8K displays for the first time. The connectivity ports include three Thunderbolt 4 ports for high-speed connection to peripherals, an SDXC card slot as well as MagSafe 3 charging. The new models also comes with Liquid Retina XDR display and a 1080p FaceTime HD camera.

The new M2 Pro chip claims to deliver pro-level performance to Mac mini for the first time, thus, enabling users to run high-performance workflows that were previously unimaginable in a compact design. Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro promise to deliver faster performance, including support for up to two displays on the M2 model and up to three displays on the M2 Pro model.

“With incredible capabilities and a wide array of connectivity in its compact design, Mac mini is used in so many places, in so many different ways. Today, we’re excited to take it even further with M2 and M2 Pro,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing.