MacBook Professional 16-inch (M2 Max, 2023) specs
Value: $2,699 beginning, $5,299 as reviewed
CPU/GPU: M2 Professional (10-core CPU, 16-core GPU or 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU), with non-compulsory M2 Max with as much as 12-core CPU and 38-core GPU
RAM: 16 to 96GB
Storage: 512GB to 8TB
Show: 16.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR show (3024 x 1964 pixels, 254ppi)
Battery: 100Wh (18:56)
Dimensions: 14 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches
Weight: 4.8 kilos
The brand new king of the MacBooks is right here. Lengthy be its reign (which must be a couple of 12 months). Apple’s popping out of the gate swinging, outfitting the laptop computer with the corporate’s proprietary M2 Max chip. It places rivals to disgrace whereas placing a transparent gulf between its predecessors. And sure, it’s attainable to sport on this method due to the chip. I had a hell of a great time being terrified throughout Resident Evil Village.
Along with the highly effective chipset, you get a fascinating 16-inch show, highly effective audio and a brilliant cozy keyboard. However the cherry on the highest is the battery life, which lasted almost 19 hours. Briefly, the MacBook Professional 16 is an unmitigated beast. However not so quick — there’s at all times a value. And within the case of MacBook Professional 16 M2 Max, the worth is the precise price ($2,699 beginning, $5,299 as reviewed). It’s par for the course with Apple, however it nonetheless will give most individuals, together with this reviewer, pause.
However in order for you the crème de la crème of Macs, the MacBook Professional 16 sits on the high of the heap. It’s additionally the newest entrant to our greatest laptops web page in addition to our greatest video modifying laptops and most lasting laptops pages.
MacBook Professional 16 pricing and configurations
Be proper again; gotta look into promoting a kidney or a spleen. Sure, my evaluation unit is simply that costly. Is it the costliest laptop computer I’ve ever reviewed? No, however it’s up there. Let’s get into it, lets?
The beginning value for my configuration is $3,499 and has a 12-core (8 efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores) Apple M2 Max CPU, 38-core Apple GPU with a 16-core Neural Engine. You get 32GB of unified reminiscence, a 1TB SSD and a 16.2-inch, 3456 x 2234-pixel, Liquid Retina XDR show. My evaluation unit is available in at $5,299 and bumps up the unified reminiscence to a ridiculous 96GB and the storage to a 4TB SSD.
Now, issues don’t need to get so exorbitant. The bottom mannequin MacBook 16 prices $2,499 and comes geared up with a 12-core Apple M2 Max CPU, 19-core Apple GPU with a 16-core Neural Engine, 16GB of unified reminiscence and a 512GB SSD. All-in-all, I’d suggest the middle-ground $2,699 system, which provides 1TB of storage. However Apple is fairly beneficiant with the configurator, so it shouldn’t be too arduous to cobble collectively one thing inside your finances.
MacBook Professional 16 design
The MacBook Professional 16 doesn’t deviate a lot from the Apple design playbook, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, with its rounded edges, CNC anodized aluminum chassis and shiny top-mounted emblem, the MacBook Professional is a licensed basic in any dialog. Alternatively, it is likely to be time for Apple to shake issues up. Hell, at the least give us a brand new coloration to fawn over apart from Silver and Area Grey.
Ah nicely, opening my Area Grey evaluation unit revealed extra of that fairly aluminum. The matte black keyboard sits high heart in between two massive speaker grilles. Straight beneath is the huge touchpad.
Weighing 4.8 kilos, the 14 x 9.8 x 0.7-inch MacBook Professional gained’t go unnoticed in a backpack, however fortunately, it’s not a backbreaker. It’s lighter than each the Dell XPS 17 (14.7 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches) and the Asus ZenBook Professional 16X OLED (14 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches) which each weigh 5.3 kilos.
MacBook Professional 16 ports
The MacBook Professional 16 is scant on ports, however what it does have can create a strong workstation.
On the proper, you might have a Thunderbolt 4 port, a full HDMI port and an SDXC card reader.
Alongside the left are a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, a headset jack and Apple’s proprietary MagSafe charger enter. In the event you want extra ports and slots, take a gander at our greatest laptops docking stations web page.
MacBook Professional 16 show
Whew! Apple certain is aware of learn how to make a fairly show. The MacBook Professional 16 has a 16.2-inch, Liquid Retina XDR (Excessive Dynamic Vary) panel that’s positively spellbinding. With its 3024 x 1964p decision, this display screen is jam-packed with pixels to the tune of seven.7 million pixels with 254 pixels per inch. It makes for daring colours with sharp particulars.
I discovered that first hand as I watched Huge George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the As soon as and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World trailer. Within the titular function, actor Khris Davis’ golden brown sweat was beaded with sweat. I noticed the perspiration fly as he took a proper cross that despatched him flying in the direction of the mat. His ruby purple shorts with the intense white trim drew my eye throughout his descent.
| DCI-P3 coloration gamut share | |
| MacBook Professional 16-inch M2 Max | 83.7% |
| Dell XPS 17 Plus | 85.1% |
| Asus ZenBook Professional 16X OLED | 90.2% |
Resulting from how colourful the MacBook Professional 16’s panel appeared, I used to be shocked to study that the display screen’s 83.7% DCI-P3 rating was beneath the 88.1% premium laptop computer common. The XPS 17 was barely higher at 85.1% whereas the Zenbook Professional 16X reached 90.2%.
| Brightness | |
| MacBook Professional 16-inch M2 Max | 447 nits |
| Dell XPS 17 | 466 nits |
| Asus ZenBook Professional 16X OLED | 345 nits |
The MacBook Professional 16 made a comeback on the brightness take a look at with a median of 447 nits. That’s brighter than the 391-nit class common and the Zenbook Professional 16X’s 345 nits. Nonetheless, it couldn’t outshine the XPS 17’s 466 nits.
MacBook Professional 16 audio
Whereas I’m certain Apple would love so that you can put money into a pair of AirPods Professional 2 or AirPods Max (you would possibly need to maintain out on the latter, although, if the rumors are true), the MacBook Professional 16 doesn’t want a pair of headphones or earbuds — it sounds that good. The six-speaker setup with its 4 force-cancelling woofers and two tweeters ship wealthy, balanced highs and mids and bass with a big thump, a degree the place rivals typically fall quick.
At full quantity, Lizzo’s “Particular” not solely stuffed the upstairs portion of my duplex, but additionally managed to succeed in the small portion of the downstairs the place my house health club resides. The horns had been triumphant, accompanied by some ethereal strings, thumpy bass and crisp excessive hats. I heard each echo and reverb of that sonorous alto.
Not all of the audio coming from the MacBook Professional 16 sounded good. Quite the opposite, they sounded downright terrifying. Working example, the moist, slippery, sloshing sound as the enormous mutated child in Resident Evil Village crawled its method towards me, with distorted child gurgles spilling from its moist, gaping maw.
Just like its predecessor, the MacBook Professional 16 has spatial audio, which transforms wherever you are sitting right into a mini live performance corridor. No less than, it felt that method as I listened to De La Soul’s “The Magic Quantity.” The drums, whereas current, seemed like they had been additional away from me than Plug 1,2 and three. The bass was situated to the proper whereas the delicately plinking piano sat to the left.
MacBook Professional 16 keyboard and touchpad
I’ve but to satisfy a Magic Keyboard I didn’t like. The MacBook Professional 16 maintains that sentiment. Bouncy and miserable with a slight click on, it’s a pleasure to sort on the keyboard. The white backlighting is vibrant sufficient to work in even the darkest situations. Buttons for Dictation, Do Not Disturb and Highlight grace the highest row together with a number of different Operate keys.
I took the 10fastfingers typing take a look at and wasn’t too shocked that I surpassed my common 70 phrases per minute, reaching 80 wpm.
The 6.3 x 3.9-inch Pressure Contact touchpad is totally huge. However regardless of my wrists always coming into contact with it, I by no means had any issues with palm rejection (or lack thereof). In follow, multitouch gestures on the trackpad had been extremely agile and responsive.
MacBook Professional 16 M2 and M2 Max
It’s been a protracted wait, however we’re lastly right here. It began with the 13-inch MacBook Air and the M2 chip. It continues with the newest additions to the roster, the M2 Professional and the M2 Max.
First, let’s discuss concerning the M2 Professional. It’s out there as both a ten or 12-core CPU with six efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores for the previous and eight p-cores and 4 e-cores for the latter. The bottom mannequin of the GPU offers you 16 cores whereas the opposite has 19. Apple claims that interprets into the chip being 20% sooner than the CPU and 30% sooner than the GPU on the last-gen M1 chip. With the M2 Professional, you may get both 16 or 32GB of unified reminiscence.
Then there’s the M2 Max, essentially the most highly effective chip within the M2 sequence. It has a 12-core CPU with both a 30 or 38-core GPU. Apple claims the M2 Max CPU is 20% than final 12 months’s M1 Max and 30% sooner than its predecessor’s GPU. Each variation of each the Max and the Professional has 16GB of Neural Engine which may compute a most 15.8 trillion operations per second which equates to being 40% sooner than last-gen chips, netting as much as 10x increase in efficiency.
MacBook Professional 16 efficiency
So let’s get right down to brass tacks. Outfitted with Apple M2 Max CPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, 96GB of unified reminiscence and 4TB of storage, the MacBook Professional 16 is an unstoppable beast. I threw every little thing I may consider at it: 100 Google Chrome tabs, laden with Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. Plus, fairly just a few tabs of YouTube and Twitch, enjoying with Fb, Twitter and a number of reports websites. I even ran Resident Evil Village with all of this reckless chaos. The MacBook Professional 16 shrugged it off and I couldn’t detect any slowdown or stuttering.
Now, we dig into artificial benchmarks, beginning with Geekbench 5.4, our total efficiency take a look at the place the MacBook Professional 16 bought 15,044. That’s nicely past the premium laptop computer common of 6,977. With their Intel Core i7-12700H processors, the XPS 17 and ZenBook Professional 16X obtained scores of 13,714 and 11,974, respectively.
| Mutli-core rating | |
| MacBook Professional 16-inch M2 Max | 15,044 |
| Dell XPS 17 | 13,714 |
| Asus ZenBook Professional 16X OLED | 11,974 |
Operating the Handbrake take a look at, the MacBook Professional 16 solely took 3 minutes and 59 seconds, a blistering pace that far surpasses the 8:48 common. The Zenbook Professional 16X was a distant second with a time of 5:51 whereas the XPS 17 lagged behind with 6:40.
| Time (min:sec) | |
| MacBook Professional 16-inch M2 Max | 3:59 |
| Dell XPS 13 Plus | 6:40 |
| Asus ZenBook Professional 16X OLED | 5:51 |
Our common file switch take a look at the place we duplicate 25GB of multimedia information to find out switch pace doesn’t work on Macs. However by no means concern, there’s the BlackMagic learn/write take a look at the place the MacBook Professional 16 4TB SSD delivered speeds of 5,717.2 megabytes per second (learn) and 6,664.8MBps (write). Each outcomes bested the class averages of 4,297MBps (learn) and three,609.8MBps (write).
MacBook Professional 16 graphics and gaming
With its 38-core Apple GPU, the MacBook Professional 16 is able to tackle the elephant within the room. Can a Mac sport? The reply is a thunderous sure. As I frantically raced round a room looking for the primary killer doll in a room filled with murderous moppets, I discovered and slashed at my prey in Resident Evil Village. The second time, I wasn’t so fortunate as I used to be beset upon by a horde of knife-wielding collectible figurines, slashing at my defenseless type at a median of 68 frames per second (1920 x 1080, Extremely settings). I in the end emerged victorious, albeit a tad bit traumatized.
It’s spectacular, particularly for a Mac. Nonetheless, Apple has a methods to go to match the ability of a discrete chip. The MacBook Professional 16 hit a body price of 59 fps on the Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark. It crushed the 49-fps premium laptop computer common, however it was no match for both the XPS 17 nor the Zenbook Professional 16X which produced 119 and 103 fps, respectively due to their Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPUs.
| 1920 x 1200 | |
| MacBook Professional 16-inch M2 Max | 59 fps |
| Dell XPS 17 | 119 fps |
| Asus Zenbook Professional 16X OLED | 103 fps* |
At 4K decision, the MacBook Professional 16’s body price barely dropped at 58 fps. That beat the 39-fps common and put it a breath behind the XPS 17’s 60 whereas the Zenbook Professional 16X pulled out the win with 84 fps.
Through the Rise of the Tomb Raider take a look at, the MacBook Professional 16 reached 92 fps, dusting off the 56-fps class common. The body price fell to 34 fps, maintaining it above the 22-fps common.
MacBook Professional 16 battery life
Say whats up to the brand new king of longevity. Apple claims that the MacBook Professional 16’s 100-watt-hour battery will last as long as 22 hours on Apple TV app film playback and as much as 15 hours of wi-fi internet searching. The pocket book cut up the newborn on the Laptop computer Magazine Battery Check (steady internet browsing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness) posting a time of 18 hours and 56 minutes, making it our new most lasting laptop computer.
| Time (hours:minutes) | |
| MacBook Professional 14-inch M2 Max | 18:56 |
| Dell XPS 17 | 8:05 |
| Asus ZenBook Professional 16X OLED | 5:15 |
That point was for much longer than the ten:02 premium laptop computer common. The XPS 17 was a distant second with a time of 8:05 whereas the Zenbook Professional 16X posted 5:15.
Just like the 14-inch MacBook Professional, the 16-inch mannequin helps quick charging. With its 140W energy adapter, the MacBook Professional 16 can cost as much as midway in solely half-hour.
MacBook Professional 16 warmth
Regardless of the highly effective specs, the MacBook Professional 16 can maintain its cool below most circumstances. We ran a 15-minute fullscreen video and measured a number of spots on the laptop computer. The trackpad measured a cool 78 levels Fahrenheit whereas the middle of the keyboard and the undercarriage registered 81 levels. This falls nicely beneath our 95-degree consolation threshold.
MacBook Professional 16 webcam
Not like a lot of its rivals, the MacBook Professional 16 has a 1080p webcam. The FaceTime HD shooter captures nice photos with correct coloration and comparatively clear particulars.
The digital camera did an incredible job with my purple shirt in addition to the pink, blue, inexperienced and purple and my hair. A lot to my chagrin, it additionally caught a big bump on my brow. Generally, a digital camera is usually a bit too good.
MacBook Professional 16 software program
The MacBook Professional 14 runs on macOS Ventura, one of the crucial responsive working techniques I’ve used on Mac. Apple has labored on optimizing how Ventura assigns multithreaded duties to the CPU cores. Utilizing its superior energy administration options, the OS intelligently disseminates duties between the efficiency and effectivity cores, delivering optimum efficiency and endurance.
Ventura additionally permits your MacBook, iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch to work seamlessly due to Continuity options and iCloud. As an illustration, with Handoff, you can begin writing an e mail in your iPad or iPhone and decide up proper the place you left off. Airdropping between iDevices has develop into even simpler. The Common Clipboard permits you to copy and paste textual content or photos from an iPhone or iPad proper right into a doc on the MacBook.
And there are just a few new GPU-centric options through Steel 3, permitting the system to render high-res graphics sooner. Meaning video games and content material creation apps like Ultimate Minimize Professional are much less taxing on the system, taking much less time to render and cargo. There’s even ray tracing that shifts the burden of all that complicated rendering over to the GPU, releasing up the CPU for different duties.
The MacBook Professional 14 ships with a one-year restricted guarantee. See how Apple fared throughout Tech Help Showdown and Finest and Worst Manufacturers, our annual reviews.
Backside line
In the event you’re searching for the final word MacBook, you’ve discovered it within the MacBook Professional 16 M2 Max. At 16 inches, it’s large in all the proper locations. You’ve bought that stunning show, highly effective six-speaker setup and an enormous cozy keyboard. And that’s earlier than you get to M2 Max silicon, the brand new king of Apple chips. It laid waste to competing techniques in all of our efficiency assessments. Is the GPU able to go head-to-head with discrete graphics chips? No. However the truth that it’s even within the dialog, is a win for Apple. And lest we neglect, this laptop computer is our new most lasting system falling in need of 19 hours by solely 4 minutes.
The MacBook Professional 16 can also be large in one other place: value. MacBooks don’t come low cost, and on the subject of the MacBook Professional 16, that is very true. The beginning value for an M2 Max configuration is an eye-watering $3,099, which jumps to $5,299 if you add extra reminiscence and storage. In the event you’ve completely had your coronary heart set on a MacBook Professional 16, I’d suggest one with an M2 Professional chip. It’s cheaper, and when you try our MacBook Professional 14 evaluation, it’s lots able to getting the job completed whether or not it is work or play.
However when you’re a content material creator with huge demanding tasks, the MacBook Professional 16 can be arduous to beat.
