Apple's latest MacBook Pro range has been released in New Zealand, powered by the US tech company's most advanced computer chip yet: the M3.
The Pro line’s 13-inch option has been discontinued as has the controversial touch bar of previous years, making the new releases a further refinement of the M2 range released earlier this year, also in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes.
So just how good are Apple's latest top-end laptops with their supremely advanced 3 nanometer chips?
I've been using an M3 Max powered MacBook Pro for the past few weeks and here are my thoughts.
The good
Apple has once again done that very Apple thing where they take something that was already extremely powerful and miles ahead of most of the competition and give it a little boost to be even better.
The new MacBook Pros offer a nice bump in power, making it clearer still these are the optimum choice for creative professionals.
For a laptop that delivers enormous power in an elegant package, this is ideal.
Just how powerful are we talking? I tested the M3 Max powered machine I reviewed against an M2 Max using Cinebench and got the following results, which as you can see, demolishes much of the competition. The GPU power is especially impresive - keep in mind there isn't a huge, cumbersome graphics card to achieve this.
It's difficult for me to test this power properly as I don't do anything drastically demanding with my laptops. Aside from writing and research, the only professional work I generally do is video and photo editing.
Using Adobe software, the most noticeable change with the power bump of the M3 is how quickly it exports videos in Premiere; that is demonstrably quicker. I'm sure everything else is also faster, and it handles multiple tracks of 4K video and stupendously large image files in Photoshop extremely well, but honestly, the M2 was already so good with that stuff it's hard to tell the difference.
Of course, people will likely be upgrading from something older than an M2 and wow, the speed and efficiency of this will blow your socks off if you're coming to it from an older Intel-powered MacBook.
While you're using one of these machines for demanding professional work, you can also be doing all your normal day-to-day stuff simultaneously. I never bother closing anything on it because the performance doesn't appear to suffer, no matter how many tabs or programmes I have open. Sometimes I close them to shrink the taskbar down a bit, but that's just for aesthetic reasons, as performance wise it never broke a sweat no matter what I threw at it.
Apple was keen to promote the gaming capabilities of this range of laptops and, for a select few games, it is superb. Lies of P in particular runs brilliantly and was a pleasure to play with either my PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X controller connected.
That game is optimised for this sort of hardware, whereas others need to go through various converters to work on a Mac. That can get complicated - this video is a deeper dive on multiple games tested on the base level M3, if you're interested.
The little taste I had of how great gaming can be on a M3 MacBook is a lovely tease and I hope for more of that soon.
But being a super powerful gaming machine is just an extra value add on one of these. It’s primary function is being a ridiculously powerful workhorse for 3D animation, VFX work and similar work, all delivered in a good looking and super easy to use portable computer.
It has the best of everything; from the fastest wireless protocols currently available to running everything I possibly could with ease, to the stunningly gorgeous display and design already mastered with the M2 range - the M3 MacBook Pro is about the most premium laptop experience I've ever had.
The bad
The worst thing about the M3 MacBook Pro is nothing actually to do with the machines, but what the release means for people who bought from the previous range.
Apple released the M2 MacBook Pro range earlier this year - as in just months ago. Those also launched with higher initial prices than the new M3 range.
So, if you forked out for an M2 MacBook Pro, thinking you'd have at least a year until it wasn't the hottest Apple laptop around, you'd be pretty peeved right now at the more power for less money others are getting with M3 in the same year.
Some of the configuration options also seem strange and quite un-"pro". 8GB of RAM, in late 2023? Just 512GB of storage? You can get both of those options on a 14-inch unit if you want to pay as little as possible for an M3 MacBook Pro (which would be $3200); but to me a higher spec MacBook Air option makes more sense and would cost less.
As usual with Apple silicon powered laptops, not being able to upgrade once you've made the purchase makes the initial decision-making a bit more stressful. Even if you live most of your life on the cloud, 512GB of storage is tiny and something you'll likely regret.
It's also frustrating how much power this is packing and how few decent games I'm able to play that are optimised for it. At the announce event they talked up raytracing and showed off a few games looking beautiful using a lot of that beefy GPU power, but it's an incredibly meagre library thus far able to do so.
At what the Pro models cost it is unlikely they are going to be bought by gamers for gaming alone, but if you have one anyway it's annoying having to play the latest Call of Duty and Alan Wake II on devices with less power, like my PS5 and Series X.
Apple has been starting to make baby steps into proper gaming to supplement the income it rakes in from mobile gaming through the App Store. If that progresses well, in a few years they should have deals with the major distributors which will mean a decent amount of AAA games are playable on these exceedingly powerful machines. Until then, the pickings are slim.
One last little silly gripe is the colour. It's called 'space black' but isn't actually black, more a dark grey, unless you're in a dark room. I like that the power cable is the same colour - but the brick is still white, so that may look less aesthetically pleasing if it's visible. Some people care about that stuff.
Personally, I'd love a properly matte black Mac.
The verdict
It's no surprise the latest MacBook Pro lineup sets a new standard for power, performance and efficiency with a unit that is remarkably easy to set up and get going with.
Apple will rightfully remain the first choice for most creative professionals with this new release, which will make it quicker and easier to do things like grade 8K footage - on a plane, if one desired, thanks to the portability of these machines.
Although the first few steps into the world of gaming offer very limited options, they show promise as a great value addition in the future, where people could feasibly use one laptop for all their professional and entertainment purposes.
While they start at $3200 for the lowest spec 14-inch, the highest spec M3 Max 16-inch with 128GB of RAM and 8TB of storage is a little over $13,000. Anyone investing that much money for that much power is presumably making a heck of a lot doing whatever digital sorcery it is they need all that hardware for.
There are plenty of options between those two price points to meet the needs and budget of various consumers wanting the best laptops Apple has yet produced.
I can't see them being disappointed.
Newshub was supplied with a M3 Max MacBook Pro for this review.
