After months of rumors, Apple’s long-awaited refresh of the 13-inch MacBook Pro is now official.
As expected, the new MacBook Pro’s biggest upgrade lies in its keyboard. It swaps Apple’s flawed butterfly mechanism with a much more reliable scissor-switch keyboard that was first introduced on the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro last year. More importantly, this launch serves as the final nail in the 5-year-old butterfly keyboard mechanism’s coffin, as all of the company’s MacBook models now feature the new Magic Keyboard.
Visually, however, the MacBook Pro is identical to its predecessor. Several reports had hinted it may have a bigger 14-inch screen and smaller bezels but that’s not the case here, unfortunately. It comes equipped with the same 13-inch Retina and True Tone display, Touch ID for biometrics authentication, a strip of touchscreen perched above the keyboard, aluminum unibody design in space gray or silver, and an identical set of ports.
The rest of the new MacBook Pro’s upgrades are under the hood. Like the MacBook Air, the 2020 MacBook Pro is powered by Intel’s latest 10th-gen quad-core chipsets (on higher-end models) that compared to the previous MacBook Pro’s base variant offers “2.8 times faster performance.” The integrated Intel Iris GPU also supports the Pro Display XDR at full 6K resolution. In addition, Apple has doubled the base internal storage to 256G and for the first time on a 13-inch Mac, added a 32GB RAM option.
“Whether you’re a college student, a developer, or a creative pro, the 13-inch MacBook Pro delivers powerful performance, a stunning Retina display, and all-day battery life in our most portable pro notebook. Today we’re adding the new Magic Keyboard, doubling the standard storage, and boosting performance, making the 13-inch MacBook Pro an even better value for our customers,” wrote Tom Boger, Apple’s senior director of Mac and iPad product marketing, in a blog post.
The new MacBook Pro’s base model costs $1,299 ($1,199 for education customers) and comes with an outdated 8th-gen processor, 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. However, you have the option to upgrade to 16GB RAM for $100, which is $200 less than what you would have to pay in prior models. It’s available starting today on Apple’s online store in the United States. It will begin shipping and “will be in select Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Resellers later this week.”
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