14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max review – a gamechanger for creative professionals

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• VERDICT

The new M2 Pro and M2 Max 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro are absolute gamechangers for those professionals whose work and talent we all love and appreciate. With the improved capabilities of these new MacBooks their talent can now be unleashed – and we can’t wait to see what they come up with.

I am writing this review on the new 14-inch MacBook Pro powered by the new M2 Max processor which is such an under use of its capabilities it would be like using a sledgehammer do crack an egg.

Writing a document using Microsoft Word is something you can do on your phone but when it comes to more serious tasks that require some of most advanced applications ever created then you’re moving into territory that not many computers can handle.

If you’ve got the MacBook Pro with M2 Max, the response from a user faced with one of those gargantuan and sophisticated tasks would be “bring it on!”

Now I’m not ever going to suggest that my daily workflow would bring the MacBook Pro with M2 Max out of first gear but my appreciation for what it can do is next level.

Full respect to those users who are pushing their MacBook Pro to the limit with their editing, rendering and creating – these are the true professionals for which this incredible new laptop was designed.

The new MacBook Pro line-up is available in 14-inch and 16-inch models with your choice of the M2 pro or M2 Max chip.

For our review we received the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max with 64GB unified memory and 2TB of SSD storage.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max and these specs will cost $6,499.

Design-wise, the MacBook Pro is identical to the previous model.

They have three Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, a HDMI port, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack and the MagSafe 3 port for charging.

With the M2 Pro users can support up to two external displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz or one external display at 8K resolution at 60Hz.

With the M2 Max, customers can have up to four external displays including one external 8K display at 60 Hertz.

Now to help put these two chips in context – the M2 Pro has 40 billion transistors, up to 32GB of unified memory and 19-core GPU while the M2 Max has 67 billion transistors, up to 96GB of unified memory and up to 38-core GPU.

These two advanced Apple chips can revolutionise and enable your workflows anywhere and on battery power where previously it was only possible when working on a desktop workstation.

These new MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max means there is no limit to when and where pro users can do their work.

The whole idea of purchasing a MacBook Pro with these latest chips is to increase your capacity and improve your workflow.

And with the performance improvements you are also likely to save time as well.

For most of us, me included, the few seconds I’m going to save is nothing compared to what a Hollywood editor, professional photographer or special effects artist would benefit when working on projects worth millions of dollars.

So how much better are the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips?

We’ll look at three main areas of use – photo editing, 3D animation/motion graphics and video editing.

When it’s time to ingest, cull, batch edit, duplicate and store photos, this is made a little easier thanks to the SDXC card slot.

And in terms of using Photoshop to handle complex edits of high-resolution photographs and complete ML accelerated tasks like auto fill and repair it is faster than ever.

In fact, it is three times faster with M2 Max than a MacBook Pro with Intel Core i7.

If you’re a visual effects artist who needs to handle complex 3D VFX workflows, the MacBook Pro can power through these tasks.

For example, 3D artists can smash through extreme geometry and textures in scenes which some of the latest professional PC laptops can’t even touch.

Now motion graphics artists can edit and manipulate massive scenes twice as fast as they would with a MacBook with Intel Core i7.

On the video side, professionals will see an improvement at every stage of their workflow and production.

It’s now possible to playback up to 10 streams of 8K ProRes video at the same time which makes multicam video editing and postproduction a reality anywhere.

Editors can also transcode media up to 16x faster than the latest Intel-based MacBook Pro.

And film makers can work in the field in full HDR with the MacBook Pro when they are nowhere near an edit bay and working on battery.

You just may catch a glimpse of a film editor working on the latest blockbuster next to you on a flight.

That’s now completely possible with the MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max.

But not only is the MacBook Pro an absolute workhorse it’s also an entertainer with its stunning Liquid Retina XDR display with up to 1600nits of peak brightness and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

On the audio side it has a high-fidelity six speaker sound system with four force-cancelling woofers to give you tremendous bass and clear mids and highs to bring the sound experience to a new level.

It even has a studio-quality three-mic array which reduces feedback while directional beamforming eliminates background noise while recording or on a video call.

Another massive improvement for the MacBook Pro is the battery life.

And that’s all thanks to the incredible efficiency created with the new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro will offer up to 18 hours of battery life while the 16-inch model takes that up to a stunning 22 hours of battery life – the longest ever offered on a MacBook laptop.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at $3,199 and the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at $3,999.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max is priced from $4,999 and the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max starts at $5,599.

 VERDICT

The new M2 Pro and M2 Max 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro are absolute gamechangers for those professionals whose work and talent we all love and appreciate. With the improved capabilities of these new MacBooks their talent can now be unleashed – and we can’t wait to see what they come up with.