JANUARY 2022 T 3 69Apple MacBook Protraditional row of function keys.
Some will miss it; we don’t mind
either way – which is probably a sign
including it is no longer necessary.
ey keyboard is excellent,with
just enough travel, and a satisfying
click when a key ispressed, so there’s
no mistaking whether you’ve actually
hit it or not. e trackpad isalso
excellent, as Apple’salways are.
At the top right of the keyboardis a
fingerprint reader, which enablesyou
to instantly unlock the MacBook Pro,
and to switch from one user to
another basedon yourfingerprint.
e return of MagSafewas much
desired because thisplug isdesigned to
avoid tripping disasters: ifsomeone
catches and pulls the cable, it just pops
off from the MacBook, rather than
yanking the machine to the floor.It’s
great to have it back, and for it to just
be one of the charging options, since
lots of people have also come to love
the flexibility of USB-C charging.
Movie might
One of the big draws of the new
MacBook Pros is the‘XDR’ display,
which is basically Apple’s way of
saying it’s an HDR display that
includes support for Dolby Vision.
e key technology hereis
mini-LEDs – thisis the type of
backlight used on both models, and
was previously seen on the 12.9-inch
iPad Pro (2021). ousands of tiny
LED lightsare used directly behind
the screen, providingnot only huge
levels of maximumbrightness(up to
1,600 nits for HDRpeakbrightnessin
a small area, and 1,000 nits of
brightness across the whole screen),
but also allowing for reallyprecise
localised dimming of the backlight.
e result makes movies look as
good as anelite TV.Colours are
accuratebut punch beyond the glass,
and black areas are totally inky. It’s
impossible to seethe difference
between the black bars around a
movie and the black glass of the bezel.
e 14-inch displayis 14.2 inches,
to be exact, with a resolution of
3024x 19 64, at 254 pixels per inch. e
16-inch display is16.2 inches, at a
resolution 3456x2234, also 254 ppi.
is makesboth extremely sharp anddetailed – and while they’renot 4K,
we cancertainlylivewith it. Youcan’t
fault the look of them at normal
viewing distances.
e screensare alittle reflectiveand
there’s no option for a mattfinish, but
we never had any issues with them.
e notch will be also controversial,
but it didn’t cause us any problems
while using it. e vast majority of
apps are able to keep theirMenu bar
items tothe left of it, and only acouple
of creativetoolsneeded to split overto
the right of it, which they did easily.Supersonic CPU
We tested the version of the new
MacBook Pros with the M1Pro chip
(10-core CPU, 16-core GPU) and it’s
trulythe Concorde of laptops.
Apps open instantly. Not quickly.
Instantly. e only app that bounced
in the dock at all while opening was
from Adobe; a factwe present with no
furthercommentary.
We tried editing with10 tracks of
8K videoplaying simultaneously, and
there was no skipping while
scrubbing and no dropping of framesYouget truer black
tones and stronger
contrast than any
other Apple laptopDOUBLE QUICK
While it feels like Apple already
made a quantum leap with its
M1 chip, the M1 Pro is on another
level entirely. In Geekbench
5 multi-core tests, it scores a
whopping 12 ,000, a full 5 0%
faster than the M1’s 8,000.