8 months ago
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I’m just going to say it. Black looks good on a MacBook. Silver is nice, and so is white, but the new M3- and M3 Max-powered MacBook Pros have that machined sleekness that feels very Apple. Plus, I can say that in the days since I’ve gotten my grubby little paws on the massive 16-inch MacBook, the anodized material on the exterior has kept any but the greasiest of smudges from showing up.
We at Gizmodo have had just a few short days to mess around with the new M3-powered MacBook Pros on our own, without Apple looking over our shoulder. Apple shared details on its new silicon as well as an M3-powered iMac at its “Scary Fast” event just last week, and our full review is coming soon. In the meantime, we can share a few of our more succinct thoughts on how it’s gone so far.
Despite the new black scheme, the new MacBook Pro still got the same look, a very similar screen, and that damned notch of the M2-powered version that was released earlier this year.
Since the iPhone has moved on to Dynamic Island, it would have been nice to have some other setup to allow the pinhole camera rather than a black bar that takes up two inches at the top of the screen. So, all that said, you won’t see any immediate difference if you’re already used to the M1-powered MacBook Pro that debuted in 2021.
Already, just typing on the new Pro model is quite a bit different if you’re used to the Magic Keyboard on the MacBook Air. The keys are still low-profile, but they do have more heft to them, and that’s apparent just by the sounds they make. It’s not exactly clicky, but they have a satisfying “bump” to each keypress.
We received the 14-inch MacBook Pro with Regular M3 and 16GB of RAM, as well as the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Max and a whopping 48 GB of memory. As usual, the box comes with a 140W charging brick and a braided USB-C to the magnetic five-pin T-tip port cable.
The big question for these new M3 MacBook Pros is how they handle the most intense tasks requiring the most processing power. Based solely on specs, the new CPUs are indeed more powerful than the past generations of Apple silicon, but that doesn’t mean they’re all they’re cracked up to be. We’re very interested in how well these devices can handle gaming as well as large productivity tasks requiring serious power. We’ll see how well Apple can match its own claims for its darkest MacBook Pro yet. Stay tuned for our full review as we put those claims to the test.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best laptops, best TVs, and best headphones. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 16.
