In a quiet announcement, Apple has said that a new 13-inch MacBook Pro featuring the Apple M2 silicon will be coming out for order on June 17. Online orders will open up at 5 a.m. PT, on that day, and those who wish to buy in person can pick one up at the Apple Store on June 24.
This new M2 MacBook Pro 13-inch looks the same as the last generation as it keeps the Touch Bar and doesn’t have a notch in the display like the 14-inch and 16-inch models. It also only has two Thunderbolt 4 ports and no MagSafe connection.
The biggest difference between generations is the M2 chip under the hood and the two additional GPU cores that it offers. Pricing is also around the same over the last generation, coming in starting at $1,300 for a base model with 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Education customers, meanwhile, can get this same model for $1,200. Yet interestingly enough, a 24GB RAM option is available this year, for an additional $400 across models.
According to Apple, this new M2 MacBook Pro is nearly 40% faster than the previous generation when using creative apps like Affinity Photo. Beyond that, it can be up to 3.4 times faster than an Intel Core i7 MacBook model without Apple silicon.
“The 13-inch MacBook Pro is supercharged by the new M2 chip, which begins the next generation of Apple silicon and takes the breakthrough capabilities of M1 even further. It features incredible performance, up to 24GB of unified memory, ProRes acceleration, and up to 20 hours of battery life, all in a compact design,” said Apple in a press release.
This 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 joins the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and M1 Max to round out the Apple MacBook Pro lineup.
Apple, though, has not yet shared shipping information or order dates for the new MacBook Air with an M2 chip. Likely due to the supply issues and the pandemic, the Apple Online store shows those M2 MacBook Air orders will be coming “next month” with no specific date range as of yet.
