Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 in review: The M2 Pro is slowed down in the small MacBook Pro

[Klaus Hinum]

Is there any MacBook that you can buy today that is eyestrain free? I've heard that m2 air should be good but some people say it still has pwm and definitely dithering.

yep, the MacBook Air M2 e.g. is not using PWM
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-M2-Entry-Review-A-very-good-but-too-expensive-daily-MacBook.636637.0.html

[NikoB]

Surprisingly, in the reviews of the new Apple chips, there is not a word that they are on average 3 (200GByte/s) and 6 (400GByte/s) times over the speed of pumping in memory compared to X86.

There is not a single test for the real speed of memory in new makuki, although this is the most advanced memory on the planet in speed with a 512 bit of access controller, which is 4 times wider than on the X86.

I would like to see these tests to evaluate Apple's declarations in practice.

Because it is not clear to me - as with such a quick memory, the M2 Max does not significantly benefit from the new top i9 of the 13th series and the 7945HX from the AMD, which has traditionally 1.5 times slowly, even at a larger memory frequency with 128 bit memory bus access . What is proved in dozens of NB reviews.

If it turned out that the M2 MAX memory controller is really capable of pumping 300Gbyte/s+  this would simply mean an outstanding breakthrough against the background of Intel/AMD shame with their X86 platform.

[Klaus Hinum]

Surprisingly, in the reviews of the new Apple chips, there is not a word that they are on average 3 (200GByte/s) and 6 (400GByte/s) times over the speed of pumping in memory compared to X86.

In the CPDT "Memory Copy" benchmark (added pictures for external SSDs in the ports section), the MBP14 reaches 31GB/s vs 14GB/s of a Alder Lake i9-12900HK in the MSI Raider GE76 (DDR5-4800).

[ugru]

It is peculiar that neither last year (unless I am wrong) nor this year you reviewed the 16" M1/M2 Max laptops...why?

[NikoB]

CPDT

Firstly, these ridiculous numbers in no way refer to the memory controller test, and secondly, this data is not included in the review. I did not find.

Why is there no memory controller test? Is there really no analogue of AIDA64 under MacOS or another cross-platform memory test?

This is a very important declaration from Apple and needs to be carefully checked and compared with the x86 platform. If Apple is lying (and most likely it is), this will immediately be revealed in the tests.

[NeoCS]

Super expensive laptop with PWM screen. No for me. I can buy much cheaper device which will be completely flicker free. Why Apple spends more attention to stupid emojis than their customers eye health.

Is there any MacBook that you can buy today that is eyestrain free? I've heard that m2 air should be good but some people say it still has pwm and definitely dithering.

There is a reason why PWM is present, Dell XPS 15 or Latitude 9000-7000 or HP Zbook Studio Serie has no PWM on their Screen but the brightness is too high at 0 settings 32-36 cd/m²,(the exception is Laptops with OLED Panel) which makes it impossible to work at night or in low light room, (it can harm your eyes). I have Precision 5570, several XPS and Zbook Studio at work and I know. Macbook with 0 settings the brightness of the screen is only 2 cd/m² (means usable in all circumstances). I'm mostly a Windows user and now I have this Macbook.Usually people with glasses always need a brighter display when working on a laptop, that's because of eye problems.. at the moment there is no better display than the one on the Macbook. message to Notebookcheck, test the Display in all conditions, including in a dark room,For some maybe irrelevant details, but that's why Macbook pro makes it a special machine...

The MBP screen is not OLED, it's mini-LED so Apple could use another way than PWM to dim the LEDs down. They just don't. Plus, the MBP PWM is 14800Hz at all brightness levels, not just low brightness (like the M1 MBA).

[DJK]

Hi.  Thanks for the very comprehensive review.  94% is the highest laptop score I've seen on this site, so I made this a contender in my purchase decision.  I dropped the hammer on a Thinkpad T14S Gen3 AMD (91% by a different reviewer on your site).

I understand that you have specific criteria to weight your reviews, but I wonder at the very high score for the MBP.  I went for the T14s because of 3 things:

- The availability of a touchscreen (no option on MBP)

- The swappable SSD (soldered on MBP)

- The price: T14s with 32GB RAM was $1830 CAD on sale whereas the MBP with 32GB is $4100 CAD and hard to find on sale.

The build quality (keyboard being especially important to me) sounds roughly equivalent, the MBP is 20% heavier and, although the IPS screen on the T14s does not fully compare to the high end mini-led of the MBP, it is matt and dims beautifully with no detectable PWM.   

Anyway, even though I question the relative scores of the two reviews, your reviews were extremely helpful in helping me make a decision.  So thank you again!

[LifePo7]

The m2 reaches 100w of consumption and the guy talks about 25w in the middle of the article, as if the chip was super efficient

How about talking about the real numbers and not what Apple counts?