One of the interesting side effects of Apple's move toward using its own silicon in the Mac is that the Mac update cycle now looks a lot more like the

2023 MacBook Pro review: A refined second generation

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2023-01-23 15:00:13

One of the interesting side effects of Apple's move toward using its own silicon in the Mac is that the Mac update cycle now looks a lot more like the iPhone's: mostly predictable, regular updates that offer modest generation-to-generation boosts to performance and maybe a few additional refinements or new features.

That's very much the case with the 2023 MacBook Pro. For most intents and purposes, it is the 2021 MacBook Pro. The only difference is the inclusion of the new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips for boosted CPU, graphics, and machine learning performance over 2021's M1 Pro and M2 Max, plus some connectivity upgrades that directly address some of our very minor quibbles with the otherwise excellent 2021 models.

That said, the 2021 MacBook Pro was far from a disappointment when it launched, and the market hasn't changed enough in the past two years to make the mostly similar 2023 models any less attractive. These are still the best laptops you can buy for many use cases—provided you don't mind spending a small fortune, that is.

In fact, their designs are identical. The 16-inch model with the M2 Max still weighs 4.8 pounds (2.2 kg) and measures 0.66 by 14.01 by 9.77 inches (1.68 by 35.57 by 24.81 cm). The 14-inch model with the same chip weighs 3.6 pounds (1.63 kg) and measures 0.61 by 12.31 by 8.71 inches (1.55 by 31.26 by 22.12 cm). There is nothing discernably different about either of them compared to their 2021 predecessors, at least from the outside.