Apple and many other companies figured out a long time ago that allowing their customers to easily distinguish between new and old products is a bad idea because then they can't trick people into emptying their old stock.

I still don’t get why Apple bothers with the lower speed SSDs for their products. Just charge more for the base model. It’s not like they’re strangers to expensive electronics. Also, nice pride watch band, Anthony.

My guess is they had a bunch of lower binned M2 chips. Run hotter and need that old chassis active cooling to get full M2 performance. Saving up the top tier chips for the new M2 Air

I think they avoid yearly naming to give their products some sort of "mystical, timeless" air, even though it really just confuses more technically inclined users. That said, at least it keeps their resale value high for when you want to get the newest version, I suppose

I do miss the touchbar on my M1 pro 14 inch I am surprised how much I missed it for music apps and also adjusting brush sizes in Affinity apps, it was so useful for preview and scrubbing for video. I Like Anthony's idea of the half height F keys with the touchbar.

I mean on one hand, for me, it’s nice to know that my 2020 intel MacBook Pro doesn’t already look dated

I do love the Touch Bar.. Some apps have convenient widgets. However, the best part is customizing the bar with better touch tools. I use it daily and absolutely love it on my pro m1 2020 :)

I love how desperately Apple is trying to get rid of their stock of touchbar MacBook Pro 13s. 😂 they invested WAY too much in them.

A lot of ways to think about this, I see the reason that people still prefer M2 pro is because of the fans and touch bar, even you dont recognize M1 or M2 from the chassis, but you can definitely tell it is a 13 pro. People also purchasing 13pro because it is special, classic chassis, and they honestly dont care about 720p webcam, however the screen revolution is already awesome and very stable performance in a long run, most of people wouldnt even use macbooks as a speaker anyway, but its sound quality is fantastic, where 14 pro is even better, but Im pretty sure that nobody choose 13pro mainly considering the sound quality. For M1 13pro users, definitely not worth for the upgrade to M2 13pro, but for first Macbook users like me, Id for sure go with the M2 13pro for its uniqueness, and the classic thick chassis with fans is the way to go for long term usage, and I believe that was the main reason Apple had courage to use the same M1 13pro chassis for the M2.

The 13 inch MacBook Pro (M2) seems to just be a way for Apple to get rid of excess 13 inch chassis… because I doubt “real” professionals still want a touch bar and a smaller, lower refresh rate screen than the 14 inch MacBook Pro.

Got the M1 Air base model 3months ago for under 1000€ and monitoring memory swap (not using chrome) this is by far still the best deal if the M2 Air should have the same single 256GB memory.

If they had called it the "MacBook SE" it would have -Fully legitimised the decision to use old hardware -Allowed them to keep it in the lineup for a quadrillion years if needed, without looking tacky -Made sense relative to the iPhone naming scheme -Cleverly and side-winkishly made reference to the Macintosh II/Macintosh SE market positioning. Almost too cleverly assuming the below dot point. -Been expected to sell for at LEAST 30% less... Hell, potentially making the Air look like the bad value option in comparison. Either way, I reckon if you cancelled the above idea partway through execution due to fears over revenues, it's probably fair to say this is more or less the exact product you'd get out of it.

I feel like having Anthony on Mac stuff is like having Davinci unbox a wheel.

They have warehouses full of the parts, or contracts on the books that need to be depleted. Apple is good at supply chain, they won't waste what they have/have committed.

I used to work in a staples back in high school and apple has for a long time made it incredibly difficult for anyone to distinguish which model is which. This is particularly annoying if you're a store that carries multiple models. We had a few people come back to the store and return iPad models specifically for this reason lol---one of our team members handed them over the wrong year's iPad without knowing the difference. EDIT: I know that they've always included model numbers on the back of the packaging, but finding which model is which is surprisingly difficult. It's also not always in a standardized location, so it's very confusing. Really they should just work more on their packaging lol. It got so bad to the point that our electronics manager had to spend an afternoon developing an organization system for our backroom stock of them, and basically personally took over making sure they were in the right places so people would avoid handing out the wrong models.

The musty smell is real! At least at europe, I’ve experienced that few with few laptops and chargers within 3 years

I love that brand, such a good brand name too. "brand", short and clear, perfect. (you forgot to insert the brand name in the chapter for the sponsor, or the D, I don't know)

Perhaps the idea behind the M2 was to get the "I don't want to be an early adopter" folks to buy. Save money on the chassis and put in the "second gen" chip.

You guys really need to do a "meet the crew" series where all the members of LTT get interviewed so we can learn about them and they're history....like their past work experience and education. Anthony would make a fascinating start.

Anthony's Sponsor Highlight had me in stitches

I love how apple fans have legit never forgotten about mag safe. Keep the hope alive

Hey Anthony, I'm not sure whether it'd more appropriate for this channel or on the main LTT one, but could you do a video on the progress Asahi Linux has made with getting things working on the M1? I've looked into it myself and it seems pretty promising, but I think your expertise here would be cool to see in a video.

I really love the Touchbar , it is somewhat useful in Photoshop , but once you get used to keyboard shortcuts the touchbar is actually useless. I do find it quite comfortable to be able to control Spotify and have my own shortcuts. I think Touchbar is really useful if you actually customise it to suit you. Which is something many people here probably haven’t tried.

For whatever reason, after looking at the updated Air/Pro designs, I decided that I still like the old Pro design and think the Touch Bar is kind of cool, so I bought the 2022 Pro to replace my 2013 Pro, and upgraded to a 512 h/d, with a reasonable discount. I paid about the same for the new one as I did for the 2013 model which has served me well minus screen-gate.

WellI think the M2 MBP is here due to the price raise of M2 MB Air. In some markets a M2 MBP is even cheaper than M2 MBA at the same spec, which makes it more compelling than the air. You do lose the magsafe, but also get a cooler machine and longer battery life in return, which is fair trade.

8:11 Actually, the 14" MacBook Pro is thinner, if we don't take into account the larger rubber feet. The 14" MBP is only volumetrically larger, as its shape is uniform across the board, whereas the 13" tapers off towards the edges.

I’m wondering if there is a problem with the side by side test. It appears like the laptop on the left might be on power although of course maybe the adapter is turned off…

It was probably the same in other videos, but I didn't notice till this video that right after unboxing and powering up the machine, it has a LTT account, so they had already checked it out and were unboxing it again for the video.

Next time you do product comparisons could you put the year of the crab rave too

I dont mind apple trying to clear out their stock, but put "M2" on the freaking box.

I had one of these m2 13” for about 2 days… as I was desperate for a laptop and my 2019 MacBook Pro is in apple care repair center for probably forever. As they don’t have the parts to fix it. I also just found the 14” m1 max, maxed out and it’s great. 13” got sent back real fast.

I like the old chassis better than the new one, tbh. Its surface tapers off at the edge and looks like a pillow overall, which is something I still love about my 2012 MBP 😁

This has got to be the sassiest Anthony I've ever seen

I am still lukewarm on the ARM Macs for two reasons: no windows bootcamp for games, and the notch. When these are addressed, I think these will be much better value propositions

Did you run your cinebench testing with only one unit on mains power???

You can make your function keys default on settings. And you can even put a Do Not Disturb button on the Touch Bar. I thought that was really cool.

“If it shoots out of your hand, it’s not Dbrand” is what Anthony should have said lol.

well, the 13 inch m1 pro has been great for me, and for occasional lightroom and photoshop the fans do come handy more than one occasions. To me the extra performance come out of the max model only benefit people in the professional field who requires the extra gpu/cpu cores and storage space. The catch is in their use case, most would go for the much higher specs which cost significantly more than the speced out m1 pro models.

I bought an M1 Air at launch a couple of years back. Being base was not a problem as I was doing mostly light office work with it, the portability was good when I travelled and the thing edge was comfortable to use. That being said, I just bought an M2 MacBook Pro, yes the Touch Bar for me makes a huge difference, the 0.3 screen difference from the m2 air was not a deal breaker as its mostly use to relocate the app menu on the top. M2 Air is thinner but I find the Touch Bar quite useful and to be was a deal breaker, the cooling system is a littler better when playing games or compigin vids. I had the option to purchase the base 14' but I severely disliked the squared design, the thickness and weight were also drawbacks as I travel constantly and the extra space taken and extra weight were an inconvenience. Overall there are still a lot of space in the market for the MacBook 13 pro,

Just got an M1 Pro and I love it and love the Touch Bar, coming from a 2017 Pro that I loved too but the battery is gone so oh well.

Please keep Anthony reviewing apple pc, I love to have somebody to hate it with us ..

I personally appreciate the touchbar and dont mind many of the shortcomings of the old design.

im planning to buy 16 macbook pro m1 pro model.. but when the apple announced m2 chip it made me wonder whether i should wait for 16 macbook pro m1 pro model or just get these one thats available (m1 pro model).... any help is appreciated

I think the main reason they're still continuing to sell a cheaper MacBook Pro despite a lot of people's insistence that 'MacBook Pro' shouldn't be anything other than a high-end, actual pro product, is that the 'Pro' moniker sells MBPs to a lot of people. Ever since they rebranded the aluminum 13" MacBook to 'MacBook Pro' in 2009 they've been doing this. Close to that $1300 price point, a lot of people are looking for something that is more than a MacBook Air, but not as expensive as the "real" MacBook Pros, and this model is there to fill that gap. But, if they're going to keep this cheaper and smaller MacBook Pro model around, I just hope they carry it to the new modern 14" MBP design as soon as possible. In the past, the way they differentiated the cheaper MBP to the high-end model and the way they kept the BoM cost of that model down, is by giving the cheaper model a slightly worsse screen, a little bit lesser speakers, 1 fan instead of 2 fans and *no* side vents for extra cooling capacity, and therefore a slightly lower power processor from Intel, and less ports. In that same way, they could take the 14" MacBook Pro, give it 4 speakers instead of 6 (like the new MacBook Air), give it M2 (which is already super powerful for a lot of people, and is a very good sweet spot for lower-end MacBooks) instead of M2 Pro/Max, take away the side vent cutouts, give it only one of the new quieter and more efficient fans of the 14" instead of 2, give it a 'Liquid Retina' display of the same size at 60Hz instead of the 'Liquid Retina XDR' HDR miniLED VRR panel of the higher-end 14", and you got the perfect cut-down MacBook Pro in your hands. Apple could make the low-end MacBook Pro a great value computer if they wanted to, and I hope they do and they do it as soon as possible, and this 13" MBP with Touch Bar will be the last one. Especially being able to get that huge 70WHr battery of the 14" with an M2 instead of M2 Pro/Max would give it incredible battery life, perhaps getting closer to 30 hours of video playback. And I doubt it would cut into the sales of the higher-end model more than the current 13" MBP does, as the 14" would still have the selling points of having a 2-4x faster processor, a 120Hz variable refresh HDR display, and higher dynamic range speakers.

Do keep in mind that the ssd is also slower compared to the old mbp m1.

I seriously love the relationship between LTT and dbrand. It never gets old

7:29 I literally exhaled air sharply through my nose at this difference

You can press Fn to get your function keys on the TouchBar. I am a fan, though I didn't expect to be. I will miss it when I have to upgrade.

FINALLY! Someone points out you can drag the volume/brightness icon to instantly change the slider value on the Touch Bar

I love my Touch Bar. I hope they offer an M2 Max or M2 Pro version with a Touch Bar. I honestly never do any thing where I need my function keys that second for something that wasn’t already mapped to the Touch Bar.

Is it for you any possible to test if with the new m2 chips and thumderbilt ports use your mac as an 2cend display for your windows machine? =)

Did anyone notice the MKBHD cushion at the top shelf of the cupboard in the corner?

At first, I was a tad bit upset about having missed getting an M2 because I assumed it was better but I had already purchased my M1. Super glad I didn't get an M2 because my M1 has been GREAT.

The Macbook "Pro" 13 was never a Pro product, it has the same hardware as a Macbook Air but in a bigger chassis and more expensive. It's not worth it. If they wanted to get rid of their old touchbar chassis they could have used the M1 Pro chip and charge USD150.00 less than the 14 inch Macbook Pro. That could have been a winner!

I use an older (Intel) 13 inch pro for work where I travel, and small size and battery life are very important. 13 inch is easier to use on an airplane and I don't always have places to plug it in while on a layover.

I mean, real reason: M2 13" has a fan and longer battery life. I have the M1 Pro 13", but these are my thoughts: 1) I can take it on the road and don't have to charge it as soon as I would any other laptop (apart from the M2 13"). 2) I can play games on my lap, using a custom, but quiet, fan setting, and it never gets warm to the touch. 3) The only function keys I ever use are brightness and sound, both of which work great on the touchbar. 4) You can make use of the extra GPU power on the M1 and M2 Pro 13", whereas you cannot on the Air. I also have an M1 Max 16", which I somewhat regret purchasing. Excellent machine, but I tend to use my MSI GE67HX for similar workloads. I honestly think every mainstream reviewer missed the mark on the M2 Pro 13. I find it almost flawless. I even like the rounded shape when its on my lap, and the black bezels when consuming media.

Almost no one should buy the 13” pro. If you wouldn’t upgrade the system memory then just stick with the air. If you do need the upgraded RAM, then just get the 14” pro. It’s not that much more expensive and is completely worth it.

Tbh despite being older 720p webcam it still looks way better than many other laptops webcams in 2022.

Do the CPU tests with the power cord plugged in to all 3 models?

I prefer the touch bar variant. I'm not even sure what the F1-12 keys do on macOS. Are there any programs using them? The only issue I have is that the touch bar often does not register the buttons I press.

YES THEY SMELL THANK YOU! I had to replace my type c cable for my MacBook Pro recently. Got one from Amazon and it smelled awful to me. Like mold almost. I could smell it from sever feet away as well. Returned and got another one. Also smelled. Went to target to get one instead and it smelled as well so I gave up. My best friend didn’t notice an issue. Thought I was crazy.

Loving the wristband :)

Love Anthony's reviews and comparsions 👍 👌

Just want to point out for Anthony, you can adjust the touch bar to always be the f row and holding fn will switch between f row and touch bar

20hr battery life is amazing, people forget the purpose of laptops is to use them away from power points, reviews should really emphasize this more cause it's such an overlooked part of the industry

For people like me, who still love the Touch Bar, this is the perfect upgrade. If you want the 14" MBP...just go buy that, since it's still on the shelf and still technically outperforms the M2.

On the topic of how Apple has a tendency to make it hard to differentiate between different generations (with naming and on boxes etc.). Yeah, I feel you. I still remember how irritating it was to try to figure out which tier, and generation, different MacBook were, when my brother looked for one a few years back! Just to give an example, some stores, (more or less) hinted about which generation of MacBook it was, some hinted about which generation of Intel processor was used (and one or two, even the tier; they did like to specify the number of cores, though), and some gave the EAN/MPN digits (though I think there were a couple that might've but in a hard to find place). Edit: I hit the post button by mistake, so I'll just add things that happen in the video after this point. I don't know if it was just a fluke, or different parts of the song. But the 2020 version sounded better! Edit two: corrected iMac to MacBook.

Can you put the logic board of the new one in the old housing? Did Apple just create an upgradeable laptop?

I personally find the 13" M1 MacBook Pro and Air prettier than the newer models. I would go as far as saying they are/were peak Apple. Sleek and minimalistic. There's just something about this new dark plastic keyboard surface and "fat" design that I find aesthetically unpleasing. Just my taste, but maybe I'm not the only one.

Eight gigs of ram in what's supposed to be one of the most premium products on the market? Wild.

Like MKBHD said, Enterprise. Big companies were employees can choose between MBP 13" and some Dell/HP laptop. They usually only have a couple of approved models to choose from and it's a lenghty process to add/remove totally new models but switching to the direct successor is much faster and easier.

I love the song at end, where can I find it? 😳

I usually love Anthony’s videos, but feel as though this was a bit pointless. When else have LTT ever done a full comparison review if a laptop and the same laptop with a spec bump? What was the point of comparing microphones, webcams and speakers in 2 essentially identical laptops? It has a faster processor. That is basically the only difference. And they are still selling this product for 2 reasons. 1. Because people still want them. 2. Because they have parts to use up. I don’t know why Apple should get a hard time for making a computer that people want. Yes sure, people more technically literate would always go for either the air or the 14” Pro, but I know a million students/parents/grandparents who literally couldn’t care and want to buy a Pro because of the name and the history of MacBook Pro’s being great. I imagine that 90% of people buying these M2 Pros had a Pro of an older generation before. There are plenty of reasons to give Apple crap over their decision making, but I don’t think this is one of them.

In Europe, the 16GB version of the 13 and 14" cost almost the same, so here I am scratching my head even more what the new 13" M2 MacBook Pro even exists....

video about m2 air? or only macadress?

the one thing no one talks about is the 13" touch bar pro M2 has way better keyboard travel than all of the airs (outside of the touch bar). i compared it to multiple M1 airs and M2 airs and the keyboards on those feel so flimsy (yes, even though they still have some travel), but on the 13" touch bar pro M2, dare i say, the travel feels even better than the 14"/16". it feels so chunky and satisfying i wish there wasn't the touch bar but the rest of the keys feel so good on it. build quality is also way better compared to the M2 air which felt like i was gonna break it constantly, and IMO it honestly feels more premium than the 14" pro which has a really hollow feel to the chassis despite being really heavy also, hot take, the screen on this is way better than mini-LED, it actually has good response times and no blooming, the colors also look more vibrant/uniform to my eyes and text is WAY easier to read on the 13" touch bar MBP compared to the 14" mini-LED MBPs (on mini-LED, local dimming is so annoying for non-video use, it makes it look like text and icons are glowing and even disabling HDR doesn't turn local dimming off) yes, touch bar MBP only has 60hz but black levels are awesome for IPS and there is basically no backlight bleed it also has a better screen than M1 air since that one had really meh black levels and washed out looking whites. a lot of people think M1 air and touch bar MBP have the "same" panel (because they are both IPS) but they look very different. yes, true tone was off. M1 air had typical "bad IPS black levels", but the touch bar pro M2 actually surprised me with how deep the blacks are. as for the M2 air, backlight also felt weird IMO - colors looked a bit off on it and I noticed RGB fringing/"rainbowy effect". so the touch bar MBP wins :) the 13" touch bar pro M2 feels like apple's biggest secret because it actually does a lot of things all-around better in the long run, despite its easy to point out flaws you can also get refurbished with actually good specs for a pretty reasonable price right now, this weird little laptop makes a lot more sense now than it did when it released

I guess I’m one of the few who like the touchbar. Once they added the physical escape button it became perfect to me. Not a fan of the new thiccbooks with raccoon face keyboards.

The Macbook Air is $100 less but has a worse GPU (8 vs 10), no active cooling, 10% smaller battery, half speed slower charger and a hideous notch. The Air has a better webcam and speakers and weighs 0.3 pounds less, but to me I would pick the one with a larger battery, faster charger and better sustained performance.

Pretty impressive cinebench score for a laptop drawing that little power, a little slower than a 10870H

I have never ever used any Function keys on my Mac since I bought it 2 years ago. Got all my shortcuts I need on the Touch Bar and I love it. Do people even know the Touch Bar is configurable in settings, and you can get your function keys on the bar by default ?

I love my M1 MBP and love the look.

When I say this I wanna make it clear that for the 8ish months I used a Mac I absolutely hated it and sold it in lieu of Framework. That being said, I feel like part of the reason why someone might get an M2 instead of an M1 was because of, when the M1 came out, it was the first of its kind. Think of Ryzen 1000 or 12th gen Intel. Think of the first lineup of RTX cards. You had the early adopter's fee and was using a new and fairly untested platform with unknown bugs. When you're using your machine for work you don't want early adopter's issues creeping in. Sure you don't get the performance of M1 Pro or anything like that, but iirc Apple was never aiming to match M1 Pro or higher. They were planning on iterating on top of M1. That they did successfully. I think that's part of the issue a lot of reviewers have an issue handling: the long term viability of a brand new architecture and the teething issues that came with it. As someone who was an early adopter of Windows 11 when it came out, I had to switch off of Windows 11 because of stability issues (my laptop completely locked up on me in the middle of a final requiring me to restart and possibly start over). In that sense I would've gone with a dead-end Intel MacBook instead of an M1 for the sole reason it's been tried and true, even if it has some thermal issues plaguing it.

Thank you very much for covering this! I'm torn between getting an M2 Macbook or a Flow Z13 to upgrade my old laptop. With them basically costing the same it's now down to the small, more subtle features for each that I'm looking for and you have delivered for one quite amazingly!

I am waiting for Anthony's review of the MacBook Air 2022 edition... I am thinking of buying M1 Pro Macbook 14'' base / 1TB variant... and I thought Macbook Air 2022 will be better... but things like the 256GB SSD issue which is reported by fellow KZfaqrs, M2's performance, etc are bothering me.

I said it when the M1 came out, and I'll say it again : I wasn't interested in the M2 because I had the serious feeling it was gonna be a fail. You don't score something like the M1 twice, and pretty much all of its shortcomings have easy solutions... only one screen? Nope, since day 1, a powered TB to dual display port adapter is all you need. Not enough space for data? You can get a 1gp/s 500gb external NVME with a 20gb/s enclosure from Vantec (top stuff!) for a total of 115 CAD on a good Amazon day. I run my data 100% external and only use 90gb for OS and apps. It's blazing fast to say the least. I have close to 12 different USB peripherals connected to it every other day - OK : it's extreme, and I could fry an egg on my Call digit dongle, but I hadn't run into a failure os USB connection issue in about 6 months of everyday use! Sure a tower is better - and now I have one since the marked cooled down - but this was a legit pro desktop replacement for over a year for me as a pro AV tech! Base config Macbook pro - just because I fancied the touch bar to play little pads on Logic Pro, and navigate my timeline otherwise, not necessary at all. Absolutely not interested in either a super-big thick laptop with no ethernet and even more power (that genuinely very very few people need in a laptop...) that will break my back, OR a botched-up 2dn take. Apple tried to fix what wasn't broken, and failed.

I think the whole reason if the M2 MacBook Pro (I’ma call it M2 pro) was released was to essentially get rid of it once and for all, given the fact that the prices have risen the gap between the M1 pro chip models and the base air (M2) is a lot closer now, and for quite some time the M2 pro based laptops were starting to make less and less sense. I think they intentionally (and hopefully) kneecapped the performance of the M2 pro to make the other products (M2 air and M1 pro/max) have a greater share and as a result more resources available for fewer products. I’m praying for the M2 Air to not follow the pro but at this point it’s looking a lot like it

Same Problem For Me I Love The Touch Bar For Some Things But I Don’t Wanna Lose The Function Keys Put The Touch Bar Above The Function Key That’s We Need If You Say You Can Have Only One I’ll Go With Function Keys But If You Give Both I’m More Happy

why is the dbrand sponsor for the normal grip have bRole of the atomic grip??

Thank you, Apple, for giving me no reason to upgrade my M1. I approve of this new (old) direction. Hope you screw up the M2 Max too, so I can happily buy the M1 Max disconted and not miss a thing.

This M2 chip should have been called M1+ or S. Both Air and Pro are minor upgrades. We at least got new design for Air but that price jump isn't justified by anything we got this year. Really underwhelming.

When do we get M2 Fusion Pro Max XE OC Edition?

Apple made this MBP so that the Air looks like a better get for the price, ultimately discontinuing both M1 Air and MBP but keeping the M2 Air price moving forward.

If you've got a design that works it never really becomes obsolete. I mean this in a general sense, not really about the MacBook here. The aesthetic of a device doesn't have to be redone with every release if it's abilities, both functional and aesthetic, were nailed the first time. What I'm saying is, our society seems to think that in order for something to be new and improved in the inside, it's has to look differently on the outside as well. Function ≠ cosmetics but I do understand where each are important. I can't recall the exact name for this concept, but the idea is perceived as cosmetic obsolescence.

One of the most baffling products they have ever released, and so confusing since almost every other laptop they have made in that last two years has been awesome and exactly what their fans have wanted. I love my 14” MBP, but I don’t understand why they made this either.

You know you can customise the touch bar right? Like if you want the function row by default you can, if you want a button to mute your mic you can. The main complaint is around tactile feel and software, not versatility

I wish they would've made the screen a little larger like the past 16in MacBook Pro by reducing those bezels to make it a 13.6in or 14in. Also a 1080p webcam should've been inserted for us remote worker. I don't like the thickness of the new MacBook Pros.

I'm convinced Apple released this just to get rid of their unsold MBP chassis and touch bar.

I work as a software developer in a big company, my company buys us macbooks every couple of years, they would never buy a macbook air, and they are very cheap, so they always buy the cheapest possible model with half decent storage. Last year they bought the M1 macbook pro, this year they will buy the M2.

Cinebench r20 or r23?

I got a generation 3 ipad pro a couple of weeks ago ... the new generation 3 not the one from 2018. It is also part of the 5th generation I think. I second having some form of model number :-)