Some questions about a machine have no answer until the machine arrives, and the M4 MacBook Pro 14 now stands as Apple's answer to the long wait many buyers were willing to endure. Faster than its predecessor and with battery endurance that still outpaces its rivals, it asks its buyers to pay $1,600 for a base model whose 512 GB of storage feels like a constraint rather than a gift. Its chassis and display remain familiar, a sign that Apple has refined the engine while leaving the body untouched for now. Whether this is the moment to commit, or whether the wiser course is to take an earlier mo
Apple's M4 MacBook Pro 14 Brings Speed and Battery Gains, But Its Aging Design Shows
A price tag that stings the eyes as much as it does the wallet
Mark
So what's the actual verdict? Buy the M4 or the discounted M3?
Mimi
The reviewer says that looking back, he'd still tell his friend an M3 at a discount is fine. The M4 is faster, but the gap is modest.
Mark
How modest? Is there a number?
Mimi
One Blender render: 2 minutes 42 seconds on the M4 versus 3 minutes 36 seconds on the M3. That's meaningful for rendering, which matters since the friend is a video producer.
Luke
Worth noting that's one test of one scene. The piece also says the Asus TUF Gaming A14 was slightly faster in that same render, so benchmarks don't tell the whole story.
Mark
The screen is brighter too, right?
Mimi
About 360 nits full screen versus roughly 260 on the M3, per the reviewer's own measurements. But he says you mostly notice it near a window.
Luke
And those are his readings, not Apple's. Also, the nano-texture option at $100 he calls largely pointless, based on holding up one 16-inch unit to sunlight. That's an impression, not a lab test.
Mark
What about the price complaints?
Mimi
$1,600 base, but only 512 GB of storage. His 1 TB unit costs $200 more. The 16 GB of RAM is now standard, which he welcomes.
Luke
He also writes "likely $1,800" for a realistic price. That's his guess about what buyers end up paying, not a confirmed figure.
Mark
And the OLED delay?
Mimi
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported it slipped to 2026 at the earliest. The reviewer finds that frustrating.
Luke
That's a single report, attributed, not confirmed by Apple. And the text we have cuts off before the AI section's conclusions on 15.2, so that part is unknown here.
O Pulso
- A $1,600 starting price collides with only 512 GB of storage, pushing buyers toward a $200 upgrade that stings.
- The M4 chip outruns its predecessor and surpasses rival Ryzen and Intel laptops in key CPU tests, yet gaming at native resolution stalls below playable frame rates.
- Battery life holds its ground, with a full heavy workday still leaving 30% charge, while rivals on newer Intel and Qualcomm chips fall short.
- The brighter screen at roughly 360 nits is hard to tell apart from the old one, and the design is unchanged with no OLED in sight until 2026 at the earliest.
- Buyers now weigh an immediate purchase against a possible discounted M3 or a wait for a redesign that may not arrive soon.
Some questions about a machine have no answer until the machine arrives, and the M4 MacBook Pro 14 now stands as Apple's answer to the long wait many buyers were willing to endure. Faster than its predecessor and with battery endurance that still outpaces its rivals, it asks its buyers to pay $1,600 for a base model whose 512 GB of storage feels like a constraint rather than a gift. Its chassis and display remain familiar, a sign that Apple has refined the engine while leaving the body untouched for now. Whether this is the moment to commit, or whether the wiser course is to take an earlier model at a discount, depends on how long one intends to carry the machine.
A few months ago, a video producer friend asked the Gizmodo reviewer a practical question: buy a discounted M3 MacBook Pro now, or wait for the M4? Back then, the rumors pointed to a modest refresh, and the reviewer advised the M3. Now, with the M4 MacBook Pro 14 arriving in stores on November 8, a week of hands-on use has tested that advice.
The reviewed model costs $1,600 and includes the base M4 chip with 16 GB of RAM, but only 512 GB of storage; the 1 TB upgrade adds $200. The machine comes in a Space Black finish the reviewer prefers, and otherwise keeps the same chassis, notch and screen. It also lacks the Thunderbolt 5 found on the M4 Pro and Max models, though it keeps Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, an SD card slot and MagSafe 3.
Performance is where the M4 earns its praise. It beat rival AMD and Intel laptops in Geekbench CPU tests, and it rendered a Blender scene noticeably faster than the M3. Gaming tells a more mixed story: at the panel's native resolution, popular titles drop below playable, and even upscaling only nudges them to the edge of 40 frames per second. The display is slightly brighter than before, though most eyes would struggle to notice the change, and the frustration of an OLED MacBook being pushed to 2026 lingers.
Battery life remains the strongest argument in its favor. After a long workday of heavy multitasking, the laptop still had a third of its charge left, and it outlasted most competing machines. The reviewer's verdict is that anyone moving from an Intel Mac will be pleased, and that the extra memory is welcome given the new Apple Intelligence features. Still, the reviewer would tell his friend that a discounted M3 remains a sensible choice, and the open question is whether Apple will finally redesign the machine.
A few months ago, a friend who works as a video producer asked the Gizmodo reviewer a question that had no good answer yet: should he buy an M3 MacBook Pro on sale, or wait for the M4? He wanted a Mac that would serve as his workhorse for years. At the time there were only rumors, and most pointed to a bare-bones refresh. The reviewer told him to buy the M3. With the M4 MacBook Pro 14 going on sale November 8, the reviewer has now spent a week with it to see whether that advice held up.
The unit tested is the $1,600 model with the base 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU M4 chip, 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. That storage upgrade costs an extra $200, since the base price includes only 512 GB. The reviewer also tested the $2,500 MacBook Pro 16 with an M4 Pro. The 14-inch now comes in Space Black, which the reviewer prefers to the silver of earlier models. The chassis and screen are otherwise unchanged, notch included, and the base M4 lacks the Thunderbolt 5 support of the M4 Pro and M4 Max versions. It keeps Thunderbolt 4, an SD card slot, HDMI and MagSafe 3.
On performance, the M4 delivers. In Geekbench 6 CPU tests it beat AMD's Ryzen 9 AI HX 370 and Intel's Core Ultra 7 256V and 258V, and it also topped AMD in Cinebench. In a Blender test rendering a BMW scene, the M4 finished in two minutes and 42 seconds, against three minutes and 36 seconds for the M3. That is a sizable gain, though the $1,500 Asus TUF Gaming A14 with the Ryzen chip was slightly faster in that render. The reviewer notes the top Snapdragon X Elite chip appears only in the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge, at a $1,750 list price.
Gaming is more mixed. Resident Evil 4 and Death Stranding: Director's Cut both defaulted to a lower-than-native resolution and ran at 70 to 80 frames per second on mid-to-high settings. At the screen's native 3024 by 1964, frame rates fall below playable, and even with MetalFX upscaling in performance mode they barely pass 40 FPS at best. Baldur's Gate III on medium settings reached more than 60 FPS indoors and outdoors and averaged 45 in the city of Act III. At the higher resolution, AMD's FSR could not lift it much above 35 FPS.
The display is brighter for standard content: about 360 nits full screen, up from roughly 260 nits on the M3 model in the reviewer's tests. Side by side the difference is hard to see except near a bright window. The $100 nano-texture option, which diffuses light to cut glare, struck the reviewer as unnecessary; held up to direct sunlight, a MacBook Pro 16 without it looked barely different. The mini-LED panel still can't match the tandem OLED in the M4 iPad Pro, and the reviewer was frustrated by a Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman that an OLED MacBook has been pushed to 2026 at the earliest. The keyboard and trackpad are also unchanged and, in the reviewer's words, passable but not a favorite.
Battery life remains the standout. After a nine-hour workday of near-constant typing, high brightness, multiple browsers and Slack, the laptop still had 30% left. In Gizmodo's test, a 24-hour YouTube video at low brightness, it was at 55% after 12 hours, slightly behind the M4 Pro 16-inch. Newer Intel and Qualcomm chips promise long battery life, but in tests on machines like the Lenovo Yoga 7x and Asus Zenbook S 14 they didn't match Apple's Pro models.
The review also touches on software. Sequoia runs on any MacBook Pro from 2018 on, but Apple Intelligence features in 15.1 and the upcoming 15.2 require an M-series chip. The reviewer found 15.1's mail and notification summaries often dropped important details, and dismissed a writing tool that confidently states things it doesn't know. The 15.2 developer beta was tried next, though the source text breaks off before describing it.
The verdict: if you're coming from an Intel MacBook, you'll be happy. Having 16 GB of RAM as standard is welcome, given Apple Intelligence. The reviewer would still tell his friend that a discounted M3 is fine. What to watch next is whether Apple finally redesigns the chassis and screen, with OLED now reportedly not before 2026.
Citações Notáveis
If I had to answer my friend now, I'd tell him he's absolutely fine getting an M3 at a discount (paraphrased).— Gizmodo reviewer
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