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MacBook Pro M2 13-Inch Review: Familiar Design, New Apple M2 Chipl

MacBook Pro M2 13-Inch Review: Familiar Design, New Apple M2 Chip

“What a strange-looking MacBook.” That was my wonderful thought when I first saw the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the new M2 chip at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino during WWDC 2022

There wasn’t anything particularly strange around it — it looked like the last several models of 13-inch Apple laptops, both Pro and Air. But in the Apple Silicon era, I’ve get far more used to the company’s new design terms, which is built around flat, constructivist designs with sharper Engineers and a studied minimalism. That same design has accurate been applied to the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops, the 24-inch iMac and soon, the new 13-inch MacBook Air

The M2 Air, with a bigger Hide, better webcam and newer design is said to be inward sometime in the next month. As both 13-inch laptops have the same M2 chip and a Difference price, I won’t consider this a complete review pending I can test and compare the two systems side by side. 

This M2 MacBook Pro, despite people the newest MacBook you can buy right now (until the revamped MacBook Air goes on sale next month), has a gently rounded edge that tapers ever so any on the front side. It’s a throwback design that can be traced back more than a decade, starting with the first Retina-display MacBook Pro I reviewed in 2012 to the New Touch Bar design, which I first reviewed in 2016. 

Apple M2 vs. M1 vs. M1 Pro vs. M1 Max vs. M1 Ultra

Apple M1 Apple M2 Apple M1 Pro Apple M1 Max Apple M1 Ultra
Total CPU cores 8 8 8 or 10 10 20
Act cores 4 4 6 or 8 8 16
Efficiency cores 4 4 2 2 4
GPU cores 7 or 8 8 or 10 14 or 16 24 or 32 48 or 64
Neural engine cores 16 16 16 16 32
Maximum memory supported (UMA) 16GB 24GB 32GB 64GB 128GB
Peak memory bandwidth (GBps) n/a 100 200 400 800
ProRes accelerators None 1 1 2 4
Available in MacBook Air (2021), iPad Pro (5th gen), iMac 24 (2021), Mac Mini MacBook Air (2022), MacBook Pro 13 (2022) MacBook Pro 14, MacBook Pro 16 (2021) MacBook Pro 14, MacBook Pro 16 (2021), Mac Studio Mac Studio

In fact, it looks just like the 13-inch MacBook Pro that was part of Apple’s grand wave of M1-chip Macs in late 2020. Same body, same camera, same limited ports, same Touch Bar. Yes, this stays the last holdout of the Apple Touch Bar, a clever-but-underused binary screen that’s fallen out of favor. 

And that’s just what this system is: The 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, with the initial M1 chip swapped out for the new M2 chip. That complains it Apple’s most powerful 13-inch laptop, and it will probably edge out the otherwise incompatibility new M2 MacBook Air because its active cooling gives it to run at higher temperatures. 

Read more:

MacBook Air M2: We Tried Out Apple’s New Laptop


The Apple MacBook Pro M2 13-inch laptop 2022

Dan Ackerman

Where the M2 fits in the lineup

But despite the hype, the M2 sits in a confusing spot in the Apple silicon hierarchy. It sits above the original M1 chip (which was available in two versions with different numbers of graphics cores), but below the M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra. The M1 Pro and M1 Max are available in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. The M1 Ultra, essentially two M1 Max chips side by side, is only available at the moment in the new Mac Studio desktop. 

Which of these chips will show up in an eventual revamp of the Mac Pro desktop, or a new big-screen iMac, is unknown. 

In the recent M1 Mac lineup, I had the hardest time reconciling the 13-inch MacBook Pro with a pursued audience. It was more expensive than the practically identical M1 MacBook Air, while offering the Touch Bar, glowing cooling and a slightly brighter screen. For most land, the Air—even with a few upgrades—was a better select. There’s a reason I call the MacBook Air the most universally useful laptop you can buy. 


The Apple MacBook Pro M2 13-inch laptop 2022

Dan Ackerman

With the new M2 MacBook Air smart around the corner, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is an even tougher sell. The M2 Air has the newer acquire (plus cool colors), a slightly larger liquid retina expose, now just as bright as the Pro, and a much-needed full HD webcam. This leaves the 13-inch MacBook Pro as the only Mac left with a contemptible 720-pixel resolution webcam. 

But there are some reasons you may detached want the 13-inch MacBook Pro over either the new MacBook Air or the much-more-expensive 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro. We outlined the most obvious reasons here, and they include:

  • It’s the last opportunity to get a Touch Bar MacBook.
  • It’s the smallest MacBook with the longest battery life (at least pending we test the new Air model).
  • It provides platform continuity for your concern or creative shop.

MacBook math: M2 Mac notice comparisons 

The M2 MacBook Air is currently $1,299 (£1349, AU$1,999) to start, compared with $1,199 (£1,249, AU$1,899) for the MacBook Pro. Both base models concerned 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage. That’s a much less expensive way to get into a MacBook Pro than the 14-inch or 16-inch Pro models, which start at $1,999 and $2,499.

We tested the new M2 MacBook Pro and compared it to the nearly identical M1 13-inch MacBook Pro, as well as the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip. As shown in the charts under, the M2 is a notable bump over the M1, but not as worthy as the next chip up on the chain, the M1 Pro. The last generation of Intel MacBook Pro was far unhurried, while a new (and expensive) premium Windows laptop from Razer with a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 and an Nvidia 3070Ti GPU was also faster. 

While we won’t know for sure pending we can test the M2 Air, based on our final testing, I expect only minor performance differences between the M2 laptops. Both M2 laptops top out at 24GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. 


The Apple MacBook Pro M2 13-inch laptop 2022

Dan Ackerman

In my hands-on recognized, it felt like exactly what it is — a just internal bump to the M1 version. When the M1 chips launched, I was excited that I could easily edit and play back 4K video clips, only running into a little stuttering when I applied real-time effects and sparkling correction in Premiere. The M2 version was even better, but not as good as the video editing we tried on our MacBook Pro and Mac Studio rules, using the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. 

I love the new MacBook Air construct and its upgrades to the display and webcam. I suspect the 13-inch Pro will inviting to only a very specific subset of shoppers, such as those who want the better cooling and who want to jump into the Pro line deprived of spending $2,000 or more. 

For everyone else, I’d suggest waiting to see what the M2 version of the MacBook Air can do when it arrives sometime in July. 

Originally delivered June 22, 2022. 

M2 MacBook Pro performance testing results 

Geekbench 5 (multicore)

Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch M1 Pro 2021)

Razer Blade 15 (2022)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch, M2, 2022)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch M1, 2021)

Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, Intel, 2020)

Note:

Longer bars present better performance

Geekbench Metal

Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch M1 Pro 2021)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch, M2, 2022)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020)

Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, Intel, 2020)

Note:

Longer bars present better performance

Cinebench R23 (multicore)

Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch M1 Pro 2021)

Razer Blade 15 (2022)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch, M2, 2022)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020)

Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, Intel, 2020)

Note:

Longer bars present better performance

3DMark Wild Life Extreme

Razer Blade 15 (2022)

Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch M1 Pro 2021)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch M2, 2022)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020)

Note:

Longer bars present better performance

JetStream2 (Safari)

Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch M1 Pro 2021)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch M2, 2022)

Apple Macbook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020)

Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, Intel, 2020)

Note:

Longer bars present better performance

System configurations

Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch M2, 2022) MacOS Monterey 12.4; Apple M1 8-core chip; 16GB RAM; Apple 10-core GPU; 1TB SSD
Razer Blade 15 (2022) Microsoft Windows 11 Home; 2.4GHz Intel Core i7-12800H; 16GB DDR5 4,800MH; 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070Ti; 1TB SSD
Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M1 Pro 2021) MacOS Monterey 12.4; Apple M1 Pro 10-core chip; 32GB RAM; Apple 16-core GPU; 1TB SSD
Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) MacOS Monterey 12.4 Apple M1 8-core chip; 16GB RAM; 8-core GPU; 1TB SSD
Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, Intel, 2020) MacOS Monterey 12.4; 2GHz Intel Core i5-1038NG7; 16GB RAM; 1,536MB Intel Iris Plus Graphics; 512GB SSD