You will not believe the battery life on the Apple MacBook Pro 14in M4

The Apple MacBook Pro 14in M4 has a lot more riding on it this year. With the looming end to Windows 10 support fast approaching, a mass hardware refresh is expected. The system requirements for Windows 11 call for more powerful laptops. Here, Apple senses an opportunity; a chance to capture more users, particularly those at smaller and newer businesses.

You can get the latest MacBook for $1,599 (£1,599) with the basic configuration (16GB RAM and 512GB storage). Or you can pay $133.25 per month for 12 months – business customers will likely enjoy a discount for bulk purchases.

Apple MacBook Pro 14in M4: Design

There is a level of tidiness to Apple's hardware that few vendors can match. It's what makes its iMac screens popular for front-of-house use, or its Mac Mini machines adorable and minimalist. And its MacBook designs have influenced other vendors for almost two decades.

As such, nothing much has changed on the design compared to the M3 MacBook, though everything is neat and elegant with a smooth satin finish. The latest MacBook Pro is made from 100% recycled aluminum, with 90% recycled steel in the keyboard feature plate and 35% (or more) recycled plastic in 15 components, according to Apple. It comes in the traditional silver or (like our review unit) the more understated 'Space Black'. It looks and feels like a serious business machine, while still holding great appeal for consumers.

At 1.6kg the Pro is fairly heavy; it's a sizable hunk of laptop, and robust enough to give to employees without concern. There's a sturdy feel to the chassis and next to no flex in the lid. All in all, a solid machine that can handle the rough and tumble of remote working.

Apple MacBook Pro 14in M4: Display

As ever, Apple's Liquid Retina XDR display is on the MacBook Pro, and it's superb. Our review unit is the 14.2in model, with a 3024 x 1964 resolution and a 'ProMotion' 120Hz refresh rate that's buttery smooth. You can get a 16in model for $1,000 more, but the 14in is a good size for most office workers.

We measured the Pro's ability to reproduce colors in the sRGB color space, using the laptop's default color mode, and were left largely impressed. It hit 96% for color coverage and 98.9% for volume, with 70.1% for DCI P3. All very good scores (anything over 94% is excellent), matching the M3 MacBook Pro.

The panel can get extremely bright, too. Apple suggests it can sustain a brightness level of 1,000 cd.m2 with regular SDR content, though we only measured its peak brightness as 636.83 cd/m2 in the default setting.

Apple MacBook Pro 14in M4: Keyboard and trackpad

Typing on the MacBook Pro M4 is a dream with an excellent keyboard. Travel is a little on the shallow side, but the individual key action is great with nice positive click feedback and very little bounce or flex in the base. Once you get up to a decent typing speed, you'll notice a lovely sound – almost comforting – that the keys emit. Like a muffled drum. Pure bliss.

Its trackpad, too, is rather pleasurable. It's big, which is always useful, and highly responsive, also useful. We particularly like the single finger taps and the multi-touch gestures. However, the most lovely thing about it is the refined force feedback engine, which works so effortlessly, letting you click or double click with an easy prod in the tip left corner.

Apple MacBook Pro 14in M4: Specs and performance

When you look at what changes year on year with the MacBook Pro (and Air, or iPhone, or iPad, and so on), the Apple chip often shows the biggest improvement. And the M4 processor is another industry-leading laptop chip; it comes with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine. There is also the normal 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD (other configurations are available).

It feels powerful; there is no amount of tabs or applications we could run that would truly test its limits. However, in Geekbench 6, the M4 Pro scored 3,899 for single-core workloads and 15,234 for multi-core. Strangely, that is a significant increase for single cores and a minor drop for multi-threaded versus the M3 MacBook Pro (3,184 and 15,704, respectively). But, still, vastly more than anything else on the market.

For our looped video test, we set the display brightness to 170 cd/m2, turn the machine on airplane mode, and run a 20hr looped video until the battery runs out. Astonishingly, the MacBook Pro M4 outlasted the 20-minute video with 4% left on its battery – there is no other laptop, tested by ITPro this year, last year, or seemingly ever, that has that level of staying power.

And, as with all PCs now, we must talk about AI for productivity. On the Pro, we have Apple Intelligence, which can do most of the stuff your Copilot+ PCs can, but with a few Apple additions and tweaks. You can use it to customize your desktop, add apps you the top right of the screen. Summarize and transcribe emails. And also, if you have an iPhone to match, you can scan documents onto the MacBook Pro, which can then be automatically read and edited with the text translator. Nothing groundbreaking, but we did find it very useful.

Apple MacBook Pro 14in M4: Is it worth it?

Whatever configuration you get, no matter the price, the MacBook Pro 14in M4 is worth it. As a consumer device, it is amazing. As a work laptop, it is phenomenal – a surefire way to please your employees. If you have a BYOD strategy and those devices are iPhones, then it is even more appealing. Those with M3 models might have reason to stay put, but anyone with an M1 (or older) will be getting a vastly more powerful machine and a battery life you'll scarcely believe.

Apple MacBook Pro 14in M4 specifications