Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M2, 2023) Laptop Review

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 looks exactly like its predecessor, the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021). It has a premium design with a full-aluminum chassis, thin bezels, and a gigantic glass touchpad. The notch is a matter of personal taste; you can hide it if it bothers you, though you'd lose the space beside it, which now houses the menu bar. There are vents on the bottom and at the back. It's available in two colors: Space Gray and Silver.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 feels exceptionally well-built. It has a sturdy aluminum chassis that exhibits little to no flex on the lid, keyboard deck, and display. The finish doesn't easily scratch or smudge. The hinges, feet, and glass touchpad also feel solid. The device feels hefty, with evenly distributed weight. The only common complaint from user feedback is that the keycaps pick up oil and smudges very easily and develop a shine within only a few months of regular use, which is disappointing for such a premium device.

The hinge is outstanding. It feels smooth when opening and closing the lid, with just the right amount of resistance to provide stability while allowing for a one-handed lift. There's almost no wobble when typing aggressively.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 and its power adapter are compact and lightweight.

The internals are accessible the same way as the M1 Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021). You need to remove eight P5 screws, pull the panel towards the bottom of the laptop, and then upwards to remove it completely. Unfortunately, the only user-replaceable part is the battery.

• Apple MacBook Pro 14 laptop
• 67W USB-C power adapter
• USB-C to MagSafe charging cord
• Documentation
• Apple stickers

Note: Models with a 12-core CPU M2 Pro or an M2 Max SoC have a 96W power adapter. You can also buy the 96W charger at an additional cost.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14's display looks very sharp due to its high pixel density. Its 16:10 aspect ratio is great for productivity, as it gives you more vertical space than a standard 16:9 screen, allowing you to see more information when reading a document without having to scroll. The downside is that you'll almost always have black bars at the top and bottom when watching standard 16:9 videos. The notch doesn't cut into the 16:10 display; instead, you get some extra space on each side of the notch where the menu bar now resides. If you need a bigger screen, get the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M3, 2023).

The Apple MacBook Pro 14's display has a high refresh rate, which helps provide a more responsive, snappy desktop experience. ProMotion is a feature that allows the display to adjust the refresh rate dynamically; it ramps it up to 120Hz when scrolling or moving the cursor and ramps down to as low as 24Hz when the on-screen content is inactive to prolong battery life. Unfortunately, the response time is very slow, resulting in visible ghosting.

The Mini LED display's contrast ratio is superb. It's lower than the M1 Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021), not because it's a different display but because the system treats the checkerboard pattern differently. The contrast is much higher at 50,350:1 when measuring a full white and full black screen in SDR. It's even higher in HDR at 1,100,000:1. Blacks look deep and inky. You may see some blooming around bright objects because the Mini LED backlight doesn't have pixel-level control like OLED panels.

The display's brightness is largely the same as the M1 Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021) since it's the same display. It gets bright enough for use outdoors during the day, though you may still have trouble viewing some content in direct sunlight. It's very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which is great for dark room viewing, as it causes less eye strain.

The display's reflection handling is excellent. Its glossy finish performs well against bright ambient lighting but struggles with direct reflections, so it's best to avoid having bright lights shining at the screen.

The display's black uniformity is superb. There's some blooming around bright objects because the Mini LED backlight doesn't have pixel-level control like an OLED panel, but it's barely noticeable.

The display's horizontal viewing angle is okay. The image looks good enough from the side for sharing casual content or text documents, but it's best to be close or directly in front of the screen if you need perfect accuracy for color-critical work.

The display's vertical viewing angle is okay. Again, the image looks washed out when viewed from above or below. You need to look at the screen more or less straight on to see an accurate image.

The display's out-of-the-box accuracy is outstanding. All of the remaining inaccuracies are extremely minor and hard to spot. The color temperature is on the cooler side, but only by a tiny bit. This level of accuracy is suitable for color work like photo and video editing.

Unlike other laptop reviews, we've tested the MacBook Pro 14 and other MacBooks in the DCI P3 color space because the default color profile is in DCI P3. macOS usually limits the color reproduction to sRGB when showing sRGB content to avoid oversaturation and other inaccuracies; however, it doesn't do so with the signal from Calman, the software we use to measure the display. Evaluating the P3 color profile in sRGB would lead to a high color dE, which isn't representative of the real-world user experience, as the display is very accurate, even when viewing sRGB content with the system's color profile set to Apple Display (P3, 500 nits). macOS has multiple color profiles, including a pure sRGB option; here are the measurements in the sRGB mode:

• Average White Balance dE: 1.98
• Average Gamma: 2.20
• Average Color dE: 1.28
• Average Color Temperature: 6869.4

The display's color gamut is outstanding. It has full sRGB coverage, meaning it can display all the colors used in most online content. It also has full DCI P3 coverage, making it suitable for viewing and producing HDR content. Its Adobe RGB coverage is excellent, but it might not be wide enough for professional print photography, as it's missing the saturated greens that define Adobe RGB.

The display isn't flicker-free, but the flickering isn't noticeable because the flicker frequency is extremely fast (14.71kHz).

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 has a great keyboard. The layout feels spacious and is exactly like all other MacBooks, so if you've used a Mac before, it won't take long to get used to it. The keys are stable, don't require much force to actuate, and provide good tactile feedback. However, their travel distance is very short, which some people might not like as it's easy to bottom out. Typing noise is very low and isn't a problem in quiet environments. You can adjust the backlight brightness via the control panel or settings.

The touchpad is outstanding. Apple's touchpads are practically the gold standard these days, and this is no different. It's large, responsive, and easy to use. It tracks all movements and gestures well, and there's no issue with palm rejection. Like other MacBooks, it uses a haptic engine to simulate the clicks instead of physical buttons, allowing you to click anywhere on the touchpad.

The speakers get very loud with minimal compression artifacts at max volume. They sound full and natural, with a good amount of bass. They're easily among the best speakers on the market.

The webcam's video quality is outstanding. The image looks detailed well-exposed, and natural. Voices come across loud and clear, with no background noise.

The port selection is excellent. The three USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gbps data transfer rate and two 4k displays at 60Hz), USB4, charging, and DisplayPort. External monitor support changes depending on the SoC. The M2 Pro supports up to two 6k displays at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, or one 6k 60Hz display over Thunderbolt and one 4k 144Hz display over HDMI. Alternatively, it can support one 8k 60Hz or 4k 240Hz display over HDMI. The M2 Max supports up to three 6k displays at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one 4k 144Hz display over HDMI or two 6k 60Hz displays over Thunderbolt and one 4k 240Hz (or 8k at 60Hz) over HDMI.

We can't confirm which wireless adapter the Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 uses.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 is available with the following SoCs:

• M2 Pro 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 200GB/s memory bandwidth
• M2 Pro 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 200GB/s memory bandwidth
• M2 Max 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 400GB/s memory bandwidth
• M2 Max 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 400GB/s memory bandwidth

The M2 Pro and Max chips are essentially the same SoCs as the M1 Pro and Max. The core count has increased with the addition of two efficiency cores; the number of performance cores and the memory bandwidth are the same as the M1 chips. The 10-core CPU now has six performance and four efficiency cores, while the 12-core CPU has eight and four.

Performance-wise, the M2 Pro and Max SoCs can handle nearly every type of workload, from simple web browsing to demanding video editing tasks. Single-thread performance is the same no matter which SoC you choose; however, multi-thread performance will be better on chips with a 12-core CPU. Choosing between the 10- and 12-core CPU will depend on your workload and whether the applications you use can take advantage of the wider memory bandwidth.

As noted in the CPU section above, you can get the M2 Pro/Max SoC with a 16-, 19-, 30-, or 38-core GPU. Our unit has the base configuration with 16 cores. The GPU shares the same memory pool as the CPU, but unlike most integrated graphics, it can use as much of the shared memory as it needs. Regarding the media engines, the Pro chips have one video and one ProRes (decode and encode) engine. In contrast, the Max chips have two of each, providing better performance in video editing and image rendering tasks. Choosing between these SoCs will depend on your usage. The base configuration can handle most workloads, though the higher configurations will provide a smoother experience in more demanding tasks and complete jobs faster.

As for gaming, the M2 Pro with 16 GPU cores can handle demanding titles, but you'll almost certainly have to play at 1080p with medium to low graphical settings to achieve playable frame rates. The top-end M2 Max with 38 GPU cores can handle more demanding games and run some at 1440p. That said, gaming performance can vary significantly depending on whether the game runs natively or through Rosetta 2, as the latter can cause a drop in performance or graphical glitches. Games included in Apple's Arcade subscription service will run well because they're mobile games designed for ARM-based SoCs.

You can configure this laptop with 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 96GB of RAM. However, the 64GB and 96GB options are only available if you upgrade the SoC to an M2 Max. The memory isn't user-replaceable.

You can configure the M2 Apple MacBook Pro 14 with 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB of storage. The 512GB configuration has a single NAND chip, resulting in a slower sequential read speed, so it's best to upgrade to a larger-capacity option if read speed is important for your workload. The storage drive isn't user-replaceable.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 with an M2 Pro (10-core GPU) SoC performs exceptionally well in the Geekbench 5 benchmarks, indicating that it can handle nearly every type of workload, including light productivity tasks like text processing and web browsing and more demanding workloads like programming, video editing, and simulations. The M2 Pro/Max SoCs with a 12-core CPU will perform better as they have two additional performance cores. As for GPU computing tasks, the base M2 Pro SoC with 16 GPU cores performs well and can handle most workloads. Upgrading to the SoCs with more GPU cores will improve graphical performance, but the media engines do most of the heavy lifting in tasks that can utilize them, so the GPU compute score isn't fully representative of the SoC's performance.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023's base M2 Pro chip performs exceptionally well in the Cinebench R23 benchmark. All of the M2 Pro/Max chips are suitable for 3D image rendering and other related workloads. The 12-core SoC will perform better, but not by a significant amount.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023's performance in Blender is outstanding. Although the CPU can render images relatively quickly, rendering with the GPU is much faster. The other M2 Pro/Max SoCs with more GPU cores will perform even better, with the top-end M2 Max (38-core GPU) likely taking only seconds to render the same scene.

The M2 Pro SoC with a 16-core GPU scores well compared to integrated graphics, but its performance is relatively low compared to discrete GPUs. This level of performance is roughly equivalent to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, a gaming GPU designed for 1080p gaming. The other M2 Pro/Max chips with more GPU cores will perform better, with the top-end 38-core M2 Max capable of handling AAA games at 1440p. That said, performance will vary depending on each game's optimization, as very few titles run natively on Apple silicon.

The storage drive performance is outstanding. Its fast read and write speeds allow the system to quickly boot up, launch apps, and transfer files. The sequential read speed is lower than expected because the 512GB storage option has a single NAND chip, as you can see in this photo comparing the newer model (left) to the older M1 Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021). The slower speed is unlikely to be noticeable in everyday use. If your workload requires retrieving large data sets from the drive, you probably need a lot of storage space anyway, so it's worth upgrading to one of the larger-capacity options, which are faster because they have two NAND chips.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023's battery life is outstanding. It lasts easily through a typical workday of light use on a full charge. You can expect roughly the same battery life as gaming if you have a more intensive workload that stresses the CPU or GPU. Models with more CPU or GPU cores will likely have slightly shorter battery life.

Borderlands 3 runs poorly. The average frame rate is too low with high settings, and there are frequent stutters due to frame drops. You can get over 60 fps with low settings, but the game still stutters. While the M2 Max SoCs with more GPU cores will push higher frame rates, you'll likely still experience regular stutters. You can expect the same performance in other similar titles.

Civilization VI runs decently well. While it isn't necessary to reach 60 fps to play this type of strategy game, you can easily push over 60 fps if you lower a couple of settings. The turn time is slow, but it doesn't truly indicate the SoC's performance. It's likely the result of having to run the game via Rosetta 2 since the game doesn't support Apple silicon. Upgrading to the 12-core CPU will only improve the turn time slightly.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 has no problem handling CS:GO and similar games. The average frame rate is high, and the gameplay looks very smooth. Unfortunately, the software that logs the frametime doesn't work on macOS. The M2 Pro/Max SoCs with more GPU cores will push even higher frame rates.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 can handle Shadow of the Tomb Raider and other similar AAA titles. The gameplay is fairly smooth at 1080p with high settings; there are only a few stutters. You can get much smoother gameplay by turning down a few graphical settings. The M2 Pro/Max SoCs with more GPU cores will easily push over 60 fps with high settings.

The keyboard deck is cool when idle; however, it gets quite warm under load and can cause discomfort as the hottest spot is right in the middle of the keyboard. The fans are relatively quiet at full speed and aren't bothersome.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023's performance over time is superb—neither the CPU nor the GPU throttles despite their high temperatures.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 has no pre-installed applications besides those that typically come with macOS.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 has a fingerprint sensor built into the power button. You can use it to log in quickly, authorize purchases in the Apple App Store, use Apple Pay, and auto-fill saved passwords on supported websites.