Should you upgrade from M1 to M4 MacBook Pro? I did, and it was totally worth it

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The M4 MacBook Professional begins at $1,799 and options enhancements in essentially the most delicate locations.
• Upgrades to graphical efficiency, battery life, and switch speeds are essentially the most notable.
• Be ready to overpay for nearly each spec bump.

extra shopping for selections

On Amazon, each single M4 MacBook Pro configuration is on sale. You should purchase Apple’s newest flagship laptop computer for as little as $1,299.

I have been utilizing the M4 MacBook Pro for just a few months now, and it is essentially the most boringly superior machine in my each day arsenal.

With out making my 14-inch M1 MacBook Professional jealous, the newest mannequin is Apple’s most polished and full laptop computer but, to the purpose the place the bottom M4 configuration may be adequate for 90% of customers. Most individuals shall be delighted by the M4 MacBook Professional’s general computing expertise, particularly in the event that they’re coming from an Intel-based system.

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A smaller proportion — the fanatics — will completely salivate over the finer touches, from the adjustments to the USB-C ports to the brighter display screen in SDR mode. Actually, the bottom M4 mannequin — not the M4 Professional or M4 Max — is exactly the one I have been lugging round city, and it is bought all of the bells and whistles I must push by rigorous quantities of video and photo editing, gaming (with all of the rays traced), and content material consumption.

I am on hour 11 since final cost, and this laptop computer has 20% of battery left within the tank. That is not precisely the “24-hour battery life” that Apple touts in its advertising and marketing, however do not forget that the corporate benchmarks by hours of video playback solely. With varied artistic duties and background apps operating, I have been very impressed with the M4 MacBook Professional’s endurance. If it had been my M1 MacBook Professional, my battery anxiousness would’ve kicked in a lot earlier.

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The brand new M4 Professional and M4 Max MacBook Professionals function USB-C Thunderbolt 5 ports, turning into a number of the first laptops available on the market to help sooner 120Gbps switch speeds, as much as 240W charging, and extra sturdy monitor help. For skilled creatives who use exterior GPUs and storage options and want a transportable system that may swiftly transfer giant information, paying for the additional processing energy is justifiable.

In any other case, the bottom M4 MacBook Professional is greater than competent, with its now three USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports. Not solely is the extra USB-C port located on the fitting facet of the laptop computer, which performs nicer with all of the monitor and charging cables that naturally reside on the fitting facet of my workplace desk, however the brand new processor permits the pc to increase as much as two displays whereas the lid is open. Beforehand, you’d have to shut the MacBook lid as a way to energy two exterior displays.

Moreover the ports, the one main {hardware} distinction between the bottom M4 MacBook Professional and the M4 Professional and M4 Max variants is the variety of cooling followers, with the higher-tier choices having two as a substitute of 1. Whereas I have never been in a position to check the distinction in throttling and warmth dissipation of all three programs, I have been happy with the bottom M4’s efficiency. Whether or not I used to be operating benchmarks or enjoying Myst on excessive graphical settings and with ray tracing energetic, the laptop computer’s fan by no means hissed in a distracting, “tapping out” method.

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Earlier than I soar into benchmarks, I would like to offer a nod to the M4 MacBook Professional’s show. The 14-inch mannequin does not have the identical punchiness and depth because the tandem OLED on the M4 iPad Pro, however the brand new brightness ranking — 1,000 nits at SDR and 1,600 nits at HDR — paired with the elective, costly, and satisfying clear nano-texture coating makes this the best-looking laptop computer show I’ve used. The matte-frosted layering considerably reduces glare, whereas the brighter panel simply manages to beat out the November solar, which nonetheless thinks it is summer season.

With the M1 MacBook Professional — and each different laptop computer with a shiny show — I typically discovered myself smudging the webcam space when lifting the lid or wiping off a mud mark. On the M4 MacBook Professional, after every week of intensive use, the show stays clear and pristine.  

So, is the $150 upcharge for the nano-texture show price it? For most individuals, no. As an alternative, contemplate selecting up a matte screen protector from Amazon for lower than $20. You may be almost as happy for greater than a fraction of the price.

Now, here is a breakdown of the M4 MacBook Professional (with a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage) benchmark scores:

Unsurprisingly, the M4 MacBook Professional outperforms its predecessors, in addition to a number of the newest Windows machines operating on Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Intel Core Extremely (Sequence 2) chipsets. It is fairly spectacular to see the $1,599 M4 MacBook Professional outpacing a 16-inch MacBook Professional with an M1 Professional chip that I paid nearly $3,000 for.

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It helps that each MacBook mannequin (together with the M3 and M4 Air) now begins at 16GB of RAM; We’ve got AI to thank for that. I have been toying with the MacOS Sequoia 15.3.2 to get a style of what life is like once I spend much less time considering whereas utilizing the MacBook (learn: counting on Apple Intelligence as a substitute). This is a short tier listing of the perfect new options:

• ChatGPT-powered Siri (A tier): It is fairly game-changing when Siri can really reply extra subtle queries as a substitute of populating search outcomes. It is also been nice with the ability to entry a floating Siri menu by double-pressing the command key, although I would love to have the ability to robotically begin a voice immediate with a protracted press. 
• Writing Instruments (B tier): From occasion invites to actual property messages, I have been needing to handle varied conversations and have drastically benefitted from the AI-assisted responses. The one factor is, my pure tone is someplace between the “Skilled” and “Concise” variations, so there’s all the time a factor or two that must be dialed down or spiffed up.
• Picture Playground (C tier): Moreover the output from the picture generator trying like variants of the Jetpack Joyride icon, I have been struggling to discover a sensible, real-world use for it. Oftentimes, sending an emoji will get the identical level throughout as an AI-generated thumbnail, and for a lot much less time.

ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation

For a similar value because the earlier era MacBook Professional fashions, the M4 variants — significantly the bottom configuration — supply notable upgrades in efficiency, utility, and battery life. The introduction of Thunderbolt 5 ports, an M4 processor that is higher constructed for machine studying, a extra succesful webcam, and a brighter show funnel right into a kind issue that ought to play nicely with workplace staff, digital nomads, college students, skilled creatives, and extra.

For many customers, the 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro is the best way to go. If you happen to want extra inner storage than the 512GB, bumping as much as the 1TB tier for $200 just isn’t the worst concept. Past that, I would advise selecting up an exterior SSD, which provides you extra storage than what Apple does and for considerably much less cash.

If you happen to’re after portability and might dwell with out options just like the ProMotion show and an SD card slot, you will not miss out on a lot by choosing the cheaper (however nonetheless succesful) M4 or M3 MacBook Air, which even help the upcoming Apple Intelligence options.

This text was initially printed on November 7, 2024, and was up to date on August 5, 2025.