Apple has unexpectedly unveiled some new MacBook Pros that are, surprisingly, more than just chipset bumps. According to the company, the upgrades can be found in both the 13-inch and 15-inch Touch Bar-enabled laptops. Meanwhile, the non-Touch Bar-equipped 13-inch model doesn’t get any of the new goodies.
That being said, what the Touch Bar MacBook Pros gain as a result is pretty impressive. Apple is now including up to an 8th-generation six-core Intel Core i7 and i9 processors on the 15-inch model, while the 13-inch variant gets up to 8th-gen quad-core Intel Core i5 and i7 processors. The former will see a 70 percent performance increase and the latter gets twice the speed it had before. 
That’s not all, though. Apple also says the 15-inch MacBook Pro can be configured with up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM and up to 4TB of SSD storage. It also gets Radeon Pro GPUs and Turbo Boost speeds of up to 4.8GHz. The 13-inch variant also gets some extra love thanks to 2TB of available SSD storage and 4.5GHz Turbo Boost speeds. Sure, you aren’t getting the insane specs of the 15-inch trim, but the smaller model is powerful in its own right.
The company is also increasing battery capacity in each model. While they don’t disclose exactly how much bigger the batteries are getting, Apple does say the added power inside the new MacBook Pros balances out the laptops’ endurance. Hence, the company won’t be changing its current power estimates of up to 10 hours of usage on a single charge. At least endurance hasn’t decreased.
To round things off, Apple’s throwing in some added intangibles. Both the display and Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pros get True Tone technology to better compensate for different lighting conditions, while a new in-house T2 chip provides “Hey Siri” functionality for the first time in a Mac laptop. The company is also including its third-generation butterfly switch keyboard which features the same amount of key travel as before but returns quieter audible responses. This doesn’t solve the problem many users face with the Pro’s keyboard (it can become disabled if something like a crumb gets under a single key), but I guess Apple’s just being Apple in this case.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro still starts at $1,799 and the new 15-inch still starts at $2,399. However, a totally maxed-out 15-inch model now comes in at $6,699 which is a hefty price for a laptop. Of course, if you have the money to spend and need something new, the laptops are shipping today and are available at Apple retail stores.
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