Apple last week replaced the M3 Max MacBook Pro with the new M4 Max MacBook Pro, and we picked up one of the new high-end MacBook Pro machines to

The M4's single-core performance is between 14 and 21 percent faster than the M3s in our tests, and tests that use all the CPU cores are usually 20 or 30 percent faster. The GPU is occasionally as much as 33 percent faster than the M3 in our tests, though more often, the improvements are in the single or low double digits.

The more time I spend with the M4 MacBook Pro, the more I think it’s one of Apple’s most interesting updates in years. That’s saying a lot for an update that—on the surface—looks mostly like a spec bump.