With speculation spreading about Apple’s first event of 2022, the Apple’s rumor mill is churning away. In the Mac realm, there’s been some buzz about a 13-inch entry-level MacBook Pro that could come powered by a new M chip. This would come on the heels of the upgraded MacBook Pro 14 and MacBook Pro 16 from late 2021.
Here’s everything we’ve heard about the rumored new 13-inch MacBook Pro so far.
When will new MacBook Pros be announced?
Apple’s early event, which took place in April for 2021, traditionally focuses on iPads and more entry-level (or education related) products, which means a revamped MacBook Air or MacBook Pro 13 might be in the cards.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman estimates that the 13-inch MacBook Pro, succeeding the 2020 MacBook Pro, will be announced at an Apple event on March 8. (Digitimes also says a new low-end model will be coming at the event, but it has a mixed accuracy record and Twitter leaker @dylantk‘s account has disappeared since it initially posted some related rumors.)
An M2 chip?
An “M2” is being bandied about as an update to Apple’s first-gen M1 entry-level version, although we’ve heard no details beyond that. AppleTrack and others have said that the aforementioned specs would take away everything that makes a MacBook Pro a “pro” model, especially in light of speculation about a revamped Air, but I disagree. If the rumored M2 chip has specs somewhere between the M1 and M1 Max, say 8 cores (with 6 or 8 P cores), support for 32GB RAM, 14 GPU cores and no ProRes accelerator, it could serve quite well as a less expensive Pro for low-end content creation, such as most photo editing. Not everyone is editing video. And that still leaves room for a light, less powerful Air.
Stay tuned for more as the news trickles in.
