Following a rumor that Apple has a product announcement planned for tomorrow, and the discovery of an unreleased MacBook Pro in a Canadian regulatory database, it appears that new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models might finally be imminent.
Ahead of the potential launch, we have recapped everything that we have heard so far about the next-generation 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro.
M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips
A key new feature of the next MacBook Pro models is expected to be M2 Pro and M2 Max chips for faster performance. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said those chips will offer only "marginal" performance improvements over the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips in the current models, as leaked benchmarks suggested last year.
Wi-Fi 6E
Wireless frequency ranges mentioned in the Canadian regulatory filing indicate that the new MacBook Pro will support Wi-Fi 6E, which extends Wi-Fi to the 6GHz band for more bandwidth, faster speeds, and lower latency. The current 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro support standard Wi-Fi 6, which is limited to 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.
Faster RAM
The new MacBook Pro models are rumored to be equipped with "very high-bandwidth, high-speed RAM," but details are unclear. On a purely speculative basis, it is possible that the new models could be equipped with Samsung's latest LPDDR5X RAM for up to 33% increased memory bandwidth with up to 20% less power consumption.
No Design Changes
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Gurman have both suggested that the new MacBook Pro models will have no external design changes and few other major features.
This aspect wouldn't be too surprising, as Apple fully redesigned the high-end MacBook Pros in October 2021 with more ports like HDMI and MagSafe, a notch at the top of the display, an all-black keyboard area, and more. MacBooks often go multiple generations between major hardware changes, so a spec bump in 2023 is a reasonable expectation.
Update: Apple has announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, Wi-Fi 6E, and more.
