The coronavirus pandemic has not put too much of a speedbreaker on Apple’s announcements of new products to their repertoire. In March, the tech company announced an upgrade of the MacBook Air and in April, they unveiled the iPhone SE which aims to be their ‘budget smartphone’, so to speak. Now, Apple has announced the launch of its upgraded 13-inch MacBook Pro.
“Today we’re adding the new Magic Keyboard, doubling the standard storage, and boosting performance, making the 13-inch MacBook Pro an even better value for our customers,” says Tom Boger, Apple’s senior director of Mac and iPad Product Marketing, in a company statement.
Pretty on the outside
The updated device now features the Magic Keyboard, first introduced on the 16-inch MacBook Pro and added to MacBook Air in March. This feature comprises a redesigned scissor mechanism with 1 millimetre of key travel for a comfortable and stable key feel, while the new inverted-T arrangement for the arrow keys makes them easier to find, whether users are navigating through spreadsheets or playing games. Magic Keyboard also features a physical Escape key, along with Touch Bar and Touch ID, for a keyboard that claims to deliver an improved typing experience ever on a Mac notebook.
Close-ups of the Magic Keyboard on the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro
The design architecture of the new MacBook Pro, which weighs just over 1.3 kilograms (a touch lighter than its predecessor), predictably comprises a sleek aluminium unibody design in space grey or silver. The 13-inch Retina display delivers more than 4 million pixels and millions of colours, along with 500 nits of brightness and support for the P3 wide colour gamut. Plus, with True Tone technology, the display offers a more natural viewing experience for design and editing work-flows.
Other bells and whistles include speakers that provide immersive wide-stereo sound, Touch ID for easy login and secure online purchases, Touch Bar with dynamic and contextual controls, and Force Touch track-pad for precise cursor control and Multi-Touch navigation.
The internal works
As for storage, Apple has doubled the storage of the MacBook Pro, with standard storage starting at 256GB all the way up to 1TB. And for professional users who need even more storage capacity for large photo libraries and video projects, the 13-inch MacBook Pro now offers up to a 4TB SSD.
Faster performance is promised offers up to 10th-generation quad-core Intel Core processors with Turbo Boost speeds of up to 4.1GHz. Customers who are upgrading from a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a dual-core processor will see up to 2.8 times faster performance. It also comes with a T2 Security chip, as with the MacBook Air announced in March. The T2 also protects Touch ID information, so whether customers are unlocking their Mac, entering an online password, or making online purchases, their information stays safe.
Frankly, we imagine consumers will not be rushing to pre-order this device soon if the lockdowns and zero sales of smartphones across India in April are anything to go by.
