Pros:
– Bright and vivid Retina XDR display
– Amazing battery life that can last almost an entire day
– Impressive performance in the M3 SoC
– Has some major graphical prowess
– Great speaker set up
– Plenty of ports as per today’s standards
– Solid gaming capabilities
– Great keyboard setup
Cons:
– Supports only 1 external display
– No Space Black option for M3 MacBook Pros
Price: Rs 2,09,900/- for the tested 16GB+1TB variant
Rating: 4.75/5
Apple has been on a roll with their M line of SoCs and has been delivering one massive hit after the other, with the various Pro and Air devices that they have launched. In the new MacBook Pro 14-inch, we get the latest, M3 silicon, which, as per Apple’s demonstration at the Scary Fast even where it was launched, was significantly faster than the MacBook Pro with the M1 silicon.
On paper, it may seem that the M3 is getting only a marginal upgrade over the M2 SoCs that we saw in the 15-inch MacBook Air, and that may be true to a certain extent. The thing is, with each passing generation, Apple’s M silicon is getting some generational upgrades in terms of performance and speed.
However, when you come to experience the overall package that the new M3 brings, the upgrade is clearly, very significant.
For their new line of MacBook Pros that feature the new M3 series of SoC, Apple has ditched the 13-inch form factor, and is now offering a 14-inch device as the point of entry to the Pro lineup.
I tested the new 14-inch MacBook Pro with the base variant of the M3 SoC for a couple of weeks. One thing that was immediately clear from the very beginning of my tests is that while Apple’s M3 Max and M3 Pro are certainly much better in terms of performance, the base-level M3 has enough grunt for most users. Needless to say, all things considered, the MacBook Pro 14-inch, is clearly, the best ultraportable laptop that you can buy.
MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 2023 Review: Design
In terms of external appearance, the 14-inch MacBook Pro maintains its familiar look. The dimensions of the new model are 0.61 x 12.3 x 8.7 inches, with a weight of 1.55 kg — similar to the previous 14-inch MacBook Pro.
The new MacBook Pro 14-inch may be slightly thicker than some of the other thin and lights available in the market, but it is very convenient to carry around, and a pretty solid, lightweight mobile workstation, that packs a serious punch.
The new, 2023 version retains the quintessential, MacBook-esque sleek design with a flat screen, slim borders, a notch, and a modern profile.
Despite its compact size, the 14-inch MacBook Pro still comes with some impressive features such as high-quality speakers, a properly designed keyboard with adequately spaced keys, and a pretty sizable and user-friendly trackpad.
Despite its slim profile, the laptop feels really well-constructed and solidly built. You won’t find any flimsiness or creaks when you move around with this laptop, thanks to its unibody aluminium chassis. I also like just how smooth the hinge of the top lid is — there is this very pleasing ease with which one can open the lid with just one finger.
Coming to the laptop’s ports, the left side houses the MagSafe charging port, two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports with speeds of up to 40Gbps, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the right side, we find the HDMI port, which supports one external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz. We also get a full-sized SD Card slot on the right.
As for the colour options with the new line of MacBook Pros, Apple provides three choices — Space Black, Space Silver, and Space Grey. However, the black option is exclusive to M3 Pro/M3 Max units. In our testing, we opted for the Space Grey color, which in itself has a very aesthetically pleasing appearance.
MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 2023 Review: Display
Even by Apple’s own standards with the Mac, the new MacBook Pro 14-inch has a seriously impressive display. We get a 14.2-inch Mini LED Liquid Retina XDR panel with a resolution of resolution of 3024X964 and a pixel density of 254 pixels per inch.
The screen delivers impressive brightness levels, reaching up to 1600 nits of peak brightness for HDR content, 1000 nits at sustained, and 600 nits at SDR. Since this is a ProMotion display, we get up to 120Hz refresh rate which makes games and video content or anything that needs a high refresh rate look sublime. Furthermore, true to Apple’s reputation, the display ensures vibrant and accurate colours. You also get support for Dolby Vision, Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG.
Speaking of colours, the panel covers 100 per cent of the sRGB space, 87 per cent of Adobe, and 98 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. What this essentially means, is that the panel is great for content consumption, as well as content creation. Plus, as always with a MacBook Pro, you can calibrate the display to your liking, with ease.
We still get Apple’s well-recognised notch positioned at the centre of the screen. While it may pinch a few people now and then, especially if they are switching over from Windows or from a really old Mac, you get used to it. Having said that, it does bother you at times, especially with certain apps that have extensive menus.
The only complaint that I have of the display is that it comes with this extremely glossy finish, which collects even the slightest hint of fingerprint and oil — even the residual oil that your fingers leave on the keyboard. Irritated by having to wipe by display every time I open the lid, I just put up a matte-finished display protector within days of receiving my unit.
MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 2023 Review: Keyboard and trackpad
Despite some backlash they had received with their keyboards a few years ago, I believe no one does a keyboard on a laptop nearly as well as Apple. This year’s MacBook Pro is not different — the keyboard is nearly perfect. The keys have some little travel, have a tactile feel and are great if you know how to touch type. And even if you don’t typing on the MacBook Pro 14 is a joy.
You still get that backlit array that makes using the MacBook Pro in the dark a breeze. You still get the TouchID-integrated power button on the top-right corner. All in all, it is a very familiar keyboard for anyone who has used an Apple device.
The keys have this matte-like finish when you open the laptop up for the first time. And although they feel very premium to the touch, after about half an hour of use, you will see that most of the keys that you have been using frequently, have picked up a lot of oil from your fingertips, and they are extremely difficult to wipe off, without doing some serious damage to your device.
As for the trackpad, It is pretty big considering the over al size of the laptop. The Force Touch trackpad that Apple uses for the MacBook Pro 14 inch this year felt like one of their most precise ones yet.
It also comes with all the creature comforts that Apple has designed into their trackpads over the years — pressure-sensing capabilities, force clicks, accelerators, pressure-sensitive drawing and of course, multi-touch gestures. You really can’t find a trackpad on other laptops that manage to come even close to the MacBook.
MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 2023 Review: Speakers and Webcam
The MacBook Pro 14-inch continues to deliver an exceptional audio experience with its six-speaker sound system. The speakers are exquisite and are remarkably balanced, complemented by the setup which involved two tweeters and four force-cancelling woofers.
This configuration ensures outstanding treble with crisp vocals, powerful bass, and impressive mids. The speaker system supports a variety of formats, including AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, and FLAC, along with Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby Atmos.
Notably, the MacBook Pro’s sound stage is expansive and robust, enhanced by Dolby Atmos, and it also offers support for Spatial Audio and dynamic head tracking when used with compatible Apple audio products.
As for the webcam, the 1080p FaceTime camera on the MacBook Pro provides good video quality, thanks to the image signal processor (ISP) and Neural Engine in the M3 chip. And while the in-built webcam performs well in video calls, you have the added convenience of seamlessly switching to the rear camera of your iPhone, which in my book is a significant bonus.
We only wish that the in-built webcam used a 4K sensor, instead of a 1080P one. Having said that, the image and video output are more than good enough to get the job done.
MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 2023 Review: Performance
The 14-inch MacBook Pro is powered by Apple’s new M3 silicon, which packs an impressive configuration of 8 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores. The CPU cores are made up of 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. You also get a 16-core Neural Engine. In terms of wireless connectivity, it boasts Bluetooth 5.3 and WiFi 6e capabilities.
Our tested unit was equipped with 16GB of RAM, referred to by Apple as Unified Memory. While the base model starts at 8GB of Unified Memory, in my view, this falls short of deserving the ‘Pro’ designation. Alternatively, users can opt for a 24GB configuration.
For storage, our model featured a 1TB SSD, with additional options including 512GB and 2TB variants.
The M3 chip in the MacBook Pro is Apple’s first 3-nanometer processor in the Mac lineup, packing in more transistors and introducing a next-generation GPU. You will be blown away as to how all of this, translates into performance.
In daily usage, the laptop never broke a sweat, stuttered or gave me any issues, no matter what I threw at it. Tons of Chrome tabs, Slack, quick Photoshop edits here and there, some quick video rendering for social media — nothing, fazed it. Throughout the day, the MacBook Pro was swift, responsive, performing like a true powerhouse.
And this is reflected in the benchmarks as well. In Cinebench R23, the M3 SoC performed extremely well, only getting surpassed by hardcore desktop-grade CPUs. In multi-core tests we scored 10,434, whereas the single-core score stood at 1,901.
In Geekbench 6, which measures overall performance, the MacBook Pro M3 scored 3,131 on single-core and 11,990 on multi-core. As for the GPU tests in Geekbench 6, we had a score of 47,507 in Metal, and 30,516 in OpenCL.
While the SSD performance isn’t the fastest, the MacBook Pro M3’s 1TB drive demonstrated respectable read speeds of 2905 MBps and write speeds of 2996.1 MBps.
The M3 chip has a new 10-core GPU with Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and ray tracing for enhanced geometry processing and realistic lighting effects. In our 3DMark test, which mainly focuses on graphics performance, it scored 7,875 on the Wild Life Extreme test with 47.2 fps, whereas Solar Bay netted us an overall score of 13549, and an average fps of 47.7
While the graphics in the MacBook Pro M3 are impressive, they are not the best in line and that will show when you put it through some heavier stuff that needs a lot more computing — things like rendering super complex architectural or engineering designs. If you are someone who frequently has such a use case, you may want to consider the MacBook Pro M3 Pro with a 14-core GPU.
Having said that, performance-wise, the M3 silicon is simply awesome, more than anything that anyone would require of a laptop, even if they are a pro. Unless you’re working with very heavy graphical work, like rendering complex architectural or engineering designs, the M3-powered MacBook Pro 14-inch is more than enough for most people.
And thanks to a display that just takes your breath away, even pro-grade video editors and photographers will be more than satisfied with its performance when it comes to video and photo editing.
As for gaming, Apple has introduced unique features with the M3 series chip. Stay tuned for a dedicated article on the gaming and productivity experience on the latest MacBook Pro 14-inch.
MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 2023 Review: Battery
The 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 boasts a robust 70Wh battery accompanied by a 70W USB-C power adapter.
In my capacity as a laptop reviewer, I have always found that MacBooks outperformed Windows counterparts when it comes to battery life. This M3-powered MacBook though, took me by surprise, and a pretty good one. MacBooks have consistently demonstrated superior power efficiency, and the M3-powered 14-inch MacBook Pro is no exception.
According to Apple, the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro can deliver up to 15 hours of wireless web browsing. In our real-world usage, it not only lived up to this claim but often surpassed it.
On numerous occasions, I accidentally left my charger at home and still managed to navigate through a full workday. Upon returning home, I would often watch a couple of episodes of whatever series I was watching on OTT, catch up on reading, and still find my battery holding strong at 30-40 per cent.
Clearly, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is more than capable of enduring an entire workday and then some.
The efficiency of the new M3 chip and the display Apple has incorporated is truly remarkable. Pushing the limits, I am confident that the new MacBook Pro could potentially provide a full 24 hours of usage, albeit with some sacrifices. Considering that even the best that Windows has to offer offers half of what the MacBook Pro does, this is a massive win for Apple.
MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 2023 Review: Verdict
So, how does the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 SoC stack up? It boasts a pretty sizeable sharp, and vibrant display, one of the best webcams in the market, an impressive setup of speakers, and all the essential ports you may need as a professional. Moreover, not only does it offer more performance than most people will ever be able to extract out of it, but it also impresses with an outstanding 22 hours of battery life.
While it may not be the slimmest in its class, the M3-powered MacBook Pro makes up for it by delivering exceptional performance, and, is built like a tank.
There is no point in beating around the bush — the MacBook Pro M3 14-inch is the best thin-and- for most people who demand something serious from their laptop.
Unless you have a very specific use case — like working on AI applications, or rendering complex CAD files, or creating complex animations — the M3 is enough. However, if your work involves a lot of 3D animations, rendering complex engineering and designing models, and working on AI models, you will be better off with the M3 Pro or M3 Max variants.