Apple’s refreshed MacBook Pro 13-inch with the M2 chip, which was announced at WWDC 2022, will ship more quickly than we were initially told.
Apple initially said that the MacBook Pro 13-inch 2022 would ship in July, but the company has just let us know that it is in fact set to ship in June.
Punters will be able to pre-order the M2-toting MacBook Pro 13-inch worldwide from June 17, which is this Friday, with the devices arriving with customers from June 24 onwards.
Apple also reminded us that the new MacBook Pro for 2022 will be available on the Apple Store website and app, and from authorized resellers.
The main difference with this refreshed MacBook Pro is the inclusion of that M2 chip, which is an 8-core CPU (4 performance plus 4 efficiency cores), alongside a 10-core GPU. Apple claims that the M2 is 18% faster than the M1, and offers seriously impressive battery life at 20 hours of video playback (two hours more than the M2-powered MacBook Air).
Analysis: Wait – why is this the first M2 laptop out of the gate?
Speaking of the MacBook Air (M2, 2022), that was the big revelation in terms of laptops for WWDC 2022, but it’s the MacBook Pro 13-inch – which keeps the design the same, and doesn’t see much in the way of change, save for the addition of the M2 chip, and the option to run with 24GB of RAM – that we’re getting first.
More eyes are on the new MacBook Air, naturally, as it represents a major overhaul in terms of being slimmer and lighter, with a larger (and brighter) screen, and as we observed in our hands-on preview, it’s looking like another hit laptop for Apple already. But it won’t be here until July, so there’s still a bit of a wait for this device – and looking at broad feedback, there’s a good chance some buyers may indeed wait for the Air rather than jumping at the MacBook Pro 13-inch M2.
Certainly there’s been a bit of head-scratching as to why Apple hasn’t prioritized the MacBook Air here, but the fact that the MacBook Pro 13-inch isn’t very different from its predecessor, and therefore Apple may have a bunch of components still on hand for production, could be the reason for this Pro model coming out so swiftly. Whereas the MacBook Air M2 may well be more affected by recent supply chain difficulties, and of course, demand for the Pro model isn’t going to be near the same level as the all-new M2-powered MacBook Air.