Apple M4 Pro Review: The Laptop Chip That Changes the Equation
Artificial Intelligence
Covers AI systems, large language models, and their real-world implications.
Technology
Reports on software, hardware, and the companies shaping the digital world.
Finance & Markets
Analysis of markets, economic indicators, and financial developments.
Apple's M4 Pro lands in the new MacBook Pro with a confident message: the gap between mobile and desktop performance is now effectively closed for most professional workloads. In our testing over three weeks, the claim largely holds up.
On CPU-bound single-core tasks the M4 Pro scores around 3,900 in Geekbench 6 — ahead of Intel's Core Ultra 9 in a thin laptop chassis by roughly 18 percent, while drawing less than half the power under sustained load. Thermal management is where Apple's vertical integration pays dividends most visibly. The chip runs continuously at maximum clock speeds in a fanless configuration that Intel's equivalent cannot match without spinning its cooling system to audible levels.
GPU performance has taken the largest leap, with Apple claiming a 40 percent improvement over M3 Pro. In practice this matters most for ML inference workloads and creative applications. DaVinci Resolve's AI-powered tools — noise reduction, smart reframe — now run in real time on 4K footage where the M3 Pro required proxy workflows. For developers building Core ML applications, the on-device inference gains are the headline figure.
Battery life in real-world mixed use — coding, video calls, light video export — consistently hit 14 to 16 hours in our testing. This is not a marketing number achieved under artificial conditions. It is a genuine workday on a single charge, which changes the calculus for developers who travel or work from variable locations.