Image Credit: Apple

Apple’s redesigned MacBook Pro 14 and 16-inch with the new M2 Pro and M2 Max are the most powerful laptops from Apple.

Apple first announced their transition away from Intel and to their own silicon Macs at WWDC 2020. Their first three products featuring the M1 chip were the Mac mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, before also coming to the iMac and iPad Pro.

Fast forward a few years to June 2022 and Apple announced their M2 Pro & M2 Max chips. The MacBook range with Apple’s powerful M2 chip offers between 10 & 12-core CPUs. As a result, any Macbook with an M2 chip is perfect for editing massive spatial audio projects with hundreds of high-quality tracks and effects, and are the best Macbooks for music production.

A whopping 32GB of memory is available in both models which is more than enough for producing music in a DAW. And the huge 1TB of SSD storage is perfect for storing your projects, and this is upgradeable to 2TB, 4TB or even 8TB! Meanwhile, you can see everything in perfect detail throughout the 22 hours of battery life with the 16.2-inch or 14.2-inch liquid retina display which Apple promises are capable of displaying 1 billion colours.

Apple actually redesigned the entire design of the Macbook with the improved display, battery life, camera, audio system and connectivity for the release of the M1 chip. The company also improved connectivity and now the Macbook boasts a 3.5mm aux input jack that supports high-impedance headphones, meaning you can plug any headphones in while producing on the go.

The audio system is improved with “industry-leading, studio-quality” microphones that have an even lower noise floor, for clearer calls and recordings, plus a high-fidelity six-speaker sound system, from two tweeter and four force-cancelling woofers, ensuring a clearer soundstage and 80% more bass. The new speaker system supports spatial audio, bringing a three-dimensional, theatre-like listening experience to music and movies in Dolby Atmos.

Connect your audio interface to your MacBook with the Thunderbolt or USB 4 ports, or play your projects through the six onboard Dolby Atmos speakers which really do sound quite good with their side stereo sound (though headphones may serve you more honestly). And the MacBook does support Spatial Audio too.

Video Credit: Apple

The MacBook 14 and 16-inch with M2 Pro and M2 Max are available now from $1899 to $2499. Both laptops are configurable with different chips, memory and SSDs.

While these laptops are the best option for those looking for the most powerful music production notebooks, the older and less expensive M1 Mac mini, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and iMac are still great computers for lighter workloads on a tighter budget.