Summary
- The Binned M4 Pro is priced similarly to the base MacBook Pro, with significant advantages.
- The binned chip offers better CPU performance, GPU speed, RAM, SSD, and Thunderbolt 5 at an additional cost.
- M4 Pro chip models provide significant performance upgrades at a 20% price difference, making it a great value.
The idea of “value for money” and Apple don’t often go together in the minds of the average computer buyer, but occasionally, an Apple computer comes out that’s so obviously in the sweet spot that it feels like Apple done goofed. With the release of the M4 MacBook Pro laptops, it seems we have yet another candidate for that exclusive club.
Sometimes, Apple Makes One MacBook Look Better Than the Rest
Apple’s configurator tool that lets you spec out Macs of all stripes can be a daunting deathrap when looking for the best deal. It’s very easy to over-pay for something when, just a few clicks away, was a better computer offering better value.
It’s why numerous YouTubers have made a living drawing up spreadsheets every time a new line of Macs is released. So that you can clearly see which options are worth it, and whether you should buy an older model.
Then, rarely, you get something like my beloved M1 MacBook Air base model.
At launch, it was a $999 laptop that was more than enough computer for the vast majority of people. In 2020, even the 8GB of RAM wasn’t something to worry about, and the little M1 Air is still sold by Apple (at a much lower price) despite the M4 series being on store shelves.
Apple 2020 M1 MacBook Air
Quite possibly more computer than 99% of laptops buyers will ever need. The M1 Air is still just as impressive today as when it launched in 2020.
It was one of the easiest computers to recommend from Apple’s stables ever, and with the release of the M4 MacBook Pros, there’s another similar standout in my opinion—the “binned” 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro with the 12-core M4 Pro CPU and 16-core GPU. Sporting 24GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD.
MacBook Pro with M4 Pro 12-core 14-inch
$1799 $1999 Save
$200
This “binned” M4 Pro MacBook Pro with 14-inch screen is one of the best deals ever to come from Apple’s factories. It’s not the cheapest laptop in the M4 MacBook Pro family, but it’s by far the best value for money. This is the last laptop most people will have to buy for many years.
The Binned M4 Pro Is Priced Closely to the Base MacBook Pro
A “binned” chip, if you were wondering, is a version of the chip where some cores and features have been disabled. So, in this case, four CPU cores and four GPU cores have been trimmed from the fully-functional M4 Pro chip to give us the “binned” model. This happens because microchip yields aren’t 100% and some defects will occur.
So, instead of throwing the whole chip away, a company like Apple will just disable the defective cores and sell the chip at a lower price. This is common practice, and there’s nothing “defective” about the chip you get.
The price difference between the base M4 MacBook Pro and the base M4 Pro MacBook Pro is $400. $1599.99 versus $1999.99.
$400 is a lot of money, but the base M4 is 80% of the base M4 Pro’s price. So it’s not a huge jump to go from one to the other. Now usually the best value in a MacBook lineup is the cheapest one, but in this case that turns out not to be the case.
The Upgrade Goes Far Beyond the Price Difference
The base M4 chip has ten CPU cores: four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It has ten GPU cores, and comes with 16GB of RAM.
The binned M4 Pro, on the other hand, has a 12-core CPU, with eight performance cores and four efficiency cores. That’s a huge difference in CPU performance, since doubling the number of performance cores has a large impact.
On top of this, the 16-core GPU performs nearly twice as fast in the benchmarks I’ve seen. Although both base models have the same storage size, the SSD in the M4 Pro model is about 2GB/s faster. The RAM has more bandwidth, and there’s a third more of it. Last, but not least, the M4 Pro models have Thunderbolt 5, which is three times as fast as Thunderbolt 4, found in the base model.
No matter which specification you look at, you’re getting somewhere between 30-100% better performance or capacity for a 20% price difference. The deal becomes even better, when you consider that upgrading the base M4 from 16GB to 24GB costs $200! And the RAM is still slower.
Adding yet another $400 to go up to the 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU model doesn’t yield anywhere near the same jump in performance, perhaps partly because of thermal limits in the 14-inch form factor. So it doesn’t seem worth it at all. If you wanted to spend more, it makes more sense to increase the storage on the binned model instead.
Also, a somewhat hidden upgrade with the M4 Pro models is the addition of an extra cooling fan. So the M4 Pros can run quieter or achieve better sustained performance than the base M4, with its single cooler.
This Could Be Another M1 MacBook Air Moment
I thought that the binned M4 Pro MacBook Pro is such a good deal for the money, that it’s the computer I replaced my M1 MacBook Air with.
This is a computer I want to use for the next 5-7 years, and honestly I’m shocked that Apple sells a laptop this well-specified at such a low price. I just hope the folks in Cupertino don’t come to their senses.
