Apple’s 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro already have great battery life, but a new rumor claims that a new display will help them last longer than ever. And those laptops could be coming very soon.
According to DigiTimes, the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro displays will use new mini-LEDs that are 10 percent brighter than the ones Apple currently uses. However, when these new mini-LEDs are set to the same brightness as the current mini-LEDs, they use less power. So Apple may set the maximum brightness of the new mini-LEDs to match that of the current ones, thus resulting in a net gain of battery life. (The current 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro has a maximum XDR brightness of 1,000 nits sustained, 1,600 nits peak; and a maximum SDR brightness of 500 nits.)
DigiTimes states that this new MacBook Pro will ship by the end of this year, though other reports have said that the laptops are expected to come equipped with new M3 Pro and M3 Max chips. However, Apple has yet to release the base-level M3 chip, which will likely be used in the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini–these Macs will be released before any M3 Pro or M3 Max MacBook Pro. Besides, Apple only just updated the MacBook Pro in January of this year.
So DigiTimes is mistaken in one way or another: Either the M3 Pro and M3 Max MacBook Pro with the new mini-LEDs won’t ship until 2024, likely in the spring or just after the middle part of the year (perhaps a WWDC 2024 announcement); or Apple is also going to use these new mini-LEDs in the M3 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Those models may be released within the next few weeks, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has a better track record with these kinds of reports than DigiTimes, but those models don’t currently have mini-LED displays.
Our guess? The next MacBook Pro does have a display upgrade on the way but it won’t ship until next year.
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