The entry-level MacBook catches up with the latest Apple Silicon chips
The entry-level MacBook catches up with the latest Apple Silicon chips
Apple is giving its entry-level MacBook Pro a spec bump. After upgrading the entry-level MacBook Pro with its M5 chip a year ago, Apple is refreshing the laptop today with the M6 chip, which the company launched in August as part of recent upgrades to the new Mac Mini.
Last year’s entry-level MacBook Pro update brought minimal changes from the M4 model that debuted a year prior, including the same design, port layout, webcam, and speakers. The most notable updates, aside from the then-new M5 processor, was faster storage and the option to upgrade its capacity to a hefty 4TB for an extra $1,200.
It’s a similar story for 2026. Announced this morning through a press release , the new 14-inch MacBook Pro features three Thunder 4 USB-C ports that all support charging and DisplayPort connectivity, a MagSafe 3 charging port, full-size HDMI, and an SDXC memory card slot accommodating photographers. It carries forward the same 12MP Center Stage camera and Liquid Retina XDR display with a nano-texture option, but this year the 14-inch MacBook Pro is getting an upgrade to both Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 through the Apple N1 wireless networking chip that was previously only included on MacBook Pro configurations with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.
Pricing for the new M6 version of the 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 with 16GB of memory, the same as last year’s M5 model. Bumping that to 24GB increases the price to $2,199, while 32GB is $2,399. Included storage starts at 1TB, but increasing that is now more expensive as a result of the current memory shortage. Bumping that to 2TB is an extra $500, while 4TB is now an extra $1,500. Preorders start on October 28th and shipping is expected to begin on November 6th.
The new M6 processor is Apple’s first 2nm chip with a bump to a 12-core CPU, up from 10 cores in the M5, and the company says it offers up to 1.2x faster multithreaded performance when compared to its predecessor. The M6 also features a Dual 16-core Neural Engine to handle heavy on-device AI tasks, plus an upgraded 12-core GPU with a Neural Accelerator in each core. In addition to performance improvements, Apple says its M6 processor is more power efficient.
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