READ NEXT: Our guide to the best laptops you can buy Apple MacBook Pro 16in review: What you need to know

The assurance that the unit meets Apple's rigorous quality standards, and that its defective components have been replaced by genuine Apple componentsThanks to the new Apple M1 Pro and Pro Max processors, sumptuous mini-LED displays and an expanded array of physical ports, among many other things, Apple’s new machines should be the laptops of choice for the demanding mobile professional for the foreseeable future. Testing conducted by Apple in September and October 2023 using pre‑production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M3 Max, 16‑core CPU, 40‑core GPU and 128GB of RAM, production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2 Max, 12‑core CPU, 38‑core GPU and 96GB of RAM, production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 Max, 10‑core CPU, 32‑core GPU and 64GB of RAM, and production 2.4GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9–based 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Radeon Pro 5600M graphics with 8GB of HBM2 and 64GB of RAM, all configured with 8TB SSD. Tested with a 258MB study size using pre‑release Horos MD. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro. When Apple launched the MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1, 2020), it boasted that it had the longest battery life ever in a MacBook, and our tests confirmed that, so when Apple revealed that the 14-inch could beat the 13-inch by whopping seven hours, we couldn’t wait to try it out for ourselves. That’s not the only thing the M1 Max can do better than the M1 Pro. It can support the connection of up to three external 6K displays and a fourth 4K screen, where the M1 Pro can support a “mere” two 6K monitors. Testing conducted by Apple in September and October 2023 using pre‑production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M3 Pro, 12‑core CPU, 18‑core GPU, 36GB of RAM and 4TB SSD, as well as production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2 Pro, 12‑core CPU, 19‑core GPU and 32GB of RAM, production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 Pro, 10‑core CPU, 16‑core GPU and 32GB of RAM, and production 2.4GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9–based 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Radeon Pro 5600M graphics with 8GB of HBM2 and 64GB of RAM, all configured with 8TB SSD. Tested with a 258MB study size using pre‑release Horos MD. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

Alongside its big brother, the 14in MacBook Pro sits at the top of Apple’s laptop range and it’s designed principally for creative professionals who need the power of a desktop workstation in something that can be slung in a bag and used on the go. It’s powerful enough to deal with the heaviest workloads, even in its lowest specification, but you still have the choice to ramp up the features if you can afford to. recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, representing 98% of the rare earth elements in the deviceThe M1 Max, meanwhile, is available in two different flavours, as it is on the MacBook Pro 16in: one with 10 CPU/24 GPU cores and the other with 10 CPU/32 GPU cores. Testing conducted by Apple in September and October 2023 using pre‑production 14‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M3 Max, 16‑core CPU, 40‑core GPU and 128GB of RAM, production 14-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2 Max, 12‑core CPU, 38-core GPU and 96GB of RAM, production 14‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 Max, 10‑core CPU, 32‑core GPU and 64GB of RAM, all configured with 8TB SSD, and production 2.3GHz quad‑core Intel Core i7–based 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics, 32GB of RAM and 4TB SSD. Redshift v3.5.18 tested using a 29.2MB scene utilising hardware‑accelerated ray tracing on M3‑based systems, and software‑based ray tracing on all other units. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro. While working on these projects we weren’t just impressed with the raw performance the 14-inch MacBook Pro offered, but how good they looked as well. However, if you do need this kind of firepower, for editing 8K footage, arranging elaborate music scores, or compiling and testing complex code, then you simply won’t find a better laptop.

I fired up DaVinci Resolve to see if I would be able to hit the limits of the M1 Max and, after adding 12 4K 25fps 150Mbits/sec 4:2:2 AVCHD clips to the timeline and seeing no slowdown whatsoever, I admitted defeat. This laptop is a video-editing monster. The GPU also comes with 4,096 execution units, twice as many as the M1 Pro, as well as twice the maximum concurrent threads (98,304 vs 49,512).

Testing conducted by Apple in September and October 2023 using pre‑production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M3 Max, 16‑core CPU, 40‑core GPU and 128GB of RAM, production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2 Max, 12‑core CPU, 38‑core GPU and 96GB of RAM, production 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 Max, 10‑core CPU, 32‑core GPU and 64GB of RAM, and production 2.4GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9–based 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Radeon Pro 5600M graphics with 8GB of HBM2 and 64GB of RAM, all configured with 8TB SSD. Redshift v3.5.18 tested using a 29.2MB scene utilising hardware‑accelerated ray tracing on M3‑based systems, and software‑based ray tracing on all other units. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

Testing conducted by Apple in September and October 2023 using pre‑production 14‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M3, 8‑core CPU, 10‑core GPU and 24GB of RAM, production 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M2, 8‑core CPU, 10‑core GPU and 24GB of RAM, production 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1, 8‑core CPU, 8‑core GPU and 16GB of RAM, and production 1.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7–based 13‑inch MacBook Pro systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645 and 16GB of RAM, all configured with 2TB SSD. Final Cut Pro 10.6.9 tested using a complex 2‑minute project with 4K ProRes 422 media. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.

A mightily impressive creative laptop from Apple

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the performance of the MacBook Pro 16in, however, isn’t the raw power of its CPU or GPU but its efficiency. Normally, you’d expect a big, beefy machine like this to be a terrible choice as a carry-around, work on the move laptop but not a bit of it. Battery life is fantastic, lasting a highly impressive 16hrs 20mins in our video rundown test. Among all the laptops we’ve reviewed that scored 250 or more in our in-house benchmarks, this year’s MacBook Pro is by far the longest-lasting machine. Impressively, it lasted nearly two hours longer than the less powerful M1 MacBook Air and ten hours longer than the aforementioned Alienware x15.