Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro (2020) review: The circle is now complete

Note: This review was first published on 14 May 2020.

All aboard the Magic Keyboard train

The circle is now complete. Now, Apple’s entire range of MacBooks has finally transitioned to the company’s new Magic Keyboard. Joining the 16-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air is the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, and I couldn’t be more excited. No question, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is my most important device. It’s my primary computing device and I spend more time on it than any other device and I have been a MacBook Pro user since 2008. I have been waiting for an update for the longest time and it’s finally here. Now to see if it lives up to my expectations.

A tale of two notebooks

Before I begin, let's clear things up. Unlike the 16-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air, there's actually two 13-inch MacBook Pro models.

There’s an entry-level model that is distinguished by its two Thunderbolt 3 ports and there’s a higher-end model that features four Thunderbolt 3 ports. With the exception of the ports, the two are physically identical. However, the entry-level model uses older 8th generation processors instead of Intel’s newer 10th generation processors. Because of that, the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro also uses slightly slower memory and can only be outfitted with a maximum of 16GB of memory. The higher-end model uses faster LPDDR4X memory and can be spec’ed with up to 32GB of memory.

Here are the key differences between the two models:

• Processor – Only the 4-port models are outfitted with the newest 10th generation Ice Lake Core processors. The 2-port models are powered by the same 8th generation Core processor as last year's models.
  
   
• Memory – The 4-port models now come with 16GB of memory as standard. The 2-port models are still stuck on 8GB. Futrhermore, the 4-port models can now be ordered with up to 32GB of memory – the 2 port models can only accommodate a maximum of 16GB. Finally, the 4-port models use faster 3,733MHz LPDDR4X memory while the 2-port models are using slower 2,133MHz LPDDR3 memory.
  
   
• Storage – The 4-port models can be spec'ed with up to 4TB SSDs. The 2-port models, on the other hand, top out at 2TB.

At this point, I think it’s a good idea to show you the four off-the-shelf-configurations that will be available. The model I’m testing is the one with four Thunderbolt ports, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that, like the MacBook Air, the 13-inch MacBook Pro now comes with double the storage so even the most affordable model comes with a 256GB SSD. Apple has also doubled the memory on the 13-inch MacBook Pro but only for the higher-end models with four Thunderbolt ports. All four models come with Touch Bar and the new Magic Keyboard.

Design & Features

The design hasn’t changed and will be familiar to anyone who has held a 13-inch MacBook Pro in the past few years. However, thickness and weight have both gone up by a tad because of the new keyboard. The on-paper difference is slight but in my hands, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro feels denser to carry compared to its predecessor. That said, if portability is a concern, the 13-inch MacBook Pro isn’t actually much bigger than the MacBook Air. The Air is lighter but the two will take up about the same amount of space in the bag.

The display is unchanged. It’s a 13.3-inch Retina display that supports the P3 colour space, TrueTone technology, and has a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. It’s a great display that gets bright enough and has vivid colours. Are the bezels thick? Sure, a case could be made for that especially now that Windows laptop makers seem to be obsessed with screen-to-body ratios. But if that’s the price to pay for a larger and more usable trackpad, then I’m ok with thicker bezels.

The big change is obviously the keyboard. It’s a Magic Keyboard, which just means it uses a more conventional scissors-switch mechanism. The benefits to this are greater key travel (up to 1mm) and reliability. Typing feel is a subjective thing and even if you felt that the old butterfly-switch were pleasant enough to type on, it’s hard to argue against their record for reliability.

Like I said in earlier reviews, this keyboard is joyous. The feel is positive with just the right amount of resistance to give feedback and to soak up your strokes. Each switch feels smooth and consistent. There’s also a physical Esc key in the top left corner, and in the opposite corner is the Touch ID button. The arrow keys now have an inverted-T configuration so that it’s easier to find them by feel.

What’s not so great, however, is the return of the Touch Bar. It appears that Apple is adamant that it's superior to physical function keys but I’m not so sure. I thought they were promising at launch, but it’s been nearly four years and I still haven’t found an instance that I would prefer them over physical keys. Maybe it’s because I’m a touch typist and the problem with the Touch Bar is that it isn’t tactile at all, so your mileage may vary. Regardless, the Magic Keyboard on this MacBook Pro is a huge step up from the old butterfly-switch keyboards.

As for ports, there's still the same four USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports. USB-C isn't quite mainstream yet but at least support for Thunderbolt 3 means that this notebook will play well with any USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 accessory. What I do lament is the lack of a SD card reader. USB-C is the future and Apple's support for it will surely drive adoption forward. But as for memory cards, SD cards are still prolific and many photography and video professionals continue to rely on them.

Curiously missing is support for Wi-Fi 6, which is surely the wireless networking standard of the future. It’s curious not only because the newest iPhones (iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11, and iPhone SE) and the recently updated iPad Pro support it, but also because it’s supported by just about every Windows notebook that’s been released this year. The only consolation is that you probably won’t miss it unless you already have a Wi-Fi 6 router (which still happens to be quite pricey).

Performance analysis

The unit I’m testing is the higher-end model with four Thunderbolt 3 ports, a quad-core Core i5 processor, 16GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD. It’s a rather powerful configuration and it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against the 16-inch MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air. I also included results of the 2-port 13-inch MacBook Pro from last year. This should give you a good idea of how the 2-port models will perform since it has the same 8th generation quad-core Core i5 processor.

Like its predecessors, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is powered by a custom chip from Intel. It has now be revealed that Core i5 chip found in the 4-port models is the Core i5-1038NG7. This is an Ice Lake chip, which means it’s built on Intel’s newer 10nm process. The big news is here is the use of Intel’s more powerful G7 Intel Iris Plus Graphics. This particular integrated GPU has 64 execution units, which is 33% more than the Iris Plus Graphics 655 found in the last generation MacBook Pro. Thanks to this new integrated GPU, the new 4-port 13-inch MacBook Pro is able to drive Apple’s 6K Pro Display XDR. Also, Apple claims the new MacBook Pro can offer up to 80% faster graphics performance.

The benchmark results are quite interesting. As we can see from the numbers in Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R20, the single-core performance of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are quite similar. It is only in multi-core workloads that the MacBook Pro gains a noticeable advantage. Against the 2-port 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2019 which has an 8th generation Core processor, the new 4-port 13-inch MacBook Pro was about 15% to 28% faster in multi-core workloads and about 7% to 25% faster in single-core workloads. Needless to say, the 16-inch MacBook Pro ruled the roost with its 8-core Core i9 processor.

In the intensive video transcoding test where we transcode an hour-long 1080p video, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro was more than twice as fast as the MacBook Air. It took 1,920 seconds (32 mins) versus the MacBook Air’s 4,440 seconds (74mins). It was also roughly 20% faster than the 2-port 13-inch MacBook Pro from last year. The 16-inch MacBook Pro was easily the fastest, taking just 1041 seconds (17mins 21s). Still, this test shows that the new 13-inch MacBook Pro wasn’t too shabby. It also showed that the MacBook Air is weak at sustaining heavy loads over long periods of time.

As for graphics performance, the Unigine benchmark showed that the new 13-inch MacBook Pro was about 87% faster than the MacBook Air and just over 19% faster than last year’s 2-port 13-inch MacBook Pro. If graphics performance is a priority, then the choice is quite clear. This new 13-inch MacBook Pro’s graphics performance is significantly better than both the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro with 8th generation Core processor. Unsurprisingly, the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which has a discrete Radeon Pro 5500M GPU, was the fastest.

Depending on what you are running, battery life isn't half bad either. The 13-inch Macbook Pros have 58Wh batteries and they are using 28W CPUs so they are always going to last shorter than the MacBook Air. Nevertheless, I could get around 8 hours with my usual suite of apps (Safari, Firefox, Airmail, Pages) running and with the display nearly maxed out in brightness.

Final thoughts

This round of updates to the 13-inch MacBook Pro has been one of the more significant in some time. Obviously, the new Magic Keyboard plays a big part but that’s mostly because of the shortcomings of the old butterfly-switch mechanism keyboard rather than the actual brilliance of the Magic Keyboard. The Magic Keyboard is good but we won’t be where we were if not for Apple’s insistence in persevering with the old butterfly-switch keyboard even when it was clear that users didn’t like it and it was unreliable.

What’s more noteworthy to me is the performance of the new 10th generation Core processor, which is really good, and also the fact that Apple doubled both the memory and storage of higher-end 13-inch MacBook Pro models with four Thunderbolt 3 ports. Not only does it make this generation of 13-inch MacBook Pros better value, but it also puts it more in line not just with the needs of its intended users but also with competing Windows notebooks where 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage are steadily becoming the norm.

Taken as a whole, I think a lot of users will find this new higher-end 4-port version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro to be a really enticing and compelling package. If you are shopping for a portable MacBook and you have deep enough pockets, this is the obvious choice. Compared to the MacBook Air, it has a noticeably brighter and more vibrant display, much better performance, and is quite nearly the same size and weight. Battery life isn’t half bad either.

And so in a span of around six months, Apple has updated its entire line of MacBooks, transitioning them from the dreaded butterfly-switch keys to the new Magic Keyboard and given them meaningful processor upgrades and spec bumps along the way. It’s their strongest lineup of notebooks in some time and there’s something for everybody. I think anyone who bought one of these new MacBooks will be very happy with their purchase. Unless you happen to have a Wi-Fi 6 router at home.

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