Apple launches 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 and 24-hour battery

Apple has updated its 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M6 chip, promising faster graphics, better on-device AI performance, and up to 24 hours of battery life, the longest runtime the company has offered in a Mac.

The new MacBook Pro was announced today alongside a refreshed iMac. Pre-orders open on Wednesday in 35 countries, with deliveries and in-store availability starting on November 6.

The laptop looks much the same as its predecessor, and it comes in space black and silver and retains three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, an SD card slot, a headphone jack, and MagSafe charging.

The main change is happening inside. The M6 has 12 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores, two more of each than the M5 in last year’s model.

Every GPU core also includes a Neural Accelerator designed to speed up AI workloads. Apple claims the M6 has the fastest CPU core in the world, based on its own tests.

Compared with the M5 MacBook Pro, Apple says the new model delivers up to 30% faster graphics performance and runs AI tasks, such as processing a large language model locally, up to 25% faster.

The Neural Engine, which handles tasks such as image generation and photo enhancement, is up to 1.9 times faster.

Apple also points to improvements in everyday creative and development work. Rendering a 3D scene in Blender and building an app in Xcode are both up to 1.3 times faster, according to the company. All these figures come from Apple’s own testing.

The gains are more pronounced for people upgrading from older machines. Compared with the 13-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 chip from 2020, Apple claims up to 11 times faster graphics and 13 times faster AI performance.

Battery life reaches up to 24 hours, which Apple says is a record for the Mac. Performance remains the same whether the laptop is plugged in or running on battery. With a higher-wattage power adapter, it can charge to 50% in around 30 minutes.

The Liquid Retina XDR display remains unchanged, offering up to 1,600 nits of brightness for HDR content. Buyers can opt for a nano-texture finish to reduce glare. The new model also supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 and can drive two external displays. Memory starts at 16GB and can be configured up to 32GB.

“With the powerful M6 chip, we’re taking performance to the next level,” said Shelly Goldberg, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering.

The MacBook Pro ships with macOS 27, which introduces Apple’s new AI-powered Siri to the Mac. The assistant can search messages, emails, and photos, as well as perform actions across apps.

It remains in beta, supports six languages, and has daily usage limits. Apple first introduced the assistant on the iPhone with iOS 27.2.

The new MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 in the US and £1,999 in the UK. That matches the M5 model’s price immediately before launch, but not its original price.

Apple raised the starting price by $400 in June, from $1,599, as memory and storage costs increased, EveryMac reported.

Apple also highlighted the materials used in the laptop: the enclosure is made from 100% recycled aluminium, while the battery uses 100% recycled cobalt.