The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021) is a premium laptop available with Apple's M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs (System on a Chip). It looks nearly identical to its bigger brother, the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2021), and it feels equally well-built with a full aluminum chassis. Its sharp Mini LED display can ramp up the refresh rate adaptively up to 120Hz to make motion appear smoother, and it can produce deep blacks and bright highlights to deliver a fantastic HDR experience. It also has a wide color gamut, making it suitable for content creators. The keyboard feels comfortable and doesn't cause fatigue over time, its haptic touchpad is large and responsive, and the webcam's video quality is outstanding. Apple's M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs can handle demanding workloads like video editing and 3D animation, and thanks to their incredible power efficiency, the battery lasts over 12 hours of light productivity and 9 hours of video playback. Unfortunately, the only user-replaceable part is the battery, so there's no way to upgrade any components later on.
Our Apple MacBook Pro 14 has an M1 Pro SoC with 8 CPU cores and 14 GPU cores, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. In terms of CPU performance, upgrading to an M1 Pro or M1 Max with 10 CPU cores will only increase multi-thread performance slightly. However, graphical performance will increase significantly if you go up to an M1 Max with 24 or 32 GPU cores. The M1 Max chip also has more media encoders to improve performance in applications that can benefit from hardware acceleration, like video editing software. You can upgrade the memory up to 32GB or 64GB, but the latter is only available on M1 Max models.
Our Verdict
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 is excellent for school use. It's a well-built and portable laptop with a battery that lasts easily through a typical school day of light productivity. The screen is sharp and bright, the keyboard doesn't cause fatigue over time, and the touchpad is large and responsive. Its M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs can handle nearly every type of workload, including demanding tasks like 3D animation or graphic design. The port selection is excellent, but it lacks USB-A ports, so you'll likely need dongles for your wired peripherals.
- Aluminum chassis feels exceptionally well-built.
- Easy to carry around.
- Battery lasts over 12 hours of light productivity.
- M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs can handle demanding tasks like video editing and 3D animation.
- Keyboard feels comfortable to type on, and touchpad is large and responsive.
- Outstanding webcam for video calls.
- Keyboard gets hot under load.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 has the hardware to run graphically intensive games, especially the top-end M1 Max model with 32 GPU cores. However, the gaming experience can vary significantly depending on whether the game runs natively or through Rosetta 2. Also, the display has a slow response time, which isn't ideal for fast-moving games.
- 120Hz display.
- Fast storage drive.
- Minimal throttling under load.
- Few games optimized for Apple silicon.
- Display has a slow response time.
- Keyboard gets hot under load.
- Memory and storage aren't user-replaceable.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 is great for media consumption. It's a very portable device with a battery that lasts well over 9 hours of video playback, enough time to get you through a couple of full-length movies. It has a sharp Mini LED display that produces deep blacks and gets incredibly bright to deliver a true HDR experience. Also, the display's color accuracy is superb out of the box, so you get an accurate and natural-looking image. The speakers sound well-balanced and full, but they don't get very loud.
- Easy to carry around.
- Battery lasts over 9 hours of video playback.
- Mini LED display produces deep blacks.
- Display gets bright enough for a true HDR experience.
- Wide color gamut support.
- Superb color accuracy out of the box.
- 16:10 aspect ratio results in black bars at top and bottom of display in most content.
- Display doesn't support touch input.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 is great as a workstation. Its M1 Pro and M1 Max SoC can handle nearly every type of workload, including demanding tasks like video editing and 3D rendering. There's minimal throttling under load, and while the keyboard can get a little uncomfortable due to heat, the fans don't get very loud. The storage drive is fast, making large file transfers a breeze, and the port selection is excellent as it includes a full-size HDMI, SD card reader, and USB-Cs with Thunderbolt 4 support. Unfortunately, you can't replace any components other than the battery.
- M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs can handle demanding tasks like video editing and 3D animation.
- Wide port selection includes full-size HDMI and USB-C with Thunderbolt 4 support.
- Wide color gamut support.
- Superb color accuracy out of the box.
- Fast storage drive.
- Minimal throttling under load.
- Keyboard gets hot under load.
- Memory and storage aren't user-replaceable.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 is great for business use. It's an exceptionally well-built laptop that's also easy to carry around, and its battery lasts over 12 hours of light productivity. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, the touchpad is large and responsive, and the webcam captures a detailed image for video calls. Its M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs are more than capable of handling productivity tasks like web browsing, text formatting, and spreadsheets. It has a full-size HDMI port if you need to connect to an external display for presentations, but it lacks USB-A ports, so you'll likely need dongles for your wired peripherals.
- Aluminum chassis feels exceptionally well-built.
- Easy to carry around.
- Battery lasts over 12 hours of light productivity.
- Wide port selection includes full-size HDMI and USB-C with Thunderbolt 4 support.
- Keyboard feels comfortable to type on, and touchpad is large and responsive.
- Outstanding webcam for video calls.
- Keyboard gets hot under load.
- Memory and storage aren't user-replaceable.
Changelog
- Updated Dec 07, 2023: Converted to Test Bench 0.8.2.
- Updated Nov 08, 2023: We've corrected a mistake in the Flicker section. We've changed the Flicker-free comparison from 'Yes' to 'No' since the display technically flickers. The score remains unchanged.
- Updated Nov 03, 2023: Converted to Test Bench 0.8.1.
- Updated Aug 16, 2023: Added mention of the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2023) as an alternative with HDMI 2.1 in the Ports section.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the Apple MacBook Pro 14 with an M1 Pro SoC (8 CPU cores, 14 GPU cores), 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. The SoC, memory, and storage are configurable; you can see the available options in the table below. This review only applies to the 14 inch model; there's a separate review for the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2021).
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Our display and performance results are only valid for the configuration we tested. If you come across a different configuration option not listed above, or you have a similar Apple MacBook Pro 14 inch that doesn't correspond to our review, let us know, and we'll update it. Some tests, like black uniformity and color accuracy, may vary between individual units.
You can see our unit's label here.
Popular Laptop Comparisons
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 2021 is a premium laptop that stands out for its exceptional build quality, high performance, and long battery life. It has one of the best displays on the market, and it still sets the standard when it comes to the touchpad. However, it's considerably more expensive than similarly-performing Windows laptops, and its poor serviceability makes it hard to repair and impossible to upgrade.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M1, 2021) is much better than the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M1, 2020); however, they don't target the same audience. The MacBook Air is a thin and light ultraportable designed for light to moderately intensive workloads, while the MacBook Pro is a much more powerful mobile workstation designed for demanding tasks like video editing and 3D rendering. The MacBook Pro 14 has a much better display as it's larger, brighter, and sharper. It also has Mini LED backlighting to provide local dimming, and it supports ProMotion, which makes fast motion appear smoother and helps extend battery life. The MacBook Pro has a higher-resolution webcam, wider port selection, and a faster storage drive. The MacBook Air's battery lasts longer for light productivity, but its battery life for video playback is shorter than the MacBook Pro's.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M1, 2021) is a smaller variant of the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M1, 2021). They're nearly identical in many aspects, but there are a few differences. The MacBook Pro 16's display is larger, giving you more screen space for multitasking. Its bigger chassis allows for a larger touchpad, better-sounding speakers, and more effective cooling on the SoC, leading to better performance over time. That said, it's more cumbersome to carry around. The MacBook Pro 16 has longer battery life for productivity, but it doesn't last as long for video playback. As for the configurations, the MacBook Pro 14 has a lower-end M1 Pro option with 8 CPU cores and 14 GPU cores that isn't available on the 16 inch model.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M2, 2023) is a newer version of the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M1, 2021). The 2023 model is slightly better due to some upgrades, including newer and faster M2 SoCs, increased memory support (up to 96GB), and HDMI 2.1. The M2 chips perform better overall but consume more power, leading to slightly shorter battery life on the newer model.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M1, 2021) is better than the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M2, 2022). The MacBook Pro 14 has a brighter Mini LED display with a higher refresh rate, a wider port selection, a better webcam, and better-sounding speakers. If you need to perform demanding tasks like video editing or 3D rendering for work, it's best to go with the MacBook Pro 14 because its M1 Pro and Max SoCs perform better and maintain higher performance over time. The MacBook Air's M2 SoC can handle some light photo and video editing, but it throttles significantly under load due to the lack of active cooling.
Test Results
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