New MacBook Pro

Good news, Mac fans: If you were waiting for Apple to

refresh the MacBook Pro, today is your lucky day. Both

the 13- and 15-inch models have received some under-

the-hood upgrades, along with a quieter keyboard. (Be

warned: It's maybe not the overhaul some of you were

hoping for.) These new models are are available today

starting at the same prices as before: $1,299 and up for

the 13-inch model and $2,399-plus for the 15-incher. I

had a chance to see them in use this week, and will also

be receiving a review unit any day now, at which point

we'll be doing some performance and battery life testing

(and, yes, checking to see if the keyboard tweaks make

a difference). For now, here's a rundown of what you can

expect across the line.

For the kind of people who will pay potentially $2,399 for

a new laptop, it's probably best if I cut straight to the specs.

The beefier 15-inch model is now a six-core machine, with

Intel Core i7 and i9 processor options, up to 4TB of storage

and up to 32GB of DDR4 memory. With the 13-inch model,

you have a choice of Core i5 and i7 chips, including quad

-core CPUs on the Touch Bar models. For the 13-inch,

you're maxing out at a two-terabyte SSD, up from one

terabyte in the previous generation.

As for graphics, the 15-inch model is once again the better

performer, with AMD Radeon Pro GPUs and at least 4GB of

VRAM. The 13-inch model has integrated Intel's Iris Plus 655

graphics, 128MB of eDRAM. If neither graphics solution is

enough, Apple will also be selling an external GPU in its store

for the first time, a $699 model from Blackmagic that feature

AMD Radeon Pro 580 graphics, 8GB of GDDR5 memory,

quiet 18db performance and a slew of ports that includes two

Thunderbolt 3 sockets, four USB 3.0 connections and one

HDMI 2.0 output. It also delivers 85W of power, allowing you

to power the laptop and drive an external display.