Apple announces new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Magic Keyboard, faster chips, more storage

By Oliver Haslam
last updated

MacBook Pro in low light
MacBook Pro in low light (Image credit: Rene Ritchie / iMore)

What you need to know

  • After weeks of rumors, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is a thing.
  • Apple announced the new notebook via press release.
  • It features a Magic Keyboard, new chips, and double the storage.

Apple has today announced (opens in new tab) the new 13-inch MacBook Pro after weeks – and months! – of rumors. As expected, it doubles the amount of storage available to users and features faster processors. But the main thing is that it does away with the troublesome butterfly keyboard and adds the trusty Magic Keyboard in its place.

As suspected the new refresh doesn't bump the screen size to 14 inches, ala the 16-inch MacBook Pro. That's now expected to arrive later this year with this update being all about getting that new keyboard onto the market and killing the butterfly keyboard off for good.

Apple claims that the new lineup of 10th-generation processors mean up to 80% faster graphics processing – excellent news for photography and videography professionals. It's worth noting that the two lower-end configurations ship with Intel's 8th-generation chips, however.

Storage capacities now start at 256GB and go all the way up to 4TB depending on configuration and how much you're willing to spend.

2020 13 Inch Macbook Pro

2020 13 Inch Macbook Pro (Image credit: Apple)

The 13-inch MacBook Pro lineup now offers up to 10th-generation quad-core Intel Core processors with Turbo Boost speeds of up to 4.1GHz. Customers who are upgrading from a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a dual-core processor will see up to 2.8 times faster performance. The integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics delivers up to 80 percent faster performance over the previous generation 13-inch MacBook Pro for 4K video editing, faster rendering, and smoother gameplay. The new graphics also enable users to connect to Pro Display XDR at full 6K resolution.

RAM starts at 16GB with buyers able to increase that to 32GB for even better performance. That RAM is also faster than the previous model, reaching 3733MHz to ensure everything runs blazingly fast.

All of the usual bits and pieces remain including Touch ID, the much-maligned Touch Bar, and the Retina display capable of P3 wide color gamut and 500 nits of brightness.

The new notebooks are available for order online now, starting at $1,299 (opens in new tab). We'd expect stores to start stocking them once they're open, too.

Apple's new MacBook Pro is here!

 (opens in new tab)
13-inch MacBook Pro

It's finally here and there are no butterfly keys in sight!

Faster chips and more storage.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.

7 Comments
  • 2020; the year of incremental apple upgrades. Crazy they still are using a Gen 8 chip in all but the maxed out MacBook pro versions. On the plus side, maybe this means iPhone starting storage space will double as well.
  • Wow. It's just like the last one, which was just like the last one, which was just like the last one. Always a generation behind in processors, feature and freaking way overpriced for previous gen tech, so typically apple of them. Yawn!
  • Doesn't the storage start at 64GB? That's plenty for most people
  • I thought you jumped off the deep end then talking about the Macbook. On phone, 64gb is minimal. I think I am moving to android with 128gb plus a512gb card this summer.
  • Didn't you just buy the new iPhone SE? I guess it all comes down to use case, I listen to music through Spotify, have my photos in iCloud, and watch series/movies on Netflix, all that's really on my phone is apps, and I've got quite a lot of them. If you're storing things like music, photos and especially series/movies on your device, then 64 GB will be a struggle
  • No, I decided to wait. I use microsoft for all my software and storage, and apple music for my tunes. I am off grid alot. In the back country, biking, kayaking in our jeeps camping. Storage is one of the best features to have. All mapping, entertainment etc are all having to be stored on your device. I have a Samsung tablet with 512gb storage in it now for nav and vehicle duty, but would love a smaller version of it for when we are no in the Jeep.
  • I got the feeling you weren't too keen on Android, but it's good to keep your options open, I've thought about going back to Android but there's nothing big enough for me to make the jump (although I would love a physical keyboard again). Storage is definitely great to have if you need to store things on your phone due to being off the grid a lot. The only time I'm really off the grid is when travelling on a plane going on holiday, so I just download a movie or series to my phone temporarily, and delete it afterwards. Then again, thanks to Brexit I probably won't have free roaming in Europe for much longer so I'll have to download more things…