Apple Launches New 13" MacBook Pro: 10th Gen Ice Lake and New Scissor Keyboard
by Andrei Frumusanu on May 4, 2020 10:00 AM EST
Today Apple is releasing new revamped versions of its 13” MacBook Pro line-up, most notably updating the series with the new scissor-switch style Magic Keyboard, as well as giving the option for Intel’s new 10th generation Ice Lake CPUs in the higher end models.
Apple last winter had rolled out its new 16” MacBook Pro which had introduced the new Magic Keyboard, making the choice to drop the controversial butterfly switch keyboard back to a scissor switch design. Today’s 13” line-up adopts the same changes across the smaller form factor models, including the new Touch Bar design that has been narrowed down to now include a physical escape key on the keyboard.
The new design otherwise doesn’t significantly diverge from its summer-2019 refresh, although this year it’s every so slightly thicker at 1.56cm instead of 1.49cm – certainly unnoticeable in everyday usage. It’s also 30g heavier at up to 1.4kg now (3.1lbs).
The most significantly internal change is the option for a new 10th generation Intel Ice Lake based CPU, running at 2.0GHz base clocks and Turbo Boost to up to 3.8GHz. As always with Apple products, this likely is a custom SKU just for Apple’s line-up as there’s no matching public part with these frequencies – the closest part is an i7-1060G7 which features the same peak clock, but only a meagre 1.0GHz base clock. Apple here likely is running a higher base TDP of 20-25W. For a $200 upsell, you can choose a higher-end 2.3/4.1GHz CPU configuration.
Edit May 10th: Intel has added the new i5-1038NG7 and i7-1068NG7 to their Ark database. These are 28W processors.
Whilst the Ice Lake based parts are new, Apple will continue to sell 8th generation Coffee Lake based parts at the lower end price spectrum in the $1299 and $1499 price points. Aside from the CPUs themselves, the two generational offerings of CPUs will also differ in their DRAM configuration as the new ICL parts come with 16GB of LPDDR4X-3733, whilst the CFL parts continue to just offer 8GB of LPDDR3-2133. The ICL parts are upgradeable to 32GB for an extra $400, and the CFL parts upgrade to 16GB for $100.
The display panel seemingly remains unchanged, featuring a 13” 2560 x 1600 IPS LCD panel with a wide Display P3 colour gamut, 500 nits peak brightness, and True Tone ambient colour adjustment.
| MacBook Pro 13-Inch 2020 | ||||
| Model | 2020 13-Inch Higher-End |
2019 13-Inch Higher-End |
2018 13-Inch Entry-Level |
|
| CPU | 2.0 GHz/3.8 GHz Core i5-1038NG7 2.3 GHz/4.1 GHz Core i7-1068NG7 4 CPU Cores (Ice Lake) |
2.4 GHz/4.1 GHz Core i5-8???U 4 CPU Cores (Coffee Lake) |
1.4 GHz/3.9 GHz Core i5-8???U 4 CPU Cores (Coffee Lake) |
|
| GPU | Intel Iris Plus | Intel Iris Plus 655 (128MB eDRAM) |
Intel Iris Plus 645 (? eDRAM) |
|
| Display | 13" 2560 x 1600 IPS LCD DCI-P3 Gamut True Tone |
|||
| Memory | 16 GB LPDDR4X-3733 | 8 GB LPDDR3-2133 | ||
| SSD | 512 GB PCIe SSD | 256 GB PCIe SSD | 128 GB PCIe SSD | |
| Touch Bar | Yes | |||
| I/O | 4x Thunderbolt 3 (supports DP1.2 & USB 3.1 Gen 2 modes), 3.5mm Audio |
2x Thunderbolt 3 (supports DP1.2 & USB 3.1 Gen 2 modes), 3.5mm Audio |
||
| Battery Capacity | 58 Wh | 58.2 Wh | ||
| Battery Life | 10 Hours | |||
| Dimensions | 1.56 cm x 30.41 cm x 21.24 cm | 1.49 cm x 30.41 cm x 21.24 cm | ||
| Weight | 3.1 lbs (1.4 kg) | 3.02 lbs (1.37 kg) | ||
| Launch Price | $1799 | $1799 | $1299 | |
Connectivity-wise, the new 2020 13” MacBook Pros come in two flavours: the lower-end $1299 and $1499 Coffee Lake based models feature two Thunderbolt 3 ports, whilst the Ice Lake based parts get four. We also see an addition of a 3.5mm headphone jack. Unfortunately, Apple seemingly hasn’t upgraded the Wi-Fi on the new models, and WiFi 6 / 802.11ax still isn’t present as they still make due with WiFi 5 / 802.11ac capability.
Battery-wise, there’s no changes in capacity as we’re still looking at a 58Wh unit, and Apple claims an identical “10 hours” of usage for all new models – the same as last year’s Coffee Lake models.
The higher-end Ice Lake parts come now with the aforementioned base 16GB of DRAM config at a $1799 price point with a 512GB SSD, or a $1999 option with a 1TB SSD. Storage configurations for the ICL models are doubled across the board, with the possibility to choose up to a 4TB configuration for an extra $1200.
The new 13" MacBook lineup is available for order directly from Apple starting today.
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Source: Apple
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tipoo - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
The question behind the question there would be - why would they not develop wifi drivers when it was going to be built into the platform anyways?A lot of things from Macs recently are starting to seem like "why bother" mentality when everything is coming up ARMbook in the end
repoman27 - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
Power consumption, AirDrop, Handoff, Apple Watch unlock, lots of reasons. Apple has seriously customized their Wi-Fi and Bluetooth stacks around Broadcom based modules. Plus they have no interest in giving Intel silicon a larger slice of the BOM at this juncture.trivik12 - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
No 14". I guess its waiting either for Tigerlake or A14 based soc for Mac. Considering we can get Windows laptops for half this price, MBP is way too expensive. Only thing is this is the 1st 28W Icelake. the high end is 1068G7. Let us see how benchmarks are.chrkv - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
Actually in Germany it's quite hard to find a Windows laptop with Ice Lake CPU and 32 GB of RAM. The only variants I see all have 1065G7 and are Dell's XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 1TB or XPS 13 9300 2TB for ~2500 EUR and Microsoft's Surface Laptop 3 15" Commercial 1TB for ~2700 EUR. Definitely Apple would cost more with ~3100 for 1TB and ~3600 for 2TB, but difference is far from 2 times and as you said you are finally getting 28W Icelake 1068G7.rrinker - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
Someone ALWAYS post something like this. PROVE IT. You aren't going to get a Windows laptop in this form factor, with this screen quality, with these battery life, with these specs, for half this price. It doesn't exist. There are plenty of Windows laptops with similar performance at half the price, but they are big and clunky. A thin and light Windows laptop with the same specs as these Macbooks costs the same as these Macbooks.Alistair - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
I don't know why I even bother to click on Apple news. Used to be my favorite company. Was waiting for Ice Lake, at the $1299 price point (which is already several hundred more than the Windows competition with those CPUs). $1799? What a joke.ROG G14 with Ryzen, here I come.
Alistair - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
One of the reasons I'm not interested in Apple anymore is the U.S. dollar issue. If you're not American, you're laughing at the prices. Ice Lake starts at $2400 in Canada. That's a new record for Apple, like the $8000 Mac Pro starting price. The same CPU basically comes in a $700 to $1300 Laptop in Canada (like Surface 3, not a cheap laptop). They don't want to sell any products in Canada apparently.tipoo - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
In 2014 I bought my 15" new for the minimum Ice Lake 13" cost. The CAD life is the sad life sometimes, but outside of swallowing lower margins that one's out of their control, and everything comparable is equally expensive (kit out an XPS 13" vs the MBP"Alistair - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
The point is there are many Ice Lake laptops available at reasonable prices in Canada, only Apple outright released a "new" Macbook which is just the old one with a fixed keyboard, and if you want the actual CPU upgrade you waited years for, they raised the price all the way to $2400. The other models aren't new in my opinion.Alistair - Monday, May 4, 2020 - link
Waited a year for Ice Lake to come to the Macbook Pro 13", they don't even put it in the $1299 model. LOL can't make this up. I'm done. Not even going to look at Apple ever again.