Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) vs Apple MacBook Pro 14″ (M3)
Better figure, where one is clearly better
| AppleMacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) | AppleMacBook Pro 14″ (M3) | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Released | February 2011 | November 2023 |
| Display | ||
| Screen size | 13.3″ | 14.2″ |
| Resolution | 1280 × 800 | 3024 × 1964 (better) |
| Panel | TN LCD | Mini-LED |
| Refresh rate | – | 120 Hz |
| Brightness | – | 600 nits |
| HDR peak brightness | – | 1,600 nits |
| Touchscreen | No | No |
| Display type | LED-backlit glossy widescreen LCD, millions of colours; TN panel explicitly confirmed by Notebookcheck's exact Early 2011 2.7 GHz review. No antiglare or higher-resolution option. Apple does not publish refresh rate or brightness. | Liquid Retina XDR display with mini-LED backlighting |
| Pixel density | – | 254 ppi |
| Colour range | – | Wide colour (P3); 1 billion colours |
| Display features | – | 1,000,000:1 contrast; 1,000 nits sustained full-screen HDR brightness; ProMotion adaptive refresh up to 120 Hz; fixed 47.95, 48, 50, 59.94 and 60 Hz rates; True Tone |
| Performance | ||
| Processor | Intel Core i5-2415M or Intel Core i7-2620M | Apple M3 |
| CPU cores | 2 | 8 |
| CPU threads | 4 | – |
| Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 3000 | 10-core GPU |
| Memory | 4 GB or 8 GB | 8 GB, 16 GB or 24 GB (better) |
| Storage | 128 GB to 750 GB | 512 GB to 2 TB (better) |
| CPU | Dual-core Intel Core i5-2415M at 2.3 GHz with 3 MB shared L3 cache or Core i7-2620M at 2.7 GHz with 4 MB cache. Exact identities confirmed by Notebookcheck's respective 2.3 GHz and 2.7 GHz reviews. | 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores |
| GPU | Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384 MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory | 10-core GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing; media engine supports H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes RAW, video and ProRes encode/decode, and AV1 decode |
| AI engine | – | 16-core Neural Engine |
| Memory type | 4 GB of 1333 MHz DDR3, two 2 GB SO-DIMMs; two slots support up to 8 GB | Unified memory; 8 GB or 16 GB, configurable to 24 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | – | 100 GB/s |
| Storage type | Core i5 base has 320 GB and Core i7 base has 500 GB, both 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drives. Configurable 500 GB or 750 GB 5400-rpm hard drive, or 128 GB, 256 GB or 512 GB SSD. Storage capacity rows use HDD for 320/500/750 GB and SSD for 128/256/512 GB; memory upgrades apply to either processor. Macworld confirms 750 GB upgrades on both bases; Apple's configure-to-order list includes it despite the shorter Storage subsection omitting it. 8× slot-loading SuperDrive supports DVD±R DL, DVD±RW and CD-RW. | SSD; 512 GB or 1 TB, configurable to 2 TB |
| Battery and size | ||
| Battery life (maker's claim) | Up to 7 hours | Up to 22 hours |
| Battery capacity | 63.5 Wh | 69.6 Wh (better) |
| Weight | 2.04 kg | 1.55 kg (better) |
| Thickness | 24.1 mm | 15.5 mm (better) |
| Width × depth | 325 × 227 mm | 312.6 × 221.2 mm |
| Battery life detail | Built-in 63.5 Wh lithium-polymer battery; up to 7 hours wireless web under Apple's test conditions. Reference weight varies by configuration and manufacturing process. | Up to 15 hours wireless web; marketed as 70 Wh, with actual rating 69.6 Wh in Apple’s footnote |
| Charger | 60 W MagSafe Power Adapter with cable management | 70 W USB-C Power Adapter |
| Fast charging | – | With optional 96 W USB-C Power Adapter |
| Materials | Aluminium unibody enclosure and glass trackpad | 100% recycled aluminium enclosure |
| Colours | Silver | Silver, Space Grey |
| Connections | ||
| Ports | 2 × USB-A, Thunderbolt, MagSafe, headphone jack, SD card slot, Ethernet | 2 × Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, SD card slot, MagSafe 3, headphone jack |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11n; compatible with 802.11a/b/g | Wi-Fi 6E |
| Bluetooth | 2.1 + EDR | 5.3 |
| Webcam | 720p FaceTime HD (Macworld) | 1080p FaceTime HD |
| Operating system | macOS | macOS |
| Port detail | Two USB 2.0 ports up to 480 Mb/s, Thunderbolt up to 10 Gb/s, FireWire 800 up to 800 Mb/s, 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet, SDXC card slot, MagSafe, combined headphone/line input with digital output, and Kensington lock slot. Native Mini DisplayPort output; DVI, VGA, dual-link DVI and HDMI audio/video through separate adapters. | Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports with charging, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 up to 40 Gb/s; HDMI; SDXC slot; MagSafe 3; 3.5 mm jack with high-impedance headphone support |
| External displays | Built-in screen plus one external display up to 2560 × 1600, both with millions of colours; dual display and video mirroring | One external display with the built-in screen active; macOS Sonoma 14.6 or later supports two with the lid closed: primary up to 6K 60 Hz (or 4K 144 Hz), secondary up to 5K 60 Hz (or 4K 100 Hz), according to Apple’s updated display support page; original tech specs state HDMI up to 4K 120 Hz |
| Keyboard | Full-size backlit keyboard with 78 US or 79 ISO keys, 12 function keys and four arrow keys | Backlit Magic Keyboard with 78 US or 79 ISO keys, including 12 full-height function keys |
| Trackpad | Glass Multi-Touch trackpad with inertial scrolling, pinch, rotate, swipe, three-finger swipe, four-finger swipe, tap, double-tap and drag | Force Touch trackpad |
| Speakers | Stereo speakers with subwoofer | Six-speaker system with force-cancelling woofers; wide stereo; spatial audio with Dolby Atmos |
| Microphones | Omnidirectional microphone | Studio-quality three-mic array with directional beamforming |
| Biometrics | – | Touch ID |
| In the box | MacBook Pro, display cleaning cloth, power adapter, AC wall plug, power cord, software DVDs and documentation; Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iLife ’11 | 14-inch MacBook Pro, 70 W USB-C Power Adapter, USB-C to MagSafe 3 cable (2 m) |
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