Apple MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) vs Apple MacBook Pro 16″ (M4 Pro or M4 Max)
Better figure, where one is clearly better
| AppleMacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) | AppleMacBook Pro 16″ (M4 Pro or M4 Max) | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Released | February 2011 | November 2024 |
| Display | ||
| Screen size | 15.4″ | 16.2″ |
| Resolution | 1440 × 900 | 3456 × 2234 (better) |
| Panel | TN LCD | Mini-LED |
| Refresh rate | – | 120 Hz |
| Brightness | – | 1,000 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 2.0 GHz glossy review. Apple does not publish refresh rate or brightness. | Liquid Retina XDR display |
| Pixel density | – | 254 ppi |
| Colour range | – | Wide colour (P3); 1 billion colours |
| Screen finish | Base glossy 1440 × 900; optional 1680 × 1050 high-resolution glossy or antiglare displays. Higher-resolution options are described here rather than assigned an unverified panel type in the configuration rows. | Standard, or nano-texture as an option |
| Display features | – | 1,000,000:1 contrast; 1,000 nits sustained full-screen XDR brightness; ProMotion up to 120 Hz, with fixed 47.95, 48, 50, 59.94 and 60 Hz rates; True Tone |
| Performance | ||
| Processor | Intel Core i7-2635QM, Intel Core i7-2720QM or Intel Core i7-2820QM | Apple M4 Pro or Apple M4 Max |
| CPU cores | 4 | 14 or 16 |
| CPU threads | 8 | – |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 6490M or AMD Radeon HD 6750M | 20-core GPU, 32-core GPU or 40-core GPU |
| Memory | 4 GB or 8 GB | 24 GB, 36 GB, 48 GB or 128 GB (better) |
| Storage | 128 GB to 750 GB | 512 GB to 8 TB (better) |
| CPU | Quad-core Intel Core i7-2635QM at 2.0 GHz or Core i7-2720QM at 2.2 GHz, with 6 MB shared L3 cache. The 2.2 GHz base is configurable to Core i7-2820QM at 2.3 GHz with 8 MB cache. Exact identities are confirmed by Notebookcheck; Macworld confirms the faster processor is an upgrade of the higher base. | M4 Pro: 14-core CPU with 10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores; M4 Max: 14-core CPU with 10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, or 16-core CPU with 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores |
| GPU | Automatic switching between Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384 MB shared main memory and AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 256 MB GDDR5 on the 2.0 GHz base, or Radeon HD 6750M with 1 GB GDDR5 on the 2.2 GHz base and its 2.3 GHz upgrade | 20-core (M4 Pro), 32-core or 40-core (M4 Max) GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing; Media Engine with H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes RAW acceleration and AV1 decode, with two video encode and two ProRes engines on M4 Max |
| 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; M4 Pro takes 24GB or 48GB; M4 Max takes 36GB (14-core CPU) or 48GB, 64GB or 128GB (16-core CPU) |
| Memory bandwidth | – | 273 GB/s (M4 Pro), 410 GB/s (M4 Max with 32-core GPU) or 546 GB/s (M4 Max with 40-core GPU) |
| Storage type | Core i7-2635QM base has a 500 GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive; Core i7-2720QM base has a 750 GB 5400-rpm drive. Both bases support 750 GB 5400-rpm or 500 GB 7200-rpm hard drive, or 128 GB, 256 GB or 512 GB SSD. The 500 GB row on the lower base includes its standard 5400-rpm and optional 7200-rpm drives; on the higher base and its processor upgrade it represents the 7200-rpm option. Memory and storage upgrades apply to either base. 8× slot-loading SuperDrive supports DVD±R DL, DVD±RW and CD-RW. | SSD, configurable up to 4 TB (M4 Pro) or 8 TB (M4 Max) |
| Battery and size | ||
| Battery life (maker's claim) | Up to 7 hours | Up to 24 hours |
| Battery capacity | 77.5 Wh | 99.6 Wh (better) |
| Weight | 2.54 kg | 2.14 kg (better) |
| Thickness | 24.1 mm | 16.8 mm (better) |
| Width × depth | 364 × 249 mm | 355.7 × 248.1 mm |
| Battery life detail | Built-in 77.5 Wh lithium-polymer battery; up to 7 hours wireless web under Apple's test conditions. Reference weight varies by configuration and manufacturing process. | M4 Pro up to 24 hours video streaming and 17 hours wireless web; M4 Max up to 21 hours video streaming and 14 hours wireless web; 100-watt-hour (99.6 Wh actual) lithium-polymer battery |
| Charger | 85 W MagSafe Power Adapter with cable management | 140 W USB-C Power Adapter included |
| Fast charging | – | With the included 140 W USB-C Power Adapter |
| Materials | Aluminium unibody enclosure and glass trackpad | 100% recycled aluminium enclosure; 40% recycled content overall |
| Colours | Silver | Space Black, Silver |
| Connections | ||
| Ports | 2 × USB-A, Thunderbolt, MagSafe, headphone jack, SD card slot, Ethernet | 3 × Thunderbolt 5, 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) | 12MP Center Stage |
| 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, separate digital/analogue audio line input and line output/headphone minijacks, and Kensington lock slot. Native Mini DisplayPort output; DVI, VGA, dual-link DVI and HDMI audio/video through separate adapters. | 3 × Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) with charging, DisplayPort 2.1, Thunderbolt 5 and USB 4 (up to 120 Gb/s); HDMI (up to 8K 60 Hz or 4K 240 Hz) with multichannel audio output; SDXC card slot; MagSafe 3; 3.5 mm headphone 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 | M4 Pro up to two at 6K 60 Hz over Thunderbolt, or one at 6K 60 Hz over Thunderbolt and one at 4K 144 Hz over HDMI, or one at 8K 60 Hz or 4K 240 Hz over HDMI; M4 Max up to four (three at 6K 60 Hz over Thunderbolt and one at 4K 144 Hz over HDMI), or three (two at 6K 60 Hz plus one at 8K 60 Hz or 4K 240 Hz over HDMI); all alongside the built-in display |
| Keyboard | Full-size backlit keyboard with 78 US or 79 ISO keys, 12 function keys and four arrow keys | Backlit Magic Keyboard, 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 subwoofers | High-fidelity six-speaker sound system with force-cancelling woofers; wide stereo; Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos |
| Microphones | Omnidirectional microphone under the left speaker grille | 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 | 16-inch MacBook Pro, 140 W USB-C Power Adapter, USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable (2 m), polishing cloth (nano-texture display only) |
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