As a longtime Mac user and overall fan of the platform, I have lots of thoughts on Monday's "Apple (Pro) Silicon" event. It is, after all, arguably just as important (if not more important) than the M1 Mac product line - because this user segment of pros and enthusiasts are vital contributors to both platform evangelism and ecosystem.

Rather than TL;DR everyone to tears (and take way too much time writing one long incredibly unbroken article moving from topic to topic) I'll do something a bit different with more focused reads on certain things that jumped out at me.

And as someone interested in the MBP 14.2 or MBP 16.2, price/value was certainly at the top of my list.

(NOTE: This isn't intended to be any kind of buying advice...Oct. 26 deliveries were unavailable shortly after pre-orders opened, anyway.)

The New Screen Size on the Block

Apple finally has a >14.0"-screened laptop again, only this time, it's the smaller version of a Pro-grade model (versus being the larger-screen SKU of the consumer iBook G4).

At $1,999 (call it $2k), the MBP 14.2 is $200 more than the outgoing $1,799 MacBook Pro 13.3" configuration, which had the following key features:

• 4MP display @ 60Hz and 500 nits brightness

• Quad-core 10th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU - nominally a 28W TDP chip, good for around 1,140 in Geekbench 5 single-core and around 4,220 in multi-core.

• Intel Iris Plus iGPU reportedly rated up to ~1.1 TFLOPS (FP32)

• (LPDDR4X) RAM limits up to 32GB, and (~3.3GB/s) SSD up to 4TB

• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports

In my opinion, although $200 more certainly isn't ideal, it "buys" you (1) a 6+2 "M1 Pro" CPU, (2) a 7/8ths strength 14-core GPU good for maybe 4.5 TFLOPS (FP32), (3) a slightly larger, ~5.9MP, ProMotion mini-LED display which was effectively a $100 upcharge on the M1 iPad Pro 12.9, and other upgrades including better sound, 20% more battery capacity paired with claimed Apple Silicon power efficiency, and a 1080p webcam.

But the $1,999 SKU is far from the only configuration - it at least feels like there's more choices than ever. I made a very simple matrix of MBP 14.2 configurations that don't include fairly straightforward SSD and optional RAM upgrade options (they're the same starting and upgrade choices as MBP 16.2):

Thanks to a "value" 8-core CPU configuration and four GPU configurations, the MBP 14.2 actually offers the widest variety of (almost too many!) customization options. You can go from the humblest M1 Pro setup to the highest-spec M1 Max config shared with the MBP 16.2, something Apple's never done before (at least not since the long-since-discontinued 17" MacBook Pro.)

Apple offers two levels of M1 Pro upgrade here. For $200 more, customers can go from a 6-perf-CPU core bin to the 8-perf-core CPU common to every other MBP 14.2 and MBP 16.2 configuration. From that $2,199US point, there's the option to pay $100 extra to go from a 14-core GPU bin to 16 cores.

Going from highest-binned M1 Pro to an M1 Max, however, is a very pricey jump - $600. Apple essentially breaks down this (heh, unified) charge as $400 for the 16GB of extra unified memory, and $200 for the 8 additional GPU cores. From that 32GB RAM, 24-core GPU M1 Max baseline configuration, the customer then has the option to spend $200 for 8 more GPU cores, $400 for 32GB more unified memory, or both. The same upgrade pricing math applies to the MBP 16.2.

How a $2,499 Base Price MBP 16.2 Might Actually Be the "Best Deal"

You may have noticed that it costs $300 extra from the MBP 14.2 base model, or $2,299US total, to get to the same "full-power" M1 Pro as the new MBP 16.2. While customers more from the pro-leaning Intel MBP13-or-general-Windows-laptop-equivalent realm might wonder if it's worth $200 more for the bigger screen, larger-screen laptop intenders could see things differently.

For this group, the former Mac point of reference was the $2399 Intel MBP16 - and it's not hard to see how favorably MBP 16.2 compares on paper for the extra $100.

Obviously, $2,500 is a lot of money, and these difficult pandemic times don't make things any easier (though they do make inflation comparisons seem downright academic amidst real-world economic pain). On the other hand, the extra $100 buys what Apple claims is the fastest overall laptop CPU ever built, with theoretical GPU performance close to or better than a CTO Intel MBP16 costing at least $3,200. That plus the list of other upgrades from screen resolution/quality to spatial audio and charging speed (at the expense of 0.4 lbs of heft and 0.02 inches of thickness) takes much of the sting out of the "X weeks of coffee" upcharge.

The iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max of Apple Pro Laptops

Yes, you can get a ~80% as fast CPU and ~88% as fast GPU in a more compact laptop package for $500 less than the base-model MBP 16.2. But once you're in standard-bin M1 Pro/Max SoC territory, you'll find that all core features are the same, it's simply a matter of paying $200 more for a larger screen and battery (with higher-power charging gear).

That sounds remarkably similar to the iPhone 13 Pro-series - especially considering that iPhones and pro-grade Mac notebooks alike both sport that same distinctive notch (like it or not).

Welcome to the Apple Silicon vision of modular - where a semi-compact-class laptop and a workstation-size laptop can have the same general level of performance, in large part driven by a single carefully-designed (though sometimes binned) laptop performance CPU. Could it add to the momentum of the M1 entry-level Macs? Time will tell, but the early performance signs show promise.