M6 MacBook Pro Pre-Orders Open With Upgraded Connectivity and Familiar Design
Apple will begin taking pre-orders for the new M6 MacBook Pro tomorrow at 10:10 a.m. PT, with deliveries scheduled to arrive by next Friday, November 6, Macworld reported. The laptop starts at $1,999, maintaining the same entry-level pricing as its predecessor while offering 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.
Internal Hardware Upgrades and Connectivity Changes
The M6 MacBook Pro features a 12-core CPU split into two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores, alongside a 12-core GPU and neural accelerators with hardware-accelerated ray tracing. It includes a dual 16-core Neural Engine and delivers up to 170GB/s of memory bandwidth. The machine’s media engine supports hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW video decoding and encoding.
This configuration matches the silicon found in the Mac mini. Beyond the processor, the M6 MacBook Pro replaces Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 through the new N1 chip. Users will need a compatible Wi-Fi 7 router and a high-speed network connection to utilize the upgraded wireless standard.
Transition Timing and Upcoming Touchscreen Models
Industry observers expect this iteration to be the final MacBook Pro built with the current form factor. Apple reportedly plans to introduce a redesigned, touchscreen MacBook Pro during the same week of releases, which also includes the A20 Pro iPad mini and the M6 iMac. The new design is expected to extend to non-touchscreen models with the M7 update next year, leading analysts to suggest that owners of M4 or M5 laptops may choose to skip this release cycle.
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