On Monday, Apple announced new updates to the MacBook Pro line for 2021. These new updates look amazing. The MacBook Pro 2021 should be faster than any laptop Apple ever created, the screen has seen updates not seen on a Mac laptop in years.

But I’m not planning on upgrading.

Here’s what’s new with the new MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon and why I won’t be upgrading.

The MacBook Pro 2021 Best Updates

Sight for Sore Eyes

The updates to the new MacBook Pro with Apple silicon really come down to the speed and screen, but there will be more that people will find interesting with these updates.

Let’s start with the new screen. There are two things that really stand out to me about the upgrade to the M1 Pro and M1 Pro Max MacBook Pros: ProMotion and Liquid Retina XDR.

ProMotion is Apple’s refresh technology that allows the screen to refresh at different rates, topping out at 120hz. This variable refresh rate is what makes the screen look smoother like when scrolling through a document or webpage. The thing about Apple’s implementation that is different than others is that the screen can refresh at different rates, so if you are watching a movie or sitting at a webpage or reading, the screen will slow down. When it slows down the rate, you save on battery life.

But when your scroll or use an app with a high refresh rate, everything moves quicker. Things feel smoother. it’s a very pleasant experience.

If you’ve used an iPad Pro lately or the new iPhone 13 Pro, you’ve experienced ProMotion.

Above all the other additions to the MacBook line, this is the one that I really want the most.

Apple also brought its Liquid Retina XDR display technology to the MacBook Pro 2021. XDR is Apple’s mini-LED technology. XDR attempts to bring the quality of OLED screens to LED screens by making the lights smaller and more plentiful. The real payoff for OLED is darker blacks. An OLED screen doesn’t need to light up black areas of the screen and doesn’t have blooming (or lights that infiltrate the dark scene). But OLED panels are expensive to make, especially in these sizes. So the image on the screen should be sharper and not have as much blooming. The newest 12.9-inch iPad Pro has the same screen as well as the Pro Display XDR.

Both of these combined with larger screen sizes to make a heck of an upgrade to just the screen. If for nothing else, this is what I would want a new MacBook Pro for.

Blazing a New Trail

But wait, there’s more!

Apple also brought out its first Pro-designed Mac chips with the M1 Pro and the M1 Max. These chips appear to be monsters CPUs. They come with 10 cores for processing and up to 32 cores for Graphics. Plus more memory for each of the systems. Anyone looking to compile code, encode movies, work with audio files, will likely love the extra speed. The jump from my intel MacBook Air to my current M1 MacBook Air was amazing. I can only imagine how much better these new Pro chips will be.

All the Connectivity

When Apple last redesigned the MacBook Pro in 2015-6, they stripped the Pro of just about all ports. The only ports that remained were the 2 or 4 USB-C ports depending on which system you bought. This year’s redesign has brought back many of the missing ports.

HDMI and an SD card slot return. Photographers and anyone that has to give a presentation away from their home base are probably happy about the return of these two ports.

But Apple also brought back MagSafe. MagSafe, the magnetic charging port also has fast charging and it comes as its own cable. Now, you can use any USB-C charging brick to plug into to get a charge! Thankfully, for those that dock their computer to a monitor or docking station, the USB-C ports can still charge the laptops as well.

That Chin And Those Feet

As I mentioned earlier, the screen also got an updated size as well. The bezels of the previous MacBook have been slimmed down (here’s hoping that the next iMac does that as well). Oddly though, Apple shrunk all the bezel all the way around, even the top where the FaceTime camera lives. Since there isn’t much room for a camera, Apple brought the iPhone notch design in.

This MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon has a notch on the screen. Thankfully, Apple moved the menu bar up into the notch area, so users are getting more usable space on the screen, but that notch just feels out of place. They didn’t even bring FaceID with the notch!

They also programmed the notch so that the mouse will disappear behind it instead of popping to the other side of it. So that’s cool.

I’m not a fan of the notch, but that’s not why I wouldn’t get one of these machines.

Design-wise, not much really changed about the machine other than the added ports. While they are a bit thicker, their design is still very similar to what came before it.

But something does stick out to me, and that’s the feet of the MacBook Pro 2021. No one mentioned why the new MacBook has such prominent feet, but I’m guessing it’s to help with cooling the M1 Pro or M1 Max chip inside.

Again, this isn’t a reason I’m not upgrading to the MacBook Pro. I think it looks weird in pictures, but I haven’t seen it in person yet. Plus the feet don’t look ugly, they just stick out to me more than before.

M1 Is Enough

The reason I’m not upgrading is that I’m not really a pro. I dabble in video editing, but most of my computing is done in word processors or web browsers. I would imagine someone that is coding, editing movies, or engineering sound would love these laptops. But for most people, I feel like these are overkill. The price alone is staggering. The lowest specced system is still $2,000.00. That’s a large chunk of change.

I think Apple shot themselves in the foot when they brought out the M1. It is such a good laptop chip that most people don’t need much more yet. Sure pros are gonna pro. They’re gonna want the fastest chip around, but the M1 does so much better than most of the stuff we had before it. I’m pretty sure that it will even encode faster than most other PCs will do out there. It changed the game.

Plus, I love my current MacBook Air. I hope that the next revision brings some color with it. I would love it if the next MacBook Air mirrored the new iMac’s colors and MagSafe. I’m not sure it would be enough to upgrade, but you never know!

What do you think of the new MacBook Pro 2021? Is it a worthwhile upgrade? Let me know in the comments or on twitter!