Apple’s brand-new MacBook Pro laptops come with a range of upgrades, from the M4 chip to faster Thunderbolt 5 ports. The improvements extend to the display, and that’s great news if you want to use the MacBook Pro in either bright outdoor sun or in very dark surroundings.
Apple says the mini-LED display inside the M4 MacBook Pro can ramp up to 1,000 nits of brightness when you’re viewing SDR content outside. That’s much brighter than the 600 nits the M3 model was capable of in these conditions, and it should help make on-screen content much more visible when the sun is shining.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the MacBook Pro’s display can now drop down to a mere one nit of brightness in low light, compared to two nits on the previous version. If you want to work in the dark without blinding yourself with a bright screen, your eyes will feel the benefits even more.
The values for HDR content have not changed – the MacBook Pro will still offer up to 1,600 nits of peak brightness for HDR media and up to 1,000 nits of sustained full-screen brightness, which is the same as you’d get with the M3 model.
Other display elements remain the same between the M4 and M3 MacBook Pro. You can still expect True Tone technology, the ProMotion variable refresh rate up to 120Hz, and support for the P3 wide color gamut.
However, there is one other change that’s come not to the display itself, but to the tech that lives inside it: the MacBook Pro’s webcam. Apple has upgraded it with a 12MP resolution, but perhaps more interesting is the addition of Center Stage and Desk View. The former feature automatically keeps you centered in the middle of your video call’s frame as you move around, while the latter shows a top-down view of your desk without you needing to tilt your camera. Both were previously only available while using Continuity Camera on a compatible iPhone, but can now be used on both the MacBook Pro and the M4 iMac.
There have long been rumors that Apple is working on bringing out an OLED MacBook Pro that would swap out the MacBook Pro’s mini-LED display for something even better, but given that the latest MacBook Pro lacks an OLED screen, that’s clearly something for a future update.