The battery in the M4 MacBook Pro is bigger at 72.4-watt hours; the M3 MacBook Pro had a 70-watt-hour battery. The M3 model had “Up to 22 hours Apple TV app movie playback” and “Up to 15 hours wireless web” while the M4 model is stated as 24 and 16 hours respectively.

The MacBook Pro 14 with M4 includes a brighter display and more horsepower, plus it still has the best battery life in the biz.

The M4's single-core performance is between 14 and 21 percent faster than the M3s in our tests, and tests that use all the CPU cores are usually 20 or 30 percent faster. The GPU is occasionally as much as 33 percent faster than the M3 in our tests, though more often the improvements are in the single or low double digits.

The new M4 MacBook Pro makes it easier to pick the model you want by making the entry-level option better by adding more memory and a valued port.

This popular M4 Max configuration packs a 32-core GPU and 1TB storage, making it a well-equipped model that's $200 off and in stock now.

The recent M4 Mac release shows that a simple chip upgrade isn't going to be enough to make users invest in a new Mac.