New 16-inch MacBook Pro Has New Keyboard, Radeon RX 5500M

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple today announced the long-rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro, bringing with it a new, scissor-switch keyboard and AMD's Radeon RX 5500M or 5300M or graphics.

The 16-inch laptop replaces the 15-inch MacBook Pro and starts at $2,399. It's available to order now. The maxxed-out configuration is $6,099.

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CPU8-core 9th Gen Intel Core i9
GPUUp to AMD Radeon 5500M (8GB GDDR6)
RAMUp to 64GB DDR4-2666MHz
Display16-inches, 3072 x 1920, 226ppi
StorageUp to 8TB SSD
Battery100WHr

Apple is eschewing Intel's 10th Gen "Ice Lake" processors for 6 and 8-core 9th Gen chips. The system also features a 16-inch, 3072 x 1920 display with a pixel density of 226 pixels per inch (ppi) and a six-speaker sound system. Apple says the screen will hit 500 nits max brightness.

But for many, the big change will be the keyboard, which Apple is dubbing the "Magic Keyboard." It uses a scissor switch mechanism with 1mm of travel, which sounds like a big improvement over the existing MacBook Pro keyboards. There's no word when it might come to the 13-inch MacBook Pro or the MacBook Air, however.

And while the 16-inch MacBook Pro has a Touch Bar, it also hash a physical escape key, which many professionals didn't like about the previous version. Touch ID is built into the power button to log in with a fingerprint and is accompanied by Apple's T2 security chip.

(Image credit: Apple)

Additionally, Apple has a new thermal solution in the MacBook Pro. The new design has longer blades and bigger vents, which the company says will lead to a 28% increase in airflow. Additionally, the heatsink is 35% larger. Apple claims that this will let the 16-inch MacBook Pro "sustain up to 12 more watts during intensive workloads than the previous design."

We hope to see the new 16-inch MacBook Pro in our lab soon to see how well it holds up, but on paper, it sounds like this laptop makes a ton of fixes that pro Mac users were demanding.

(Image credit: Apple)
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Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and Mastodon @FreedmanAE.mastodon.social.

  • hannibal
    Well! Now we know where all the 5500 Are going :)
    It Also says that there is 8Gb version of 5500m, so there definitely will be 8Gb desktop version too... but that is not big surprice, even though some people were worried about it.
    Reply
  • HideOut
    So apple's hottest new macrook has a processor thats been replaced. Yet idiots will line up in droves for them.
    Reply