Today Apple is releasing new revamped versions of its 13” MacBook Pro line-up, most notably updating the series with the new scissor-switch style Magic Keyboard, as well as giving the option for Intel’s new 10th generation Ice Lake CPUs in the higher end models.

Apple last winter had rolled out its new 16” MacBook Pro which had introduced the new Magic Keyboard, making the choice to drop the controversial butterfly switch keyboard back to a scissor switch design. Today’s 13” line-up adopts the same changes across the smaller form factor models, including the new Touch Bar design that has been narrowed down to now include a physical escape key on the keyboard.

The new design otherwise doesn’t significantly diverge from its summer-2019 refresh, although this year it’s every so slightly thicker at 1.56cm instead of 1.49cm – certainly unnoticeable in everyday usage. It’s also 30g heavier at up to 1.4kg now (3.1lbs).

The most significantly internal change is the option for a new 10th generation Intel Ice Lake based CPU, running at 2.0GHz base clocks and Turbo Boost to up to 3.8GHz. As always with Apple products, this likely is a custom SKU just for Apple’s line-up as there’s no matching public part with these frequencies – the closest part is an i7-1060G7 which features the same peak clock, but only a meagre 1.0GHz base clock. Apple here likely is running a higher base TDP of 20-25W. For a $200 upsell, you can choose a higher-end 2.3/4.1GHz CPU configuration.

Edit May 10th: Intel has added the new i5-1038NG7 and i7-1068NG7 to their Ark database. These are 28W processors.

Whilst the Ice Lake based parts are new, Apple will continue to sell 8th generation Coffee Lake based parts at the lower end price spectrum in the $1299 and $1499 price points. Aside from the CPUs themselves, the two generational offerings of CPUs will also differ in their DRAM configuration as the new ICL parts come with 16GB of LPDDR4X-3733, whilst the CFL parts continue to just offer 8GB of LPDDR3-2133. The ICL parts are upgradeable to 32GB for an extra $400, and the CFL parts upgrade to 16GB for $100.

The display panel seemingly remains unchanged, featuring a 13” 2560 x 1600 IPS LCD panel with a wide Display P3 colour gamut, 500 nits peak brightness, and True Tone ambient colour adjustment.

MacBook Pro 13-Inch 2020
Model 2020 13-Inch
Higher-End
2019 13-Inch
Higher-End
2018 13-Inch
Entry-Level
CPU 2.0 GHz/3.8 GHz
Core i5-1038NG7

2.3 GHz/4.1 GHz
Core i7-1068NG7

4 CPU Cores
(Ice Lake)
2.4 GHz/4.1 GHz
Core i5-8???U
4 CPU Cores
(Coffee Lake)
1.4 GHz/3.9 GHz
Core i5-8???U
4 CPU Cores
(Coffee Lake)
GPU Intel Iris Plus Intel Iris Plus 655
(128MB eDRAM)
Intel Iris Plus 645
(? eDRAM)
Display 13" 2560 x 1600 IPS LCD
DCI-P3 Gamut
True Tone
Memory 16 GB LPDDR4X-3733 8 GB LPDDR3-2133
SSD 512 GB PCIe SSD 256 GB PCIe SSD 128 GB PCIe SSD
Touch Bar Yes
I/O 4x Thunderbolt 3 (supports DP1.2 & USB 3.1 Gen 2 modes),
3.5mm Audio
2x Thunderbolt 3 (supports DP1.2 & USB 3.1 Gen 2 modes),
3.5mm Audio
Battery Capacity 58 Wh 58.2 Wh
Battery Life 10 Hours
Dimensions 1.56 cm x 30.41 cm x 21.24 cm 1.49 cm x 30.41 cm x 21.24 cm
Weight 3.1 lbs (1.4 kg) 3.02 lbs (1.37 kg)
Launch Price $1799 $1799 $1299

Connectivity-wise, the new 2020 13” MacBook Pros come in two flavours: the lower-end $1299 and $1499 Coffee Lake based models feature two Thunderbolt 3 ports, whilst the Ice Lake based parts get four. We also see an addition of a 3.5mm headphone jack. Unfortunately, Apple seemingly hasn’t upgraded the Wi-Fi on the new models, and WiFi 6 / 802.11ax still isn’t present as they still make due with WiFi 5 / 802.11ac capability.

Battery-wise, there’s no changes in capacity as we’re still looking at a 58Wh unit, and Apple claims an identical “10 hours” of usage for all new models – the same as last year’s Coffee Lake models.

The higher-end Ice Lake parts come now with the aforementioned base 16GB of DRAM config at a $1799 price point with a 512GB SSD, or a $1999 option with a 1TB SSD. Storage configurations for the ICL models are doubled across the board, with the possibility to choose up to a 4TB configuration for an extra $1200.

The new 13" MacBook lineup is available for order directly from Apple starting today.

Related Reading:

Source: Apple

Comments Locked

85 Comments

View All Comments

  • s.yu - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link

    Time to bring it back to iPads then.
  • scineram - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link

    Not Renoir, not interesting.
  • manicmatviyko - Wednesday, September 2, 2020 - link

    Buhb-aye Intel! Hay-der ARM!
  • Desiray - Friday, October 2, 2020 - link

    heyy, I love this article ! The way it explains everything makes it a great read ,and was wondering if anybody had success working online yet?
    This guy and girl right here email finlandclaudius@gmail.com to see how it is really helping me out,
    And he said after I made my first commission check i should help out
    others
    And it seems to be working out pretty well,
    After you fill out this short form
    He has a free training he reveals some pretty interesting thing about 45 mins in
  • Tiuy - Monday, October 19, 2020 - link

    This is a great article
    If anyone doesn't know how to reset MacBook Pro
    Reset MacBook Pro
    https://thevivant.com/apple-troubleshooting-how-to...

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now