Apple MacBook Pro 16.2" M4 Max Space Black 2024

The MacBook Pro M4 Max boasts the best laptop display on the planet and a CPU that makes creative work feel effortless, but its GPU is a letdown for gaming. If you need 8TB of SSD and a screen this good, the $6399 price tag can be justified, but most people will find better value elsewhere.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Max is a creative workstation crammed into a laptop. We're talking 64GB of RAM, an 8TB SSD the size of a small NAS, and a Mini-LED panel that hits 1600 nits without breaking a sweat. It's aimed squarely at people who edit 8K video or run 3D simulations and need a machine that can keep up without sounding like a jet engine.

But let's not pretend it's for everyone. At 2.2kg, it's a chunky boy, and the GPU might surprise you for all the wrong reasons. If you're a gamer or someone who just wants a portable laptop for coffee shops, you're looking at the wrong machine. For the right pro, though, it's a quiet monster.

The M4 Max chip screams. Our CPU benchmarks put it near the top, easily handling 4K and 8K exports while keeping dozens of tabs and apps open. The 64GB unified memory lets you forget the word 'swap', and storage speed is absurd. The weak link is the 40-core GPU, which sits disappointingly low in our rankings. It's fine for creative tasks like rendering, but for gaming or GPU-heavy compute, it gets embarrassed by dedicated RTX chips. Still, for video editors and developers, it's a powerhouse that barely breaks a sweat.

Prices bounce from $6399 to $8692 depending on where you look, so shop around. B&H had some aggressive pricing when we checked, but stock is finicky. At the low end, you're getting a stupid amount of fast storage and a best-in-class display, which can replace external drives and a secondary monitor for color-critical work. If you actually need 8TB internally, it's a solid deal. At the high end, you're flirting with 'why not buy a Mac Studio and a really nice monitor' money, and you'll lose portability for better GPU grunt.

Against the ASUS ROG Flow, the MacBook demolishes it in screen quality and battery life, but the ASUS's RTX 40-series chip smokes the M4 Max in any gaming or CUDA task. The Lenovo P16 Gen 3 offers a beefier GPU and upgradeable RAM, but its display isn't in the same universe as the Liquid Retina XDR. The Surface Laptop 7th Edition has better portability and a great touchscreen, but nowhere near the raw CPU power. For pure creative workflows, this MacBook is the king; for anything involving gaming or heavy GPU compute, a Windows workstation still wins.

Skip this if you're a gamer or need a portable daily driver. The GPU gets trounced by RTX-powered rivals, and at over 5 pounds with a big footprint, it's a pain to haul around. If your workload is light photo editing or office apps, the M4 Max is overkill, and your money is better spent on a MacBook Air and a nice vacation.

Buy this if your living depends on rendering 3D models, cutting 8K footage, or running machine learning models locally, and you refuse to be chained to a desk. It's a silent, powerful desktop replacement that you can technically lug to a meeting. Everyone else should look at a MacBook Pro with a standard M4 chip or a Windows laptop with more GPU muscle.