Apple MacBook Pro 14.2" M4 Max Space Black 2024 Review

Apple's M4 Max MacBook Pro is a creative weapon that laughs in the face of your heaviest renders. Just don't expect it to beat a gaming laptop at its own game.

The M4 Max MacBook Pro is the most powerful laptop Apple has ever made, and it finally delivers desktop-class performance in a portable package that doesn't compromise on battery life or build quality. The one thing to know? If you push pixels, compile massive codebases, or edit multi-stream 8K video, this machine was built for you. The Liquid Retina XDR display alone is worth the price of entry, hitting 1600 nits of sustained brightness with a buttery 120Hz refresh rate, and the 64GB of unified memory means you can throw huge projects at it without a stutter. It's not a gaming laptop, and it's not trying to be, but for creative pros who live in Final Cut, Xcode, or Blender, it's an absolute beast.

We've been testing this thing hard, and the M4 Max 16-core CPU sits at the 92nd percentile among all laptops in our database. That puts it shoulder to shoulder with high-end desktop chips from Intel and AMD, only it sips power and stays whisper quiet. The 40-core GPU is the weak link here, landing at the 18th percentile, which means it gets stomped by dedicated RTX 4080 or 4090 laptops in raw gaming and certain CUDA workloads. But for GPU-accelerated pro apps with hardware ray tracing, it punches above its weight, and the unified architecture keeps latency low. Just don't buy this expecting to max out Cyberpunk at 4K.

Here's what surprised us: despite having a GPU that lags behind chunky gaming laptops, the M4 Max never felt slow in our real-world creative tests. Exporting a complex 10-minute 4K video in H.265 was faster than on most Intel i9 systems we've tested, and scrolling through a massive 3D scene in Blender was buttery smooth thanks to the dynamic caching. The real star is the CPU, though. It chews through compile jobs and multi-threaded renders in a way that makes our older M1 Max units feel like calculators. The screen, at the 99th percentile, is the absolute best you'll find on any laptop right now, with insanely accurate colors and HDR that makes your own eyes feel underspec'd.

Let's be real: $4,299 is the starting point, and we've seen this specific config climb past $6,044 at some retailers. That's a massive spread, so definitely shop around to avoid leaving money on the table. For data scientists, developers, and video pros who bill by the hour, the time saved on renders and compiles will quickly offset the cost. But if you're a student or someone who just wants a premium machine for browsing and streaming, this is wildly overkill. The 2TB SSD and 64GB RAM are specced for the 1% of users who genuinely need them, and for everyone else, there are cheaper MacBooks that still feel brilliant.

If you're cross-shopping Windows workstations, the Lenovo P16 Gen 3 and HP ZBook Ultra G1a are the two most direct rivals. Both offer higher GPU ceilings with dedicated NVIDIA options, plus way more ports (hello, USB-A and full-size HDMI). The P16 Gen 3 in particular can be configured with an RTX 5000-series GPU that obliterates the M4 Max in raw 3D rendering and scientific simulations. However, those machines are thicker, heavier, and can't touch the Mac's display quality or battery longevity. The HP ZBook Ultra G1a gets closer on weight and screen, but its software experience is still Windows, which means no Final Cut Pro and a less unified ecosystem. For pure creative work, the MacBook Pro remains the smoother daily driver.

Gamers and anyone chasing maximum GPU muscle per dollar should look elsewhere. This machine's 40-core GPU is clever and efficient, but an ASUS ROG Zephyrus with an RTX 4090 will double your frame rates and still have money left over for a really nice monitor. And if you just want a premium laptop for email and Netflix, the M4 Pro version or even a MacBook Air will serve you just as well for half the price.

If you need a macOS machine that can replace a high-end desktop and you don't play AAA games, stop scrolling and buy this. The M4 Max MacBook Pro is absurdly fast, has a screen that'll ruin all other laptops for you, and lasts long enough to forget your charger at home. It's not for gamers, it's not for budget shoppers, but for the creative pro who wants the best portable workstation on the planet, it's the obvious choice.