Yesterday, Apple showed the 2021 MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max (see post from yesterday).

Overall, they seem to be very powerful and power-efficient machines.

Notable

• very powerful (on similar level as most powerful PC laptops),
• but way more power efficient (much less heat, more performance on battery, likely less fan noise).
• considering the space on the huge die used for the different functions, focus seems to be on GPU performance rather than on CPU performance.
• the entry level model has only 6+2 CPU cores (6 perf cores, 2 efficient cores) and 14 GPU cores, while the more expensive ones have 8+2 CPU cores and 16/24/32 GPU cores.
• more RAM: 16, 32 or 64GB (M1 Max only), more RAM bandwidth: 200 or 400GB/s
• super bright 1000nits (only for HDR content, normal display is up to 500nits), high-dpi, variable refresh / up to 120Hz screen
• HDMI seems to be 2.0, so 3840x2160 at 60Hz
• Supported ext. monitor count:
  • 2021 M1 Max MBP: 3x 6K/60Hz, 1x 4K/60Hz
  • 2021 M1 Pro MBP: 2x 6k/60Hz, 1x 4K/60Hz
  • 2020 M1 MacBook Air/Pro: 1x 6k/60Hz
• notch with 1920x1080 camera, but no center stage, no FaceID
• 14" battery life seems less than the 2020 Macbook Air or 2020 Macbook Pro (not sure if they used same display brightness / similar configuration)
• 16" has bigger battery (and also a more powerful charger for it)
• charging works over MagSafe or TB4 connector
• no builtin LAN port
• power supply: check physical size and wattage / fast charge capability
• the MagSafe cable is MagSafe connector (MacBook side) to USB-C connector (power supply side), thus not permanently attached to power supply.

Updates

• heise.de reported that the SDcard slot is UHS-II (not the faster UHS-III) and can transfer "only" 250MB/s. UHS-II cards currently available "only" up to 256GB. so, this currently can help only a little bit with unloading the internal SSD.