The M4's single-core performance is between 14 and 21 percent faster than the M3s in our tests, and tests that use all the CPU cores are usually 20 or 30 percent faster. The GPU is occasionally as much as 33 percent faster than the M3 in our tests, though more often, the improvements are in the single or low double digits.

I tested a beautiful Space Black MacBook Pro with the new M4 Pro chip and 48GB memory (which I would treasure if it belonged to me). The 3-nanometer chip it uses has 14 cores, consisting of 10 performance and four efficiency cores; it has a 2TB drive; a Liquid Retina XDR nanotexture display; and it costs $3,349.

This specific configuration of the M4 Pro has a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. The 16GB of RAM is particularly noteworthy, as it’s the new standard for Apple. That makes this a better deal than some of the M3 models with 8GB of RAM.

Apple isn’t big on discounts, so a $400 Black Friday deal on one of its most stacked laptops caught our eye today. The Apple 2024 MacBook Pro with M4 Max chip is down to $3,099 right now on Amazon — the best price we’ve ever tracked on the powerhouse of a device.