Apple has announced its new product sooner than we had expected. A new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Magic Keyboard is now available for users around the world. It features optional Intel 10th Gen processors and starts at $1,299. In one sense, it is a minor spec-bump upgrade for the existing lineup of 13-inch MacBook Pros. However, it marks the end of an era for Apple as the company does not sell any new laptops with the much maligned-butterfly keyboard mechanism anymore.

Source: Apple

Apple has quickly removed the butterfly keyboard from the lineups because of bad reviews. The 16-inch MacBook Pro was announced in November 2019, followed by a refreshed MacBook Air with Magic Keyboard this past March. In just six months, the company has massively improved its laptop game as models that use a better scissor-switch keyboard have been launched.

Just like with the last MacBook Pro, Apple is continuing with Thunderbolt 3/ USB-C connectors, two or four of them in total along with a headphone jack. The Touch Bar also remains in this model alongside a Touch ID fingerprint sensor and surprisingly, a real, physical Esc key.

The RAM can be upgraded to 32GB and the storage can be specced all the way up to 4TB. Apple says that 10th Gen Intel processors have a turbo boost up to 4.1Ghz and that the new Intel Iris graphics support the Pro Display XDR at full 6K resolution.

The base $1,299 model also comes with 256GB of storage, up from the 128GB in prior models. But it lacks the 10th Gen processor and starts with 8GB of RAM. An upgrade to 16GB of RAM is available for $100, down from the $200 Apple charged for the same upgrade in prior models.

Source: Apple

Rumors suggest that the display would be upgraded to something close to 14 inches as the 16-inch MacBook Pro has introduced reduced bezels. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case because Apple says this 13-inch display can reach 500 nits of brightness and support the P3 wide color gamut.

You can order the new model on Apple’s website and it will be checked in “Selected Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Resellers later this week.” If you are an education customer, you can save up to $100 on the base price.