An alleged photo of the M4 14-inch MacBook Pro
A Russian YouTube channel has posted an unboxing video of what is alleged to be Apple’s M4 MacBook Pro, though take it with a heaping pile of salt.
Apple has long been rumored to be hosting a media event in October where it will show off its latest products, including M4-based Macs. This supposedly-leaked 14-inch MacBook Pro among them.
Earlier on Sunday, another rumor suggested that the event would take place at the end of the month with the first Macs shipping on November 1. If true, this leak spoils at least part of that announcement.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro seen in the video and tipped us by an emailer from Ufa, Russia based on the sending IP address says it has an M4 processor, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. The M4 has a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU which would be two more CPU cores than the M3.
That could represent a bump in memory. There’s no way to confirm that this is real, let alone confirm that it is the base unit and not a higher SKU. It also includes a color-matched MagSafe 3 cable, a USB-C power adapter, and the getting started paperwork.
The host runs a Geekbench benchmark on the M4, scoring a 3864 for the single-core and a 15288 for the multi. Comparably, the M3 MacBook Pro earned a 3082 and 11584, respectively.
Looking at the most recent iPad Pro that also have the M4 chip, it scored 3590 single core and 13353 multi core. Assuming the benchmarks are accurate, the MacBook Pro runs a bit faster as it is actively cooled with its internal fans.
For what it’s worth, these could easily be faked though. And the “Mac 16,1” designator would be an easy guess.
What makes us the most skeptical is the box artwork. It still shows the same M4 MacBook Pro wallpaper on the box. Apple typically refreshes these wallpapers with each new generation, even if sometimes it’s only the dark mode of the previous model’s wallpaper.
You could theoretically make the case that the M4 version will keep the same box design while the M4 Pro and M4 Max versions get updated. If anything, it gives us reason to be extra skeptical here.
It would be highly unusual to see a full retail box leak ahead of even an announcement. Especially from Russia, of all places.
Apple first stopped sales in Russia roughly two years ago. For all the locations an unannounced Mac would surface, Russia was not on our list of probable locations, given import restrictions that are still in force..
The machine is question has seemingly been making the rounds for at least a week. ShrimpApplePro shared identical images at the end of September so it could have just been passed person-to-person or sold to the YouTuber.
Whether or not this machine is in fact legitimate, it doesn’t reveal anything of note other than the benchmarks. The base MacBook Pros usually don’t contain the latest and greatest tech.
Everything seen in the video could easily have been guessed based on recent rumors and common sense assumptions.
We do believe that we’ll see a machine like this announced by the end of this month. Hopefully we’ll see some more substantial changes in those high-end machines.