Apple refreshed its entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M6 chip, the company announced in a press release, bringing its latest processor to the least expensive model in the laptop line. The update lands a year after Apple moved the entry-level MacBook Pro to the M5, and it follows the M6's debut in August as part of upgrades to the new Mac Mini. Preorders open October 28, with shipping expected to begin November 6.

The M6 is Apple's first 2nm chip. It raises the CPU to 12 cores from 10 in the M5, and Apple says it delivers up to 1.2x faster multithreaded performance than its predecessor. The chip also carries a Dual 16-core Neural Engine for heavy on-device AI tasks and an upgraded 12-core GPU with a Neural Accelerator in each core. Apple says the M6 is more power efficient as well.

The new 14-inch model keeps the same design, port layout, camera and display as before. It has three Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports that all support charging and DisplayPort connectivity, a MagSafe 3 charging port, full-size HDMI and an SDXC card slot. The 12MP Center Stage camera and Liquid Retina XDR display with a nano-texture option carry over.

The wireless package is the clearest gain for this tier. The 14-inch MacBook Pro now gets Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 through Apple's N1 wireless networking chip, which until now was included only on MacBook Pro configurations with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.

Pricing for the M6 version starts at $1,999 with 16GB of memory, the same as last year's M5 model. Configurations with 24GB cost $2,199 and 32GB costs $2,399. Storage starts at 1TB, and upgrades have grown more expensive amid the current memory shortage: 2TB adds $500 and 4TB adds $1,500, compared with a $1,200 charge for 4TB on last year's model.

For US buyers, the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro holds its $1,999 starting price while the cost of larger storage configurations rises. The laptop otherwise repeats last year's minimal-change approach, when the M5 update kept the same design, port layout, webcam and speakers and mainly brought faster storage and the 4TB option.

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