The M4 MacBook Pro’s display is even better than its predecessor’s in one key way

An improved viewing experience, day or night

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Apple’sbrand-new MacBook Pro laptopscome with a range of upgrades, from theM4 chipto faster Thunderbolt 5 ports. The improvements extend to the display, and that’s great news if you want to use the MacBook Pro in either bright outdoor sun or in very dark surroundings.

Apple says the mini-LED display inside the M4 MacBook Pro can ramp up to 1,000 nits of brightness when you’re viewing SDR content outside. That’s much brighter than the 600 nits the M3 model was capable of in these conditions, and it should help make on-screen content much more visible when the sun is shining.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the MacBook Pro’s display can now drop down to a mere one nit of brightness in low light, compared to two nits on the previous version. If you want to work in the dark without blinding yourself with a bright screen, your eyes will feel the benefits even more.

The values forHDRcontent have not changed – the MacBook Pro will still offer up to 1,600 nits of peak brightness for HDR media and up to 1,000 nits of sustained full-screen brightness, which is the same as you’d get with the M3 model.

Other display elements remain the same between the M4 and M3 MacBook Pro. You can still expect True Tone technology, the ProMotion variable refresh rate up to 120Hz, and support for the P3 wide color gamut.

However, there is one other change that’s come not to the display itself, but to the tech that lives inside it: the MacBook Pro’s webcam. Apple has upgraded it with a 12MP resolution, but perhaps more interesting is the addition of Center Stage and Desk View. The former feature automatically keeps you centered in the middle of your video call’s frame as you move around, while the latter shows a top-down view of your desk without you needing to tilt your camera. Both were previously only available while usingContinuity Cameraon a compatible iPhone, but can now be used on both the MacBook Pro and theM4 iMac.

There have long been rumors that Apple is working on bringing out anOLED MacBook Prothat would swap out the MacBook Pro’s mini-LED display for something even better, but given that the latest MacBook Pro lacks anOLEDscreen, that’s clearly something for a future update.

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Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he’s learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That’s all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.

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