2020 13-inch MacBook Pro review: The standard macOS workhorse

Apple’s overhaul of its laptop lineup is complete: the new 13-inch MacBook Pro ditches the controversial butterfly keyboard in favor of the tried-and-true Magic Keyboard, and it brings spec bumps, to boot.

While the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is in most respects very similar to its 2019 predecessor, this update rounds out an overhaul of the MacBook lineup that Apple has had underway for several months.

The result is an effective workhorse machine that fills a gap in the lineup for the kinds of professional and hobbyist users who need strong CPU performance, but for whom graphics are secondary—people like developers and the like.

Table of Contents

• Specifications
• Design
• Yes, the butterfly keyboard is gone
• Performance
• The middle ground
• The good
• The bad
• The ugly

Specifications

Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020)

STARTING AT $1,299.99 FROM AMAZON

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There are a number of configuration options for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, of course, but the big divide is between the model with two Thunderbolt 3 ports and the one with four. The first two standard configurations—which start at $1,299 and $1,499—have the new Magic Keyboard, but they lack the 10^th-generation Intel CPUs or the faster memory. Plus, two Thunderbolt 3 ports just isn’t optimal for most use cases.

Our review unit has four ports, and that’s the one we’d recommend buying to most people who are interested in this device. The benefit of the 13-inch MacBook Pro over the MacBook Air is a bit fuzzy at the former’s low-end specs. But going to those 10^th-gen CPUs and four Thunderbolt ports makes a big difference. (The 4-port configurations start at $1,799.)

The cheapest two-port spec comes equipped with a 1.4GHz quad-core 8^th generation Intel Core i5 CPU, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645, 8GB of LPDDR3 memory at 2133MHz, and 256GB of solid-state storage. The four-port config starts with a 2GHz quad-core 10^th-generation Core i5, newer Iris Plus graphics with 64 execution units 16GB of 3733MHz LPDDR4X memory, and 512GB of storage with read/write up to 3GB/s.

You can upgrade the CPU to a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, the memory to 32GB, and the storage to 1, 2, or 4TB. (The last of those storage upgrades costs a bonkers $1,200 over the base 512GB option, so it certainly won’t be an option for everybody.)

Maybe this is just a person with a hammer seeing everything as a nail, but to me, this machine’s configuration options seem deliberately tailored for Web and mobile app developers. They’re more than adequate for most Web and mobile design work, too. However, as strong as Intel’s Iris Pro integrated graphics have gotten over the years, they still don’t hold a candle to discrete graphics. Potential buyers looking to do 3D modeling, game development, video editing, or even heavy-duty photo editing might want to look at the 16-inch model instead (or any number of desktops or Windows laptops, of course).

The current version of macOS supports external GPU solutions, and Apple sells one in its own store from Blackmagic Design that includes a Radeon Pro 580 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5 memory. That’s a step-up for this device, but that GPU is getting a little long in the tooth, and Apple seems to have stopped selling a more expensive, more powerful alternative from Blackmagic.

All that is to say that as long as graphics performance is not your main priority, the 13-inch MacBook Pro offers plenty of configuration options to you.

In terms of other specs, the MacBook Pro has a 720p front-facing camera (which seems a little weak for this price, to be honest), and it supports Bluetooth 5.0. Unfortunately, this laptop doesn’t support Wi-Fi 6—an unfortunate omission given that these laptops should be built to last, and Apple’s new mobile devices have it. Wi-Fi 6 isn’t widespread yet, but it surely will be well before this laptop’s life cycle is over.

This device has a 2,560×1,600-pixel, 13.3-inch display at 500 nits of brightness. It’s a very good display, and while there are higher-resolution screens out there, it’s more than good enough for this screen size.

Apple claims this laptop can get up to 10 hours of battery life when browsing the Web wirelessly or watching video content on the Apple TV app.

Design

At first glance, you might not notice a difference between this MacBook Pro and its immediate predecessor. While Apple slimmed the bezels and increased the screen size from 15 inches to 16 in this laptop’s bigger cousin, the basic design is essentially unchanged here.

It’s very slightly, barely noticeably thicker to accommodate the new keyboard. And obviously, the keyboard and Touch Bar layout is different. But other than that, this is the same old 13-inch MacBook Pro. That’s not a bad thing, though it would have been nice to get just a little more screen real estate like we did in the bigger MacBook Pro.

The laptop comes in two color options: silver and space gray.

As mentioned above, there are configurations with two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and others with four. For most use cases this laptop is intended for, I don’t feel that two is enough—especially since one is going to be used for power.

Buying the two-port option essentially guarantees that most users will want to buy a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 dock, and many of those are pricey enough that a lot of people might as well just buy the four-port version of this laptop.

Yes, the butterfly keyboard is gone

The most noticeable change is the new keyboard. I’ve already written quite a bit about this transition in the previously published 16-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air reviews, but the short version is that the butterfly keyboards included in the previous model were both divisive (some people hated the typing experiences, others liked it) and unreliable.

The latter was arguably the biggest issue; Apple had to launch a free repair program for virtually its entire laptop line to fix repeatedly failing butterfly keyboards. The company tried updating the design a couple times, which might have helped with reliability, but ultimately the answer was to hit the reset button and go to a tried-and-true scissor switch design modeled after the Magic Keyboard peripheral that Apple has long sold to go along with Macs.

So, this laptop’s keyboard is now called the “Magic Keyboard.”

Sometimes I wonder if Apple’s propensity for clearly absurd names like “Magic Keyboard” drives away more customers than it inspires; it might make people assume Apple is composed of charlatans selling snake oil. But in any case, it’s a very good laptop keyboard, even if it’s not “magic.”

It offers 1mm of key travel. Apple says a rubber dome under each keycap preserves more energy than before, and the scissor mechanism locks into the keycap at the top of travel. Apple claims the latter of those details reduces wobble and increases stability.

The layout is a little different from prior, butterfly-equipped units, too. The arrow keys now have an inverted T shape, there’s a physical escape key, and the Touch ID sensor (which doubles as the power button) is now distinct from the Touch Bar.

Touch Bar support from third-party apps is still mixed, and no one really needs a Touch Bar, but it can be nice to have. The only thing you’re sacrificing for it now is physical function keys. Most users won’t care, but a few will. Unfortunately for them, Apple no longer sells any MacBook Pros with physical function keys.

I didn’t hate the butterfly keyboards as much as some people did, but I think this scissor-switch design offers a great typing experience. Between that and Apple’s top-notch touchpad, I don’t think most people will have many complaints about input, here.

Even if you preferred the butterfly keyboard, I don’t think you’ll hate this one. The reliability improvements probably make it worth the change no matter how you felt about the old keyboard.

Performance

Aside from the keyboard, performance improvements are a big part of the story here. That said, it’s important to note that there seems to be a significant disparity in potential performance between the lowest-end 13-inch MacBook Pros available, which use older and slower processors and RAM, and the various configurations of the highest-price point 13-inch MacBook Pro.

So to be clear, our review unit is a default configuration of the top of the three default MacBook Pro specs, which means it has the newer CPUs and faster RAM. We have not tested the lower end models, but the specifications seem to suggest that one should not expect significant improvements over the previous generation or even the latest MacBook Air at the lower end, making those cheaper Pros a tough sell for many.

All that said, here are the specs for the laptops and desktops we are comparing in these charts:

Now, here are the results of our benchmarks.

In terms of multicore burst CPU performance, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is a welcome bump up over the MacBook Air. It also offers substantially better graphics performance. That said, a kitted-out 16-inch (and substantially more expensive) model smokes this 13-inch Pro across the board, especially in graphics. We also tested the 13-inch MacBook Pro against a roughly equivalently priced and recent Dell laptop and found that the Dell laptop offered just a little bit better CPU performance in these kinds of tests, given its configuration.

As has often been the case during this review process, I am constantly drawn to the idea that the 13-inch MacBook Pro is ideal for software development for the Web or Apple platforms. That really seems to be what it’s configured for. It doesn’t provide strong-enough video performance to be a daily driver for professional video editors or photographers who are targeting traditional media, but it could be worthwhile for a prosumer or a social media producer.

Still, the device offers roughly competitive performance against a similar Windows laptop and is a step up from the Air across the board. The Air, we should point out, gets very loud, whereas the Pro does not, and the Air likely does not have a thermal setup that can deliver sustained performance. Both can get quite hot to the touch, though. Of course, if you want massive sustained performance, a 13-inch laptop may not meet your needs to begin with.

Apple promises similar battery life to the prior MacBook Pro. We’re still testing this and will update with final results tomorrow after the last of our required test cycles concludes.

The middle ground

Whereas the MacBook Air makes compromises to bring the cost and size down, and the 16-inch MacBook Pro seeks to cram maximum performance in an Apple-style chassis, the 13-inch MacBook Pro feels like the ideal middle ground of all MacBook priorities.

It’s portable but not to the point that you’re making huge performance or fan noise sacrifices. It offers strong performance, but not so much that it’s impractically large. While most users will be best served by the simple accessibility of the Air, and a select few will need the heavy guns of the 16-inch, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is the Mac laptop for absolutely everyone else.

Expanded RAM choices combined with strong CPU configuration options and a return to the tried-and-true keyboard arguably make this an ideal iOS or Web developer laptop, for example. But the Intel Iris graphics are fast enough for design work for the Web or mobile apps, too. (They won’t stand up to the 16-inch in demanding tasks like 3D modeling, game development, video editing, or heavy-duty photo editing, though.)

So, while an argument can always be made for Windows alternatives, this is the definitive macOS workhorse. Most people don’t need the graphical power of the 16-inch MacBook Pro, but quite a few will appreciate the significant performance advantage this laptop offers compared to the cheaper MacBook Air, provided they go for the higher-end spec.

For the first time in a while, Apple’s laptop lineup is looking both consistent and comprehensive. That’s a good thing, because more options are available for each user’s specific use case.

The good

• Strong CPU and memory performance in the higher-priced specs
• Sturdy, portable design
• Replaces the butterfly keyboard with something (probably) much more reliable
• Tends to run quietly
• macOS is as good as ever

The bad

• Graphics performance is solid but not good enough for heavy work on 4K video and other similarly demanding tasks
• Lower-priced specs are not that much faster than the cheaper, smaller MacBook Air
• Can get a little hot to the touch

The ugly

• Lower-priced specs only have two Thunderbolt ports