New MacBook Pro 2021 rumor delivers both good and bad news

News
By Darren Allan
published

64GB of RAM supposedly not happening, but UHS-II SD card slot could be

Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1, 2020) Keyboard Deck
(Image credit: Future)

The incoming redesigned MacBook Pro models (rumored to be the MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021) and MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021)) from Apple will top out with a memory configuration of 32GB RAM according to a fresh rumor.

This comes from Apple leaker Luke Miani on YouTube, who believes that the incoming laptops will be capped at 32GB, and won’t offer the ability to ramp that up to 64GB as speculation (from the likes of Mark Gurman at Bloomberg) previously indicated.

If true, this would obviously be disappointing for those who are keen on getting a MacBook Pro with the purported M1X chip (or whatever the M1 successor ends up being called) and pairing it with a ton of memory.

That said, whichever way you dice it, 32GB is still a lot more than you can get with the current M1-powered MacBooks, which max out at 16GB of system memory. And of course, we must take this claim with a suitable heap of condiments (just like Gurman’s assertion – which may, of course, still turn out to be correct).

Better news

There’s some more positive news in Miani’s spillage, mind you, in terms of the redesigned MacBook Pro supposedly benefiting from an SD card slot with UHS-II support to allow for speedy file transfers, and a backlit Touch ID button. The latter could consist of multiple small LEDs leading to the possibility that it might feature animations of some kind.

We’ve already heard that the revamped laptops are expected to bring back MagSafe charging, and will run with a flat-edged design rather than curves. As mentioned, the new MacBook Pros are rumored to be powered by the M1X chip, and should launch later in 2021 going by the latest gossip.

The biggest change, if it happens, will be that much-talked-about Mini-LED screen, but that could also be the biggest pain point in terms of a potential stumbling block to a timely launch, given current component shortage woes.

Via 9 to 5 Mac

Darren Allan

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).