Apple is continuing to update its lineup of MacBook laptops today, refreshing the 13-inch MacBook Pro with some improved specs and a new keyboard.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro features the same Magic Keyboard included with the 16-inch MacBook Pro announced late last year and the new MacBook Air that launched in March. This new keyboard has a scissor mechanism rather than the much-maligned butterfly keys that were used in Apple's recent laptops.
The redesigned scissor mechanism of the 13-inch MacBook Pro offers 1mm of key travel. The Magic Keyboard also features inverted "T" arrow keys, a physical Escape key, a Touch Bar, and a Touch ID fingerprint reader.
Powering the 13-inch MacBook Pro is your choice of an 8th gen or 10th gen Intel processor. Apple offers 16GB of speedier 3733MHz memory as a standard option across all of the 13-inch MacBook Pro models, and for the first time on a 13-inch Mac laptop, customers have the option of packing in 32GB of RAM.
Storage now starts at 256GB on the 13-inch MacBook Pro and goes up to 4TB. All storage is offered in SSDs with sequential read speeds of up to 3.0GB/s.
The display on this new MacBook Pro didn't get a size increase like the formerly-15-inch-now-16-inch laptop. That means it's sticking with a 13.3-inch LED-backlit screen with a resolution of 2560x1600.
Rounding out the new 13-inch MacBook Pro's feature set is 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, a 720p FaceTime HD camera, stereo speakers, and a trio of ports: two Thunderbolt/USB-C and one 3.5mm headphone jack.
Pricing for the new 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,299. Apple is taking orders for its new laptop today in its online store, and it'll begin arriving in Apple's retail stores later this week.
With this update to the 13-inch MacBook Pro, Apple has fully moved away from the butterfly keyboard mechanism that it's been using in its laptops in recent years. That mechanism has gotten a lot of flak for having reliability issues, including problems that could be caused if dust or crumbs got under the keys. Now all of Apple's MacBooks include a scissor keyboard mechanism many feel is more reliable and comfortable to type on.
