MacBook Pro 13" (M2, 2022)

The 2022 13-inch MacBook Pro occupies an unusual and somewhat awkward place in Mac history, arriving just months before the redesigned M2 MacBook Air and sitting uncomfortably between two much more exciting machines: the acclaimed M1 Pro/Max 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro redesign of the previous year, and its own sibling Air that would soon offer a genuinely modern chassis for less money. Rather than receiving the new flat-sided design language, MagSafe, extra ports, and mini-LED display of its larger Pro siblings, this 13-inch model simply dropped the new M2 chip into the same aging chassis Apple had used since 2016, complete with the divisive Touch Bar the rest of the MacBook Pro lineup had already abandoned, and just two Thunderbolt ports rather than the four found on the redesigned Pro models. Performance-wise, M2 delivered genuine, measurable gains over the outgoing M1 13-inch Pro, particularly in graphics-heavy and sustained workloads thanks to active cooling and a larger battery, and this model could handle short bursts of demanding work slightly better than the fanless M2 Air. But for many reviewers and prospective buyers, that modest advantage rang hollow against the far more significant question of why Apple was still selling a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar and a five-year-old design at all, when the redesigned M2 Air offered a bigger, brighter screen, MagSafe, and a more modern aesthetic for meaningfully less money. The consensus reception was polite but distinctly lukewarm, widely described as a transitional or placeholder release rather than a machine worth getting excited about, existing mostly to keep a lower price point in the Pro lineup while Apple presumably prepared a proper redesigned 13-inch or 14-inch successor. Apple would indeed retire this chassis and the Touch Bar entirely for good within about a year, folding the entry-level Pro tier into the 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro instead, cementing this generation's reputation as the last, least-loved gasp of the old pre-2021 MacBook Pro design.