The new Mac Pro: First look and hands-on slideshow

Our Mac Pro flew Southwest Airlines, presumably traveling from the Texas Apple facility where the Mac Pro is assembled.

Inside the shipping container is a similarly sized box containing the Mac Pro itself. The box itself is roughly 14 inches tall, and 8 or 9 inches wide—this clearly isn’t the old Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro doesn’t ship with a keyboard or mouse—or, of course, any physical software media. Inside, you’ll find only the computer, a power cable, and the usual paper copies of software licenses and the like.

The Mac Pro comes wrapped in a clear-plastic covering. You wouldn’t want to scratch the beautiful, extruded-aluminum enclosure before you even get a chance to boot up, right? 

The Mac Pro is closer in color to the “Space Gray” of the current iPad and iPhone models than to black. Though the gray finish looks even lighter with bright light reflecting off of it, as you can see here.

The exterior of the Mac Pro is made from a single piece of aluminum; the process is shown in Apple’s video on the manufacturing process. It’s shiny, attractive, and a magnet for fingerprints. We suspect scratches will be easily noticeable, as well.

The top of the Mac Pro serves double duty as a vent for the (surprisingly quiet) fan system and as a handle for carrying the computer. At just 11 pounds, it’s easy to tote when needed.

On the back of the Mac Pro are all of its many ports and connections, conveniently backlit whenever the computer senses motion nearby. You’ll find six Thunderbolt 2 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, two independent Gigabit-ethernet ports, an HDMI-video port, and audio jacks.

Slide the case’s lock tab, and the aluminum exterior slides off to reveal the components inside.

Behind this circuit board is the Mac Pro’s processor, pressed tightly against the computer’s thermal core (a central heat sink and ventilation system).

The Mac Pro’s memory (RAM) is easily upgraded; pressing this tab gives you access to the existing memory modules.

In typical Apple style, even the bottom of the Mac Pro is attractive—and reminds you that the computer was assembled in the U.S.