There’s a speaker built into the Mac Studio M2 Max which is handy if you just want to hear something without connecting proper speakers or headsets. Don’t expect phenomenal sound quality here. It’s just to give you notification alerts and run you through system settings if you need voice prompts.
The 3.5 mm headphone jack supports high-impedance headphones which is great for studio use and as the product name suggests the Apple Mac Studio is now more studio friendly. It’s only good for headphones though and active speakers will be better with an external DAC.
Around the back, you get four Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, two USB-A ports and a 10Gb Ethernet along with the headphone jack. You also get two USB-C ports in the front of the M2 Max. For the M2 Ultra, those are Thunderbolt ports. You also get an SDXC card slot (UHS-II) on both M2 Max and Ultra.
As per the new government law, Apple has to provide a 16Amp power cord in the box which might not be suitable for people. Luckily, you can run the Apple Mac Studio M2 Max with a 5 amp socket. We tried it with this 6A Dell laptop power cord and it worked just fine.
As for wireless connectivity, the M2 Max gets an upgrade over the M1 Max with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 support.
The M2 Max starts with 512GB storage and a 30-core GPU and 32GB of unified memory. Any subsequent upgrade to storage and memory is an eyewatering investment. The 1TB storage will cost you ₹20,000 more and 2TB will cost you a wallet-crushing ₹60,000. So unlike a PC, you can’t rip the Mac Studio open and plonk an upgrade. It’s all a single piece and you have to decide at the checkout what you want and how much you’re ready to pay.