Anyone looking to get one of the new MacBooks? Price is really steep, but then again, not surprised. I have to admit, I'm more excited about Skylake + Polaris in the new ones rather than the touch bar.
Thoughts on the Macbook Pro 2016?
epicttiimm on 28/10/2016 - 14:25
Last edited 28/10/2016 - 15:14
Last edited 28/10/2016 - 15:14
Comments
They didn't have enough courage to remove it
lol, but they has more balls to put up with steep prices, with Microsoft AIO and Surface Book around the corner, might be time to switch, need 'courage' :)
Apparently Apple ran out of courage, considering the following were removed:
- Fn and ESC keys
- Ethernet jack
- SD card slot
- MagSafe
- USB Type A receptacles
- Thunderbolt / DisplayPort receptacles
Most of this is being picky.
- Ethernet has been out of many (E.g. all 13") for well over 3 years now.
- Magsafe is great, but USB-C makes it redundant. I'd prefer to have a spare magsafe connector, esp as it need not be instead of a 4th USB-C, but Jony is like a little Steve about the the simple things.
- SD card is also old skool: E.g. MicroSD would be nice but everyone uses USB storage anyhow (tho that is a good case to have included something like a memory slot, but an even better case for at least one plain-jane USB-A or Thunderbolt/DP socket.
And I'm someone who considers that any MBP should have Ethernet (even if it causes a lump somewhere), a USB-A and a Thunderbolt/Display Port and a MagSafe receptacle (even without a MagSafe adapter in the box).
Who wants to lug all those pesky adapters around from Enterprise desk to Enterprise desk is beyond me, but yes I can live without. Apple needs to thinkg more carefully about its customers.
- Would all this piss me off? A. Plenty times
- Will it impact brand loyalty? A. Of course
- Will I still buy one? Yes. Because there is no other choice without going back to an even more hostile platform
And no ESC means zip to MacOS, however for those running other OS's, virtually, physically… [WTH are they thinking?] That is a major FAIL. Who thought that a good idea?
But here's the kicker for Apple, it'll make me wait as long as I can, so probably until the second or third gen when there is almost nothing to be made from all the accessories they are trying to flog right now. And when there is so much less juice to be squeezed from people like me actively promoting the product. Given how much Apple investors whinge about having their products having such a long lifespan, they really should work on ensuring that adoption of the new is a tad easier.
Noone ever cares if their 3 yo PC has a spare, old, unused socket on it, but they would have preferred it back when they made the decision to buy.
it's got thunderbolt 3, why put thunderbolt 2 connections on?
Nevertheless I think it's really funny that you can't connect an iphone 7 to the new macbook pro unless you use an adapter from usb-c to usb-a
@klumsybot: In Apple's infinite wisdom they probably are trying to convince people to connect wirelessly. Until the battery runs out.
But here's the kicker for Apple, it'll make me wait as long as I can
Exact same thing for me and the iPhone. Was overdue to upgrade this year. Removing the headphone jack made me decide to wait a year to (a) see what they do with the 2017 iPhone model and (b) see what the competition is like.
@zerovelocity: I don't care about macs myself but it's good to see a sensible thought out response/approach from someone that does.
@muncan: I've almost given up trying to use iTunes+usb cable, the BT connectivity is pretty seamless and actually makes things so much easier. I just charge my phone when I'm asleep instead of topping off all the time now. Works just fine as I only use half the battery at most during each day.
@zerovelocity: most dslr use sd card and how would apple think sd card slot is not necessary for processing photos on mac
@wong10029: Great point!
All this really adds up. What happened in Cupertino? Has some marketing groupthink taken hold like they did the last time Steve Jobs left?
Humans- we can only succeed for a very short time indeed.
I have a 2008 MBP which is still terrific as long as you avoid safari like the plague
Also gets slow on iPhoto
Just bought a 2015 to replace it and it's obvious the 2008 will battle on for many yearsWhile Apple r a disgusting company their product just kills the opposition
Last year with the dick smith end I bought a top spec Acer , it sits there unusedGotta suck it up for now but I'm not going near this new one
I bought a top spec Acer
Ah yeah. You should choose a better brand next time you decide to dip your toes in Windows again.
Yes, but it no longer has an ESCape key.
(Seriously!)
2013 hardware
How? Looks like great specs to me. Price isn't great.
Looks like great specs to me.
Look harder.
Edit:
Top-end MacBook Pro
Costs $2,849.
2.9GHz dual-core / Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz <<< is a joke, should be quad-core.
8GB 2133MHz memory <<< is a joke, should be 16GB.
Intel Iris Graphics 540 <<< not even dedicated graphics card for this price?
512GB PCIe-based SSD.
Thunderbolt 3 ports x 2.Razer Blade (old version)
Costs $2,999.
Intel® Core™ i7–6700HQ Quad-Core Processor with Hyper-Threading 2.6GHz / Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz.
16GB 2133MHz dual-channel memory.
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M <<< dedicated graphics card.
256GB PCIe-based SSD.
USB 3.0 port x 2.
Thunderbolt 3 port x 1.
Multi-point touchscreen.Look at how much more i'm getting for an extra $150. I'm comparing the new MacBook Pro to an old version of the Razer Blade.
I don't know why i can't edit my last post, because i got something wrong. The prices i posted for the MacBook Pro are student prices not regular prices. Can Mods please edit my post?
The MacBook Pro (for students) costs $2,849, extra stuff costs:
- +$430 for i7 Dual-Core processor <<< still Dual-Core…
- +$290 for 16GB memory.
- +$580 for 1TB SSD.
For non-students, it costs $2,999, extra stuff costs:
- +$480 for i7 Dual-Core processor <<< still Dual-Core…
- +$320 for 16GB memory.
- +$640 for 1TB SSD.
Edit: format.
I don't know why i can't edit my last post
Can't edit after it's been posted for one hour.
Can Mods please edit my post?
If they don't it will probably just get negged to indicate it's wrong info
Agreed with you on all aspect. But portability wise, how do they compare? I heard that the new macbook is 3 pound.
Its literally the newest CPU hardware that is available. Appropriate Kaby Lake processors won't be out until early next year.
Kaby Lake
Razer has it so that's no excuse.
16gb of max ram non upgradable.
2TB SSD is $1,400 USD extra and soldered on so you can't change it.@fruit, is 100% right.
I have no idea why he was negged in previous posts.
People need to STOP comparing Apple products to older Apple products. This is the reason why Apple gets away with ridiculous pricing for such low/mid-spec laptops.
People should compare Apple products to their competitors instead.
What kind of "appropriate processors" are they? You can get a ThinkPad E470 with Kaby Lake i7-7200U since beginning of this month.
The quad core equivalent of the i7-6770HQ. The only Kaby Lake CPUs are mobile and dual core. (Like the i7-7200U)
but they could of used it in the 13in models. My guess is because it may cause less people to buy the 15in as it would have an older cpu.
@ozhunter: Honestly, they should've used quad core CPUs in both the 13 and 15in models. Funny how one of the MBPs is more 'pro' than the other.
Kaby Lake in laptops are already out. Laptops with Skylake chips are so last year.
2013 hardware
Didn't know Skylake and DDR4 were around in 2013.
Edit: It's LPDDR3. My mistake.
DDR3? Oh no, a whole 1% performance losss compared to DDR4. MBP IS TOTES DISASSTERS!!!!!!one111!!!one!!!
Looks great. Costs a lot, but then so does the Surface Book/Pro/Studio so…. I guess that's just the market price for top hardware.
Going to be hard to convince my boss to buy me one though.
Thanks OP got one
Microsoft is on their heels.
If you have an iPhone you won't be able to charge it unless you buy a Lightning to USB C adapter which is listed at $35 Australian. It has only USB Type C ports.
That is an important point, you'll need adaptors for lots of things because USB C isn't that common yet. But I wonder… how many people connect what to their laptops? (I'm a developer, so atypical) I do hope we get more third-party hubs for USB-A (socket) to USB-C, with DisplayPort ideally.
At the very least one monitor or projector.
Usually 2.
Would love a laptop with 2 hdmi.
You use HDMI not DisplayPort? So no 4k or other high-res screens?
I don't know who came up with the VGA and DVI plugs but oh if I had a dollar for every bent pin (I could probably afford 1 dual-link DVI cable… HA).
@lupiter: HDMI 1.4 supports 4k.
I've never bent a pin on VGA or DVI but I've seen plenty of them destroyed.Business class laptops tend to have 1x hdmi + 1x mdp. I've adapted the mdp of an X1 Carbon G4, T460 and X260 over to hdmi (using a passive/dumb adapter) to hdmi and run 3x hdmi screens before.
Dell's E7470 / E7270 do it too.
I used hdmi because I need a 30m run, easier to get hdmi cables and amps in that length than DP. Yes I know about hdmi over ethernet.
@fruit: Here's a dumb one from MSY
Note that my laptops have a mdp++ port which means it can detect what's on the other side. If it's not a dp++ port then this might not work.
I've Been wanting to upgrade my trusty early macbook pro 2012 for a while now as it has started to lag. I was waiting for the new macbook pro to buy as I can claim some back through tax and trs. But after the release im greatly disappointed. And I'm unsure if I should look elsewhere?
Firstly I like the idea of usb c but wouldn't it have been better to include at least one usb a? Also I need memory card reader slot as I do always transfer a lot of my photos over for editing and so forth.
I dunno… What is everyone's view? Should I look elsewhere. Or should I just get the new macbook and buy all these adapters as well..
If you don't have an SSD in your Macbook Pro, try upgrading that first (at least you had that luxury back then), and get a few more years out of the old one till USB-C is more common. Less pain all round.
And 16gb ram
Is the ram soldered on in the 2012 version
@fruit: Easier manufacturing
Cheaper
Space saving
And as altomic said, probably some planned obsolescence@stickyfingers:
Easier manufacturing -> [Citation needed]
Cheaper -> Have you seen Apple's memory prices for consumers? They are bloody high.
Space saving -> What's wrong with So Dimms?@fruit:
Easier manufacturing - I don't have a source to back this up but common sense would say that being able to drop a chip on a board and bake it on is easier than having a robot insert a detachable module into a slot/socket.Cheaper - I should have said cheaper manufacturing. Whatever increases profit margins. It's up to Apple to pass those savings onto the consumers.
Space saving - For starters, the socket itself takes up a large amount of space when you're trying to compact the size of a board. In a market where companies are pushing for sub-millimeter savings, that adds up really quickly. Not to mention the clips to hold the module in.
Chip creep is also a concern. If they're soldered onto the board that's not an issue, meaningless repairs so fewer labour costs for AASPs/Stores/Service centres and also higher customer satisfaction.
Common sense does not include robotics and mass manufacturing processes in high tech.
What if I told you the ram that is soldered is bigger than so dimms?
Chip creep is also a concern. If they're soldered onto the board that's not an issue, meaningless repairs so fewer labour costs for AASPs/Stores/Service centres and also higher customer satisfaction.
Wow. Not sure if serious or deluded by the reality distortion field. Apple makes a mint off repairs, repairs due to damage are not free.
Face it you have no idea what you are talking about and just love Apple blindly.
@fruit:
Common sense to me says that it's easier to drop something onto a target area with zero insertion force then push it through clips and into a sidewards slot. In this case dropping the chips onto the board rather than inserting modules.Why do you think processors are soldered onto most (if not all) new laptops now?
What if I told you the ram that is soldered is bigger than so dimms?
Then you'd be full of s***.
Wow. Not sure if serious or deluded by the reality distortion field. Apple makes a mint off repairs, repairs due to damage are not free.
Not sure if you noticed, however, Apple includes a free warranty with all of its products. That's a cost to them. Also, chip creep isn't usually caused by damage. Therefore, it's a warranty issue.
Face it you have no idea what you are talking about and just love Apple blindly.
Clearly, I do have knowledge on this subject. And you having to ask the question of why shows you don't.
It's not just Apple who now does this; Lenovo, ASUS, Dell and Toshiba (just to mention a few) all have machines with soldered memory.No need to make this a personal attack when I'm simply providing a possible and reasonable answer to your question.
Everyone keep saying there should include an USB A port but you have to remember that USB A ports are huge in comparison of USB C.
If they stuck to USB A they won't be able to make the computer thinner hence the trade off.
I doubt this, X1 Carbon G4 is 16.5mm while MBP 2016 is 15mm.
If you are comfortable with Windows 10, the XPS or Surface Book is the way to go.
@mrpt I go tthe same version MPB mid-2012 version.
I've added in:
- 16gb RAM (2 x 8GB sticks). Very cheap now. You can get them locally or via OWC (USA delivery fee but best to buy other stuff with it to reduce the average postage cost).
- 240GB Sandisk SSD. I paid a lot for this back in 2013 but you can get a 480GB for about $150 locally now. I assume your HDD is the 500GB model so I suggest you get a 480GB SSD or even a 1TB one if you got the money. My boot up time went from 1min 40 secs (HDD) to 30 secs (SSD), so you can imagine how fast everything will be once you change over to a SSD.Lastly, I took out the CD drive and purchased a HDD bracket mount from ebay to house the hold 500GB HDD. If I was you now, I would change that to another SSD if you need the memory.
You'll get another year or two of life in your MBP before upgrading.
Hit me up if you need more advice on this. I got some photos too so it'll give you an idea of what it looks like inside.
I have a mid-2012 Macbook Pro, with the upgraded GPU, a 1TB aftermarket SATA 3 SSD ($300) and an aftermarket 16GB of apple-certified ram ($200).
Touch bar looks nice, but it will take a few years before the devs see enough of a market to justify adding extra features in. Is the touch bar coming to the apple wireless keyboard for the iMac? Or is is a laptop exclusive feature?
It has four ports total, which means that after plugging in the digital AV adapter (2x $109 for power and a display and usb 3.1 in order to have one for home and one for work) I will have 3 ports left. I'm also going to have to carry around a card reader (USB C = $50) that I can't use on any other machine.
The GPU power looks better, according to benchmarks comparing the RX 460 and the R2 M395X, it has almost as much GPU power as the full-size iMac 5K, which I also own. I can tell you that driving 1 5K display is not a smooth experience yet on the iMac, so the promise of driving 2 5K screens on the laptop? come on Apple - I would say that is a deliberately deceptive comment, as the limited VRAM causes huge issues once you start to do some heavy multitasking (which is the whole point of multiple screens).
As I still use USB sticks now and then, I will be lugging around an extra dongle everywhere I go ($19), or buy one of those double ended usb monstrosities.
Oh, and the price? If I just want to get the same 1TB SSD and 16GB ram as I currently have, $5000 plus $300 in adapters…. YIKES.
And you can't change the SSD as it's soldered on
entry level
So the one without the touch bar.
So the one without the touch bar.
Correct. That's the only one that's started shipping so we'll have to wait and see if it's removable in the touch bar version too.
You can but it aint easy.
From ifixit:
"The proprietary PCIe SSD still isn't a standard drive. Cross your fingers for future compatible drives; for now, you're stuck with what you've got."
I think Apple has lost the plot. This is coming from someone who has used iOS and Mac OSX for the last 7 years.
I've currently got a 2013 15" MBP that is running a 4K monitor and it's not keeping up. I was ready to upgrade once these new MBPs were released. The lack of any DisplayPort, HDMI, or regular USB ports requires me to buy at least 3 adapters. In addition to that, the cheapest 15" option is $3600 which is crazy. I guess I'm sticking with my current MBP for now.
I know what you mean. It's hard to know what kind of person doing what kind of job, would have enough money to buy one of these, but who would not have to drag around a swag of adapters for everyday use? Surely adapters are not apples idea of an ideal solution?
I have a 2012 Retina MBP, and to get a similar "spec" in the new machines would be $5500+. I'd been prepared to upgrade this time around, but this is just ridiculous.
Same here!!!
At least the 2nd hand market prices will be going up, as less people will be leaving behind their current MBP.
Agree!
Example of Apples 'courage' in the post Jobs era to shaft it's users with higher prices, thinking they are locked in to the OSX and iOS systems, all in order to maintain profits.
Apple is at risk of going the way of Nokia and Blackberry - unless they wake up and don't just sit on huge current profits.
Good but expensive.
While the thunderbolt ports are great, I can see how it's annoying for those who do use the sd card slot and usb drives. They could of made the transition a little easier by have one usb 3.0 port.
If you remember when thunderbolt was introduced it sounded like a great idea, but very few devices were ever made, and those that were were very expensive.
I don't think apple would bet everything on one connector if they didn't think this is where everything is going. I like the USB C connector, and fortunately it looks like it will be more successful than thunderbolt.
Unfortunately, there is inevitably a pain period before it becomes standard - all we have to do is wait a year or two for the early adopters to do the hard work for us.
Can't a usb c drive plug into this new mbp?
Yea, the transition period will be annoying but only putting TB ports will help speed up the transition.
You can plug both, which is one of the major benefits of this connector. I just found I only ever used TB ports as DP. Everything TB seemed to be massively/insanely overpriced compared to USB 3.
I am still using a Samsung laptop from 2009. It still runs well but it is thick, gets hot, only has 720p screen and has trouble when trying to multi task. I was considering getting a Macbook pro because I like the design but always thought Apple is incredibly over priced, really can't justify the expense. Seriously $3600 for a 15" laptop.. just crazy, can buy a decent car for that. Like the Lenovos which i have seen on here a bit, will probably end up with one of them.
Has anyone built a hackintosh before? Or any suggestions for going back to windows?
Yea a few years ago. Looks a lot easier now. tonymacx86 has a detailed guide.
yeah tried that. Real PITA, to set up and to use. Much much easier having a mac and using parallels for Windows.
Microsoft doesn't punish you for wanting to use their products.
For now anyway.
It's actually very easy these days. i7 4790K and GTX 970 + a GigaByte Z97 motherboard and you'll be able to install OS X using a regular boot disk. Getting iMessage to work is a bit more trouble but can be sorted in 5-10 minutes if you follow a guide.
I installed OS X on a laptop in 2010 and it took me ages, a lot of hacking around and patching stuff.
I installed OS X again last year and I was amazed at how simple it was. You just need to stick to a few things if you want an easy process: Intel, GigaByte, Nvidia (GTX 9XX series), RAM, SSD, they don't matter. WiFi is a bit hit and miss but you can pick up an official Mac Pro BT/WiFi card for around $50 that supports a/b/g/n/ac, which is a great price for a Bluetooth/WiFi card.
It's actually easy these days, using a t450 currently with el capitan and everything works brilliantly. Just had to change the wifi card. The trick is in researching which laptops are fully working, then most of the work is already done for you. The guys on tonymac are also very helpful when you have a well known model.
Yep, desktop is even easier. WiFi and audio require a little more work, but you should be able to get both working by running a few simple scripts.
I don't seriously see the appeal with the touch bar. Almost everything they demoed on the Keynote to use the Touch Bar was already a click away (the Send button in emails for example), could be performed with a keyboard shortcut or could easily be done with the trackpad, such as scrubbing through video (two fingers trackpad scroll).
USB-C ports are definitely the way to go, however, it's extremely annoying that Apple is not committing to it for all their products (lightning on their wireless accessories for charging and lightning on the iPhone 7 & iPad Air 2, etc). It sucks too that there's no more MagSafe which was seriously useful.
Also, strange note; the 13" non-touch bar version has a larger battery than the 13" touch bar version, despite having a lower clocked processor?
It's a gimmick. Force Touch is also kind of gimmicky, the home screen shortcuts being a prime example. However, app switching, cursor movement (kind of), view previews are pretty good. Apple just get caught up in the "Wow factor" in their demos, instead of actual functionality. The touch bar is probably great for when you want to scrub a currently playing song or change shuffle/repeat mode without opening iTunes. There might be a few other specific things and TouchID is another plus.
8GB->16GB 2133 RAM = 320 WTF!
Even by Apple markup standards thats pretty bad, probably close to 500% given their buying power.
Personally i cant believe there is no 32GB option for the 15".yeah it's just ridiculous!
Im a huge Apple fan, but the new Pro is a load of bullshit. To not put even one regular sized USB port on the thing is retarded. I don't own one USB-C device, but I own countless USB devices. Adapters and dongles are for suckers. (profanity) you Apple.
well USB A port is too thick to fit it in this enclosure.
really doubt it
Does it have headphone jack?