Low End Macbook Pro has an MBA Processor (and battery life)

[dingclancy23]

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/791729086465007616

"Low-end 13: 15W CPUs, 55WH batteries TouchBar 13: 28W CPUs, 49WH batteries Both say “10 hours” of battery life. I’d love to know why."

It seems that the 1499 MBP just has a new body but the same innards as an MBA (with a Retina Display!) and even a bigger battery than the Touchbar one.

They just had to say 10 hours to not make the Touchbar MBP's look bad.

Thoughts?

If that holds true and it has a 12-14 hour battery life because it maintains the essence of an Air, which is all day battery.

 

[Boyd01]

Well it is thinner and smaller than the 13" MBA, they held them together in the presentation. So maybe they needed a smaller battery to make it "impossibly thin"?

 

[dingclancy23]

Well it is thinner and smaller than the 13" MBA, they held them together in the presentation. So maybe they needed a smaller battery to make it "impossibly thin"?

What I mean is the new non-touchbar low end MBP has a bigger battery (and a smaller wattage) than the Touchbar MBP.
The current low-end MBP should perform like an MBA including having better battery life than the more expensive one theoretically.

 

[Macbook14in]

it's not worth it... such a weak CPU

 

[HelsinkiMac]

Yeah, a couple of us commented on this on the MacRumors post on the non-touchbar 13" model. It really does seem that this is the successor to the MacBook Air, but for some reason they have rebranded it as a Pro... And the battery life thing is...odd, it makes no sense unless as you say it's to not make the toucher models look bad!

As far as I can see, the processors in this are faster in clock speeds than the MBA plus the small speed and efficiency bump to Skylake, so it really is a new improved MBA all round.

I want to see the reviews for the battery life, but will probably save the $300/€300 by skipping the touchbar, 28W CPU, Iris 550 instead of 540, higher RAM speed, and 4 ports that seem to be the differences in the touchbar version.

 

[Boyd01]

for some reason they have rebranded it as a Pro...

Seemed clear to me. They want to kill the MacBook Air brand and put it behind them. And it will make consumers feel better about paying $1500 for a bottom of the line model if it's called a "Pro".

 

[sracer]

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/791729086465007616

"Low-end 13: 15W CPUs, 55WH batteries TouchBar 13: 28W CPUs, 49WH batteries Both say “10 hours” of battery life. I’d love to know why."

It seems that the 1499 MBP just has a new body but the same innards as an MBA (with a Retina Display!) and even a bigger battery than the Touchbar one.

They just had to say 10 hours to not make the Touchbar MBP's look bad.

Thoughts?

If that holds true and it has a 12-14 hour battery life because it maintains the essence of an Air, which is all day battery.

You posted this in another thread, and I responded there. I'll repeat a portion of my response here...
Doubtful that the new MBP will have 12-14 hour battery life. If it does Apple would've mentioned it.

This new MBP is NOT "essentially an MBA". There is far more to the MBA than "all day battery life".

 

[kattskrall]

The guy said it at the presentation. The macbook without touch strip is for people who bought the macbook air, implying it is indeed the MBA successor.

Problem is the last generations(2012-2015) of the macbook air actually was(is) a fully fledged computer. It can run any applications that the MBP can and it have usable ports and great battery life. A maxed out MBA could compare to a later MBP in geekbench easily. The numbers alone make me go WTF about what is going on at apple. Well that's another thread.

The new 2 port (where one is used for charging) abomination is more gimped than the macbook air was compared to the MBP.

RIP!

 

[Boyd01]

A maxed out MBA could compare to a later MBP in geekbench easily.

I have a, 11" 2013 i7 MBA, it has a geekbench score of 7241 which is even better. Still completely happy with this machine, no plans to upgrade.

 

[blesscheese]

The guy said it at the presentation. The macbook without touch strip is for people who bought the macbook air, implying it is indeed the MBA successor.!

So, it's almost like after that big report from IBM saying they saved about $533 dollars per person using Mac's, Apple said "We can raise our prices about $500-$600", lol!

I'm going to wind up buying a 2015 MBA to replace by 2009 MBA whose hinge just broke. I'm not yet into buying a bunch of USB-C adaptors.

 

[turbineseaplane]

If they had put a retina screen in the existing 13" Air and done nothing else...

Would have sold like hotcakes to a certain segment that really is ok with MagSafe and some non-dongle port variety.

 

[blesscheese]

If they had put a retina screen in the existing 13" Air and done nothing else...

Would have sold like hotcakes to a certain segment that really is ok with MagSafe and some non-dongle port variety.

Agreed. And just think if, nothing else, they kept the rMBP about the same thickness, but had room for 32GB of RAM?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Agreed. And just think if, nothing else, they kept the rMBP about the same thickness, but had room for 32GB of RAM?

Whoa whoa whoa solider!
That's wayyyy too much "giving the customer what they might actually want"!

This is Apple! They need to force a "vision" on us that involves very little of what people are actually asking for!

/s

 

[dingclancy23]

You posted this in another thread, and I responded there. I'll repeat a portion of my response here...
Doubtful that the new MBP will have 12-14 hour battery life. If it does Apple would've mentioned it.

This new MBP is NOT "essentially an MBA". There is far more to the MBA than "all day battery life".

We will see what the battery tests say, but a 15W processor and 28W processor is just a different class in terms of power consumption. Perhaps they did something different in the system to handle the wattage to make this difference negligible, but 28 vs 15 should be a real world difference.

Then add that the 1499 MBP has a bigger battery, I'd be surprised if this does not get 12 hours in real world use.

Actually it could go two ways. 10 hours is just really a nebulous, advertised, marketing number. Perhaps the low end MBP will get a consistent 10 while the touchbar MBP will get 7 to 8. Or the low end MBP gets a consistent 12 and touchbar MBP gets a consistent 10. Either way the low end MBP should have a significant advantage to the battery life.

------

 

[MICHAELSD]

Yeah, a couple of us commented on this on the MacRumors post on the non-touchbar 13" model. It really does seem that this is the successor to the MacBook Air, but for some reason they have rebranded it as a Pro... And the battery life thing is...odd, it makes no sense unless as you say it's to not make the toucher models look bad!

As far as I can see, the processors in this are faster in clock speeds than the MBA plus the small speed and efficiency bump to Skylake, so it really is a new improved MBA all round.

I want to see the reviews for the battery life, but will probably save the $300/€300 by skipping the touchbar, 28W CPU, Iris 550 instead of 540, higher RAM speed, and 4 ports that seem to be the differences in the touchbar version.

If anything they should've tapered the design of this model so it's as thin as a MacBook Air at its thinnest point, slapped the Air branding on it, and called it a day.

 

[manhattanboy]

You posted this in another thread, and I responded there. I'll repeat a portion of my response here...
Doubtful that the new MBP will have 12-14 hour battery life. If it does Apple would've mentioned it.

This new MBP is NOT "essentially an MBA". There is far more to the MBA than "all day battery life".

The new macbook air was the macbook. Not sure why everyone keeps hoping for something different. The MBA was introduced as a crippled machine but with ultraportability that could run a full OS. The Macbook is essentially continuing that line of thought. Many folks forget that the MBA had very few ports. The only thing that sucks about the current macbook is that the charger eats up the only port. After all of the complaints they really should have figured out a way to get two usb C ports in there for ver2. Hopefully third time is the charm for the macbook.

I think it great that the macbook pro is now the same form factor as the air. Its been rumored forever that the MBA was going to be squeezed out by the reductions in size and weight.

 

[Elwe]

Some of what they did seems reasonably clear to me, and is stuff that we have seen before.

Current:
1) Remove the legacy Macbook Pro 13" with optical drive. Simflify line-up.
2) Remove the Macbook Air 11". Simplify line-up.
3) Leave the Macbook Air 13" unchanged, with one (perhaps two) more years. Just for Apple and purchaser cost reasons.
4) Earlier in the year, upgrade to then current Intel Core M line-up, Intel rebranding for the higher bin parts notwithstanding.
5) Introduce new 13" and 15" Pro machines, with new feature set, including Touch Bar and four TB3 ports.
6) Solely because of the current cost deltas between #3 and #4/#5, introduce a deviation without a second Alpine Ridge controller/TB3 ports, Touch Bar, and slower cpu. No major re-engineering effort needed, and only has to last a year (or two at most) in the line-up.

Next year (or the year after):
7) Macbook Air 13" is removed, officially.
8) Cost of Core M parts is lower, and Kaby Lake means more port options. So swap port for TB3, and maybe a second port. Instead of $1300 being the entry point, you can lower it to $1100 or $1200. Maybe have only the 12" model, but equally possibly introduce a 13" model. Still essentially the same internals just bigger battery and screen.
9) "Gimped" new Macbook Pro 13" with regular function keys is removed from the line-up.
10) Keep iterating on 13" and 15" Pro line with Touch Bar. Add 32GB ram as an option when they move to Kaby Lake quad core parts on the 15", with LDDR4. Slightly reduce them in price over time.

This all makes perfect sense to me. #6 is just an abberation/stop-gap mostly because of pricing. The Macbook Air's path from high price, newer tech, lower size, and reduced functionality . . . to what is the current Macbook Air which is a pretty good value still, excepting the screen should give us all the clues necessary. It just feels a little bad right now to have to pay what we have to pay for "current Apple tech". I think the "Macbook" and "Macbook Pro" chassis are essentially what we are going to have for the next four our five years, and the legacy stuff and "bridge" will be gone within two years.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I'm in Chicago for a conference and happened to walk by an Apple Store yesterday. I went in and they had a 13" space grey MBP without Touch Bar on display. I currently have a 2013 i5 13" MBA, and haven't kept up with the new models since then. In fact, I'd never handled a MacBook up close or used the butterfly keyboard that people either love or hate. So here are my impressions of the new 13" MBP "non-Touch Bar" version:

• The screen is incredible. I have a 5k iMac at home and the difference between its screen and my MBA is so noticeable every time I switch between them. The screen on this new MBP seems even more vivid and accurate with color than my iMac.
• The footprint is noticeably smaller. But as others have pointed out, the MBA actually feels thinner to me because of the tapered edges. I don't really care about this, and have no need for a thinner, smaller laptop than what the MBA already is.
• The keyboard... I'm not sure yet. It is dramatically different than the MBA, so I think it will take some getting used to. At first I didn't like it, but after using it for a while it grew on me. I can see preferring it after I get accustomed to it.
• Having a big huge trackpad was surprisingly comfortable in terms of the gestures/swipes.

I actually pre-ordered a 13" MBP with Touch Bar—mostly because of TouchID, not the bar itself. 1Password is going to enable using TouchID to access vaults (rather than typing in my long and complicated master password every time), and that alone makes it worth it to me.

However, if it does turn out that the non Touch Bar version has 2 hours more of battery life, I'll have a tough decision to make. But the reality is that 10 hours is likely enough for me in almost all circumstances. Even on a cross country flight, 10 hours is enough for me to use it in the waiting area prior to the flight, all through the flight, and for a couple hours afterward before I need to plug in. So I'd probably go for Touch ID anyhow.

Since the 13" MBPs have been out for a couple days now, has anyone reviewed battery life?

 

[Mr. Dee]

If you are willing to spend that much, might as well get the Touch Bar version or wait until Kabylake and price drop.

 

[mattopotamus]

If you are willing to spend that much, might as well get the Touch Bar version or wait until Kabylake and price drop.

but with a 10% larger battery and low power CPU, there has to be a significant battery advantage.

 

[Steve121178]

it's not worth it... such a weak CPU

Not weak at all. You don't know what you're talking about.

 

[merkinmuffley]

I think the 15W processor used is probably adequate for what most people will do with one - but not at that price point.

 

[Pugly]

I haven't seen much evidence that the 28w cpus are drastically faster than the 15w. The claim is sustained performance is hindered in the 15w, but that's a very specialized use case and I haven't seen benchmarks to justify the claim.

It feels like you are getting a worse processor, because 15 is about half 28... but in practice I'm not so sure.

And in multicore performance nothing beats a quad, so a 13" will always be a slow product relatively.

 

[Boyd01]

I have a, 11" 2013 i7 MBA, it has a geekbench score of 7241

Just saw this front page story: https://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/31/2016-vs-2015-base-13-inch-mbp-benchmarks/

The new 13" i5 MBP has a geekbench score of 6970. That's right between 2013 MBA (7241) and 2012 base Mini (6773) Kind of underwhelming…

 

[mattopotamus]

It's nearly identical in power to the 13" pro from 2015, but with a better GPU. Seems like a fine replacement for the Air. Look at it like this....for $200 more you are getting a much more powerful laptop than the rMB with a similar design. That is the exact reason I jumped from the 12" rMB to the 13" pro without TB.