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16" Macbook - no complaints - perfect!

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Psyclism

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 17, 2010
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Today I took delivery of a 16" 2.3 32gb 1Tb 5500 4gb ordered through Adorama. After reading all of the horror stories of coil whine, dim screens, light bleed, noisy keys, etc, I was very reluctant to open the box. However, I've been using the laptop all evening and can confidently state that my machine has none of these problems. Keys are clicky but very quiet. Delete key is *slightly* louder to press, but to complain about it would be "princess and the pea" level of OCD. Screen is bright and uniform. Laptop, even under stress, is totally silent. Battery had a cycle count of 1. Trackpad is level. CPU at idle is running at 40C.

So at least one computer has come out of Apple land as perfect as I could hope. So to anyone else who's either contemplating purchasing one or awaiting theirs to arrive, all is not lost! There is hope!
 
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I picked up my base model 16" on the weekend and I am thrilled with mine. Was a little worried at first due to all the bad reports however the screen is just about perfect, best screen I have ever had on a macbook, no yellowing, very even tone, it actually matches the screen on my 2019 iMac. Haven't noticed any other issues and I am very fussy when it comes to my Apple purchases.
 
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I received mine last night - i9 2.4 32GB 1TB 5500 8GB - and likewise have been looking for any of these reported issues throughout the day. So far so good. Can't hear coil whine nor the SSD unless i stick my ear right on the keyboard and even then it's hard to hear. I also listened during initial 400GB migration and re-indexing. Zero screen bleed along edges and extremely uniform paper white. Battery had a cycle count of 1 and is moving up towards 100% capacity. The 6 speaker sound system is shockingly good for a laptop. Coming from a 2013 MBP so can't comment on keyboard differences from recent models but seems fine. Trackpad doesn't need to be so big but whatever. So far so good. Very happy.
 
I got my i9 2.4 64GB 4TB 5500 8GB on Monday and it has been flawless. Love the new keyboard, exactly the dampening I was hoping for. I am coming from a 2018 2.9 /32GB/2TB/4GB so I did a test of exporting 100 46MP raw files to jpeg and it is about 35% faster. In other areas of photo work it is even better such as stitching panoramic images in Lightroom.

I think I am sticking with this one awhile, it is a truly great machine.
 
Spec I have: Core i9 2.3 GHz, 16GB of RAM, 5500M 4GB, 1TB SSD.

I don't have these issues on mine:

1. Noisy keyboard - Nice and quiet.
2. Excessive backlight bleeding (very minimal bleed, best IPS I've seen yet actually bleed wise).
3. Dim Screen - It's just as bright as my 2015 15" which is very high.
4. Coil Whine - No whine of any kind that I can hear.

Issues I do have that seem to be on every 16"

1. Popping sound when scrubbing videos in IINA, VLC, Safari etc (Seems to be a software problem that Apple is aware of, more than 80 people in a poll on MacRumors who have this machine said they are also affected).

2. Slight ghosting on the display compared to prior 2015 15" panel, but the quality of the panel overall is very nice, great vivid colour, brightness and uniformity. This issue seems to really be something people only notice when doing a direct comparison to older machines that had faster pixel response times but not as great colour reproduction (not P3, wide gamut etc).
 
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Mine too (configured just like Macshroomer's)- there is slight bleed on the keyboard lighting - (none on the screen)from certain angles. , but that's the price of the extra key travel. Great keyboard feel - as good as any laptop I've used with the possible exception of a ThinkPad from ages ago in the heyday of ThinkPad keyboards.

It's extremely fast - absolutely smooth in pretty much anything I try, including photo manipulations on 50 mp images in DxO and Lightroom. Geekbench 5 multicore is 7171, which is right where it should be for the 9880HK. Geekbench 4 is just over 30,000.

That's shockingly close to a base iMac Pro (which tends to run right around 8000 in Geekbench 5 and 32000 in Geekbench 4) - except that this is a <2 kilogram iMac Pro that runs on batteries. Yes, the iMac Pro will run faster for longer in a sustained high-power workload...

Best Laptop LCD I've seen...
 
I should probably know better by now, but every time there is an Apple release of any kind I come here and read about all kinds of issues, but generally things are totally fine when I actually get it myself. The fact of the matter is that people with problems are much more likely to be vocal about it, and if I’m honest many of the people who frequent this forum are hard to please.

My higher-end base model is perfect with the exception of things that I believe are bugs in Catalina. It can sometimes be hard to tell, since this is my first time using Catalina, and it’s also not possible to get the machine without it.
 
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16" 2.3 32gb 1Tb 5500 8gb here and couldn't be more happy. Got it on Nov 26th.
The popping sound from the speakers when you scroll through a video seems to be a software issues and i rarely use the speakers anyway but that is the only issue i can think of.
Screen colours are so much better than my mid 2012 MBP retina! And brighter.
 
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danwells said:
That's shockingly close to a base iMac Pro (which tends to run right around 8000 in Geekbench 5 and 32000 in Geekbench 4) - except that this is a <2 kilogram iMac Pro that runs on batteries. Yes, the iMac Pro will run faster for longer in a sustained high-power workload...
Click to expand...

It is pretty impressive and that is why I wanted to upgrade, to get my mobile computer closer to my desktop. For example exporting those 100 46MP raw files in Lightroom with nominal adjustments netted the following times:

2018 15" 6x2.9 / 32GB / 4GB--5:37
2019 16" 8x2.4 / 64GB / 8GB--4:04
iMac Pro 10x3.0 / 128GB / 16GB--2:35

In terms of exporting RAWs, the iMac Pro is still the heavy lifting champ but the new 16" has closed the gap in all the ways I would expect it to. I am not expecting my file sizes to grow really so this is now a perfect pairing.
 
Whackman said:
16" 2.3 32gb 1Tb 5500 8gb here and couldn't be more happy. Got it on Nov 26th.
The popping sound from the speakers when you scroll through a video seems to be a software issues and i rarely use the speakers anyway but that is the only issue i can think of.
Screen colours are so much better than my mid 2012 MBP retina! And brighter.
Click to expand...
there is said to be a specific macOS update for map 16 addressing this problem
 
mightyjabba said:
I should probably know better by now, but every time there is an Apple release of any kind I come here and read about all kinds of issues, but generally things are totally fine when I actually get it myself. The fact of the matter is that people with problems are much more likely to be vocal about it, and if I’m honest many of the people who frequent this forum are hard to please.

My higher-end base model is perfect with the exception of things that I believe are bugs in Catalina. It can sometimes be hard to tell, since this is my first time using Catalina, and it’s also not possible to get the machine without it.
Click to expand...

I also have noticed that. And apart from the keyboard, speaker pops and a slight SSD hiss at the beginning (which for some reason have disappeared later), other things were just fine on mine.

Yet, I must also admit that having all these complaints on the forum can be beneficial, because once you get an expensive machine, you already have a checklist of what needs to be checked and then just decide for yourself if you can live with it. For example I did not care about any 'ghosting', because for me, coming from a 17" MBP, any retina screen is incredible.. :)

So don't judge too strictly the picky guys, as they are the most rigorous QA, that Apple might ever have. And they do their job to inform you (and Apple), so that further improvements of the products can happen. Which would eventually benefit everyone.
 
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For me no problems.

1. Backspace key sound different, but I would not call it noisy
2. No, screen is uniformly black under normal conditions
3. No, screen is 475 nits at maximum
4. No, not that I can hear

Quu said:
1. Noisy keyboard - Nice and quiet.
2. Excessive backlight bleeding (very minimal bleed, best IPS I've seen yet actually bleed wise).
3. Dim Screen - It's just as bright as my 2015 15" which is very high.
4. Coil Whine - No whine of any kind that I can hear.
Click to expand...
 
No problems with mine. 2.3 i9 16/1TB.
but then I’ve also got a 2015 MacBook with absolutely no problems!
Funnily enough I prefer the MacBook keyboard over this new MBP which feels squishy in comparison:lol:
 
Funnily enough I prefer the MacBook keyboard over this new MBP which feels squishy in comparison:lol:

Coming from a 2013 MBP the keyboard is the one area where I am not sure there has been an improvement for me - the keys feel slightly wobbly/looser in action.. Everything else is great though.
 
intrepidcase said:
Funnily enough I prefer the MacBook keyboard over this new MBP which feels squishy in comparison:lol:

Coming from a 2013 MBP the keyboard is the one area where I am not sure there has been an improvement for me - the keys feel slightly wobbly/looser in action.. Everything else is great though.
Click to expand...
Yeah the 2012 MBP was a perfect device in many regards.
I have no problem with this 16" MBP keyboard but the keyboard on the 2012 retina MBP was better imo.
Smaller keys as well, it seems. Anyway, it's fine.
 
I’m awaiting mine and am not concerned. I’ve never gotten a defective laptop from Apple. I know some people do, but those are understandably the people who are likely to post on here, making seem like a higher percentage than it actually is.
 
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My base model 2.3GHz i9 arrived about noon yesterday from Adorama. After 18 hours of setup, I've encountered no difficulties so far. Vast improvement in almost every way (except weight!) from my 2.9GHz 2016 model.
 
Coming from a specced out 2017 15", which I hated from day 1 because it was always a little "off." I ended up needing 3 keyboard replacements and a logic board replacement. I am thrilled with my new 16" stock 1TB; seems perfect.
 
Just tried to replicate the speaker popping issue. My speakers pop *ever so slightly* when watching a youtube video in Safari and I fast forward or close the tab. My solution? Don't use Safari. No issues whatsoever in Chrome or Firefox.
 
Picked mine up just a few hours ago, it's the base model with the BTO upgrade to the 5500m 4GB GPU. Mine is dead quiet, keyboard is fine. Just the perfect click, yes the delete key is louder than the rest of the keys but as you said it's not an issue at all. Screen looks fine to me, best screen I've seen on a laptop bar none. Still need to test it more, obviously but so far I'm thrilled for my first new Mac since 2011.
 
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Same here - no issues at all observed. Especially the screen is superb: No backlight bleeding, great colors, very bright. Very happy that I got lucky.
 
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Macshroomer said:
It is pretty impressive and that is why I wanted to upgrade, to get my mobile computer closer to my desktop. For example exporting those 100 46MP raw files in Lightroom with nominal adjustments netted the following times:

2018 15" 6x2.9 / 32GB / 4GB--5:37
2019 16" 8x2.4 / 64GB / 8GB--4:04
iMac Pro 10x3.0 / 128GB / 16GB--2:35
Click to expand...


I don't know LightRoom. I'm a Capture One User. So, does LR make uses of GPU while processing files?
 
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