2016/2017 owners: Did you or will you upgrade to 2018 model?

[eagerwu]

Control the temptation and save the money. Let this notebook become less than you need and then spend the money on something that will be fit for your need. Current notebook suffices. That is what I told myself too.

Invest that money, let it grow. In 2-3 years time, that money thus invested will only serve for helping you upgrade when you really need to upgrade, not merely want to. The reasoning of doing what you want, there is only one life, goes only so far. There is joy to be derived out of saving and watching that money grow instead. For me, that money was too much ($2300 at least) so I was better off just investing. It helps that I write, and edit photos, so my use case will not gain too much from a quad core, to justify my spending $2300 today. I feel, I will be more satisfied with a res bump than just these evolved goodies of 2018 notebooks, for my use.

I could spend some money and go for a new 2018 notebook (coming from a 2016 13") but there is no value in the new notebooks for me good enough that I cannot have on my 2016. I will upgrade when there is a screen res bump, not before.

But the screen does get better. It's a true tone screen now.

 

[IngerMan]

I have a 2016 TB base from launch. I don't do anything extensive to justify the upgrade need. But I like to upgrade lol....Im not a big fan of the TB and if the lower end 13" models would of went quad core on the nTB I would of jumped.

 

[mrex]

But the screen does get better. It's a true tone screen now.

no, the screen is just the same as earlier.

 

[macintoshmac]

But the screen does get better. It's a true tone screen now.

no, the screen is just the same as earlier.

Yes, True Tone is new, but what I was talking about was screen res bump. For all intents and purposes, the screen has been the same for a long time, with the major change being the change to a wider color space which is very noticeable and could comprise a reason to upgrade for those without, but a DCI-P3 screen updated to support True Tone, does not really justify spending $900 for me.

The only thing that could perhaps constitute a real upgrade is the jump from 13 to 15 inches, at an additional cost of $1800 to me.

This jump will give me:

6x cores versus current 2x
Better graphics chipset, although old
Better screen res (compared to 13)

This is justifiable if I really need it, but since I do not really need it, it becomes a nicety and a want that I could satisfy at the expense of a lighter wallet. So far, I am trying to control..

 

[Painter2002]

I will, after I sell mine. Let me know if you think this is a good deal:

Specked out late 2017 that comes with;
OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock

G-Drive 4TB USB-C Drive

Mophie Macbook Pro external battery pack

QacQoc USB-C hub

Bring the security of magsafe back with a Leonis Magnetic USB-C charging cable

Belkin USB-C BLACK cable

QGeem USB-C to HDMI cable

and unlike Apple, I will include the extension to the power brick

Everything like new and barely used, for 4500

Sound fair?

You almost made me need a new MacBook Pro after I spit my coffee out at that price tag. Lol.

I'm kidding, except for the price tag. I don't see anybody wanting to spend that much on a used MBP, even with the accessories. I think you'd be lucky to get out the door with $2,500, maybe, just maybe $3,000 with all the accessories.

I can tell you personally if I willing to spend that much I'd be getting a decked out brand new 2018 MBP with a 6 core processor. My suggestion is keep all your accessories (I imagine you'll buy them again later anyways, so why waste the lost money selling the ones you have now), and keep the MBP you have now for a few more years, unless you desperately need the extra processor power.

 

[dhershberger]

Can anyone who has had a 2017 model comment on real world performance compared to the 2018? Are there any noticeable differences web browsing, word processing, and some light photoshop? That's about the gist of what I do with my 2017 and trying to figure out if its worth it.

I had a 2017 13" MBP i7/16GB/1TB and upgraded to a 2018 13" MBP i7/16GB/1TB and there seems to be little difference in performance. The heaviest thing I've thrown at it is VMWare to load a Boot Camp Windows image and it seems to be a bit more responsive but it's small if it's really there. I haven't used anything taxing in the VM, though. Knowing what I know now I wouldn't have upgraded. I don't regret it, though.

 

[Painter2002]

I had a 2017 13" MBP i7/16GB/1TB and upgraded to a 2018 13" MBP i7/16GB/1TB and there seems to be little difference in performance. The heaviest thing I've thrown at it is VMWare to load a Boot Camp Windows image and it seems to be a bit more responsive but it's small if it's really there. I haven't used anything taxing in the VM, though. Knowing what I know now I wouldn't have upgraded. I don't regret it, though.

This is nice feedback as someone who currently owns a 2017 13" MBP. With all the fuss about the new CPUs, I haven't seen a lot of info about the 2017 13" vs 2018 13", and from what you are saying I am glad I didn't upgrade right away. I think I'll be sticking with my 2017 for a few more years at least.

 

[fa8362]

No. Not even close.

 

[rozwell]

I had 2016 15" 2.6Ghz when it came out and sold it a few month later. Didn't like the keyboard, Touchbar wasn't used to fullest extent, processor lacked the kick I wanted. Just got the 2018 15" 2.9Ghz and that's all changed - the keyboard is definitely better and despite everyone crying about heat, it runs perfectly fine for my bursty workload. In fact it's so fast it's within 10-20% of my 5ghz 8700k hackintosh depending on task. At this point I gladly trade speed for official support and portability.

 

[vemac575]

You almost made me need a new MacBook Pro after I spit my coffee out at that price tag. Lol.

I'm kidding, except for the price tag. I don't see anybody wanting to spend that much on a used MBP, even with the accessories. I think you'd be lucky to get out the door with $2,500, maybe, just maybe $3,000 with all the accessories.

I can tell you personally if I willing to spend that much I'd be getting a decked out brand new 2018 MBP with a 6 core processor. My suggestion is keep all your accessories (I imagine you'll buy them again later anyways, so why waste the lost money selling the ones you have now), and keep the MBP you have now for a few more years, unless you desperately need the extra processor power.

I can see you point, but I think you're severely undervaluing everything, understandably and most likely just because you don't want or need any of it.

I'm sure 27-3200 is a fair price for the mac, itself and everything else can be parted out to total around 500. So I think for everything, any optinion below that is unreasonable, in my opinion.

 

[Painter2002]

I can see you point, but I think you're severely undervaluing everything, understandably and most likely just because you don't want or need any of it.

I'm sure 27-3200 is a fair price for the mac, itself and everything else can be parted out to total around 500. So I think for everything, any optinion below that is unreasonable, in my opinion.

Don’t get me wrong, and I apologize if my joke was crude... I fully understand the value, but most people don’t want to spend that much on a “used” computer, even if it is in tip top shape with all the accessories. I would love to get some of those accessoriess but unfortunately other bills prevail.

If you are willing to wait a while (like a month or so), you might get lucky that someone will be interested at that price, but don’t be surprised if nobody bites at that price, or they try to barter you a lot lower. I’ve sold several MacBooks Pros in my time and people are stingy buying used electronics.

 

[anthony13]

Tempted, and might pull the trigger. I’m a heavy vectorworks user and mild photoshopper. I have a 2017 15” and am pretty happy with it (especially considering I got it for free as a replacement for my 2012 retina with a bad battery). But vectorworks is a GPU hog for simple tasks. My current machine has 2gb of video memory and I would love to update to one with 4. An i9 might help with my 3d renders. Separate from those legitimate reasons is the fact that my laptop is my only machine without True Tone and it drives me crazy.

 

[dan9700]

Went from 2017 3.1ghz 560 graphics to 2.9 i9 32gb ram and 560x im not seeing much if not any diff in speed true tone is rubbish i want true white grading and hey siri is pointless just sets my homepods off so i dont really know why i spent so much to upgrade, ram doesn't even seem.to be making a difference, if anything the 2018 is so hot you cant use it on your lap so its not a laptop lol dont waste your money like me even the gpu is terrible 2 year old rebrand, keep your 2016 or 2017 and wait

 

[graffixnyc]

I have the 2017 3.1ghz with 1tb. I use it mostly as a development machine. Web and mobile development. I'm itching to upgrade but im hesitate to pull the trigger. On paper it sounds like a nice upgrade especially with more cores and double the ram but I'm not really sure I'd notice a huge difference in my day to day use.

 

[abbstrack]

not now, just bought a 15" 2017 i7 with 1TB and 16GB in February..on refurb. The refurb immediately bricked itself and the wonderful Manager at the Apple Store I go to swapped it out for a brand new model. I'll wait until the 2018's are on refurb. I'm mostly using a combination of Capture One Pro, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop, so for now the 2017 runs just fine. That said, 32GB of ram is attractive enough to make me want to grab one once the refurbs become available.

 

[Frankfurt]

I have a maxed out 2017 MBP 15" with 1T storage that I bought in July 2017. To date I have not had any issues with it and that includes the keyboard. For my use case I typically get 5+ years of work out of the MBP (my previous one was the 2008 first unibody that I replaced with this one). Hence, I won't be upgrading anytime soon unless it breaks.