2017 MacBook Pro 13 non-TB Review

[stigman]

Interesting - Apple seems to acknowledge the 2016/7 MBP keyboard disaster. They've patented a method for preventing a speck of dust from destroying them:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/9/17100594/apple-patent-dirt-debris-liquid-snacks

This might be the worst keyboard ever. Why? The thing is people still believe that dust cause issues related with recent keyboard, but in fact most of problems comes from faulty design.

They've pathented something which is supposed to make crumb-resistant keyboard, waterproof...etc, but if you would like to take it apart and just repair selected keys it might be the worst experience as you ever had with keyboards.

I hope it won't come out. This design, this mechanism.

 

[bearmaster1]

Congratulations to OP! Serious props to you for fighting this battle!

 

[Conza]

This is my review for the 2017 MacBook Pro 13 non-TB - it will be updated again to reflect any changed opinion after weeks / months of use.

I read every word. Sir, well done!

My word, I was such a fan of this product until I read this lengthy ordeal, it is so thrilling to see justice served... How could you ever buy another one of their products?

To slightly re-iterate your points you made, it doesn't matter if it was the cheapest or the most expensive laptop they sold, it should just be slow/slower than a faster one, maybe it would thermal throttle more, but overheating itself at 100%+ fan speed, wow. Honestly, I think this is a real software problem, never mind the hardware design faults, it could be bad at cooling, then just not ever turbo boost, this is really troubling.

I hope your case inspires others who have had problems, and I hope everyone considering to buy a nTB model finds your review and stays as far away as possible... Short of, idk, custom liquid cooling with liquid metal on under the IHSs and using cooling pads. What a joke of a product, again, am so glad for your result here.

 

[csurfr]

I read every word. Sir, well done!

My word, I was such a fan of this product until I read this lengthy ordeal, it is so thrilling to see justice served... How could you ever buy another one of their products?

To slightly re-iterate your points you made, it doesn't matter if it was the cheapest or the most expensive laptop they sold, it should just be slow/slower than a faster one, maybe it would thermal throttle more, but overheating itself at 100%+ fan speed, wow. Honestly, I think this is a real software problem, never mind the hardware design faults, it could be bad at cooling, then just not ever turbo boost, this is really troubling.

I hope your case inspires others who have had problems, and I hope everyone considering to buy a nTB model finds your review and stays as far away as possible... Short of, idk, custom liquid cooling with liquid metal on under the IHSs and using cooling pads. What a joke of a product, again, am so glad for your result here.

One thing remains on all of this though. We don’t know if this was adjudicated or if a settlement was reached. If a judge ruled that Apple did xxxxxx that would go a lot further for future cases than if the OP was simply offered a refund in lieu of a trial.

The paperwork posted makes it seem that it was settled, though the OP hasn’t said one way or the other only that “the law won” and goes on to say “the law found”. It can be construed that the judge ruled in his favor, but as I said above, the paperwork seems to show the opposite, and that a settlement was reached.

This same question was asked a page before, and still no response from the OP on it.

 

[bcave098]

One thing remains on all of this though. We don’t know if this was adjudicated or if a settlement was reached. If a judge ruled that Apple did xxxxxx that would go a lot further for future cases than if the OP was simply offered a refund in lieu of a trial.

The paperwork posted makes it seem that it was settled, though the OP hasn’t said one way or the other only that “the law won” and goes on to say “the law found”. It can be construed that the judge ruled in his favor, but as I said above, the paperwork seems to show the opposite, and that a settlement was reached.

This same question was asked a page before, and still no response from the OP on it.

And it's not like OP isn't around, he's been posting around about winning his case, yet silent here. Reinforces my thought that this was a settlement, not a judgement.

 

[Conza]

@bcave098 & @csurfr I appreciate that, I think an admission that their product overheats would have been great.

@project_2501 I don't suppose there was an admission by them? Surely it would've made bigger news if there was?

Look, this could've been a dud, twice a dud but it's possible "theoretically", I mean it was the same case twice wasn't it? But more likely we know that, there's a single tiny fan squeezed inside a tiny case and it's not up to the task.

This says to me, don't touch the nTB, maybe 1 out of 100 will be this bad, maybe more, but at any rate at all, still not worth the risk, the TB model is more expensive, has a smaller battery and a higher watt processor, so in theory that's a real shame the nTB just didn't come with those 2 cooling fans. This whole thread might not exist.

But hey, they could redesign it to have those fans, to have the same "logic" (mother)board, I would think that'd be fantastic, have touch ID, same motherboard, same amount of ports and simply and only remove the TB, leaving the consumer to decide if they really want that specific feature or not.

And it would serve them, maybe everyone would still go TB and then they could focus on that, or vice versa, they might see that when that is the only difference that consumers don't want to pay extra for it.

 

[nanoarmando]

Hello guys! I bought the macbook pro 2017 with i5 at 2.3GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz, and i found that it's specifically the problem. its a big difference between frequencies (unlike version touchbar ranging from 3.1GHz to 3.5GHz). I dont know why apple has managed so bad this thingabout how the turbo boost should work, which means that for any task no matters how simpler is, the processor will use the turbo boost, which triggers a unnecessary heat on the machine .

Finally I found the solution manually deactivating the turbo boost and activating it only when I really need it.

There are several applications that allow you to do that as "Turbo Boost Switcher" or "Endurance"

Doing this usually does not have any disadvantages (the processor will work most of the time at the base speed that was designed) and if there are many advantages such as less heat, less fan utilization and less noise. You can usually do your tasks like surfing, watching videos or checking your emails without worrying about the heat. Finally my mac actually runs at 45ºC avg all day, no fans, no noise.

I hope this information helps you.

 

[bhatiak]

Hello guys! I bought the macbook pro 2017 with i5 at 2.3GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz, and i found that it's specifically the problem. its a big difference between frequencies (unlike version touchbar ranging from 3.1GHz to 3.5GHz). I dont know why apple has managed so bad this thingabout how the turbo boost should work, which means that for any task no matters how simpler is, the processor will use the turbo boost, which triggers a unnecessary heat on the machine .

Finally I found the solution manually deactivating the turbo boost and activating it only when I really need it.

There are several applications that allow you to do that as "Turbo Boost Switcher" or "Endurance"

Doing this usually does not have any disadvantages (the processor will work most of the time at the base speed that was designed) and if there are many advantages such as less heat, less fan utilization and less noise. You can usually do your tasks like surfing, watching videos or checking your emails without worrying about the heat. Finally my mac actually runs at 45ºC avg all day, no fans, no noise.

I hope this information helps you.

That sounds interesting, do you have to manually turn it back on for turbo-boost. Or can you make it so that the turbo-boost doesn't turn on for everything, and only when its really needed? Thanks.

P.s. ignore the extra spaces between my words, my spacebar is ****ed cause butterfly keyboards

 

[nanoarmando]

That sounds interesting, do you have to manually turn it back on for turbo-boost. Or can you make it so that the turbo-boost doesn't turn on for everything, and only when its really needed? Thanks.

P.s. ignore the extra spaces between my words, my spacebar is ****ed cause butterfly keyboards

Sorry its a manual process.. you need to turn It on and turn It off

 

[matt2053]

I'm posting here because I also have been struggling with loud fan noise coming from my 2017 nTB MBP, while my 2015 13" MBP fans never ran at all doing same tasks.

I have a few scenarios where the fans quickly ramp up to max RPM:

1. Some process pushes CPU for a bit unexpectedly. This is usually CalendarAgent or MDS, or SafariWebContent for certain websites. CPU spikes, fans crank at full blast, then it dies down in about two or three minutes.

2. Watching almost any video while connected to 4K external display.

These may be two different scenarios but one thing I am almost sure of is that it at least most cases, it does not happen when I am not connected to an external display. This seems to be a graphics-related issue.

That said, I will try the apps mentioned by the poster above and see what happens.

This is very frustrating as I find myself yearning for my old 2015 model, which had zero problems and fans were quite all the time unless gaming.

 

[hajime]

Considering whether to jump ship or get a MBP 2017. Is it right that after 2015, Apple just made rubbish MBP with tones of issues? Which configurations of 2017 do not have heat, noisy fan, poor battery and thermal throttling issues? The latest MBP I used was 2014 15" i7. No problem at all.

 

[Conza]

Considering whether to jump ship or get a MBP 2017. Is it right that after 2015, Apple just made rubbish MBP with tones of issues?

There are criticisms, some of them warranted, to me 1 USB-C dock pretty much solves them, other than MagSafe.

Which configurations of 2017 do not have heat, noisy fan, poor battery and thermal throttling issues? The latest MBP I used was 2014 15" i7. No problem at all.

To be short, as an owner who enjoys his PC a lot, none of them qualify for all of these.

in comparison to each other;

Non-TB
More likely to get hot, due to single fan, higher disparity between base and turbo frequencies, therefore thermal throttle, but has a larger battery than the...

TB
Has two fans, closer base and turbo frequencies therefore will be less likely to overheat and therefore less likely to thermal throttle, however the TB model's design internally is completely different to the Non-TB one if you look at a good tear down, one of the consequences was a smaller battery, with combined with a higher TDP processor, will mean it has less battery, all tasks being done equally on both.

To answer the main question of should you buy? As always, it depends. I did a few months ago, not looking back for my usage its fine, in a few months though there may be a 32GB option, a quad-core and septa-core option, it may be improved in other ways, who really knows. If you can wait and buy as soon as it's brand new, that's probably your best bet.

 

[th0masp]

Depressing state of affairs. It used to be that MBP's were some of the best options available on the market and not unreasonably priced when overall build quality, longevity and resale value were taken into account. I've been holding out for years now for a new machine that lets me swap RAM and most importantly storage as SSD's evolve and isn't a glued-together support nightmare for when repairs are needed.

These seem to be throwaway computers now where you are practically forced to get Applecare with the machine because even simple repairs turn really costly quick. Best sold off as soon as the warranty expires.

 

[project_2501]

Considering whether to jump ship or get a MBP 2017. Is it right that after 2015, Apple just made rubbish MBP with tones of issues? Which configurations of 2017 do not have heat, noisy fan, poor battery and thermal throttling issues? The latest MBP I used was 2014 15" i7. No problem at all.

If I were you (which I'm not) I would not get a 2016/17. If your 2014 works .. keep it. Otherwise get a 2015 while they are still available. That's what I had to do.
[doublepost=1528638535][/doublepost]

Considering whether to jump ship or get a MBP 2017. Is it right that after 2015, Apple just made rubbish MBP with tones of issues? Which configurations of 2017 do not have heat, noisy fan, poor battery and thermal throttling issues? The latest MBP I used was 2014 15" i7. No problem at all.

And don't forget the keyboard issues. Indications are that about 40% of 2016/17 macbokpro keyboards fail within the warranty period. And then after the warranty period you're paying £700 for keyboard replacements...

There are now 3 class action lawsuits against apple about the keyboard.

 

[hajime]

If I were you (which I'm not) I would not get a 2016/17. If your 2014 works .. keep it. Otherwise get a 2015 while they are still available. That's what I had to do.
[doublepost=1528638535][/doublepost]

And don't forget the keyboard issues. Indications are that about 40% of 2016/17 macbokpro keyboards fail within the warranty period. And then after the warranty period you're paying £700 for keyboard replacements...

There are now 3 class action lawsuits against apple about the keyboard.

Unfortunately I don’t have access to that MBP 2014 anymore. It was brought using school’s money.

 

[project_2501]

Unfortunately I don’t have access to that MBP 2014 anymore. It was brought using school’s money.

Apple still sell the 2015 model: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MJLQ2LL/A&step=config#

 

[hajime]

What can I do with Thunderbolt 2? I need to drive a 49” 4K TV at 60Hz with Chroma 4:4:4 .

 

[project_2501]

What can I do with Thunderbolt 2? I need to drive a 49” 4K TV at 60Hz with Chroma 4:4:4 .

I am.using displayport connector over TB2 do drive a 4k display at60hz.

Hdmi won't do it but display port will.

That's my understanding

 

[hajime]

I am.using displayport connector over TB2 do drive a 4k display at60hz.

Hdmi won't do it but display port will.

That's my understanding

So I need a DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 adapter?

I guess no need of Calicut TS3+ dock if I get the 2015 model. Can’t run eGPU then.

 

[toypadlock]

wow, this guy sounds like an absolute chief

 

[Conza]

So I need a DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 adapter?

I guess no need of Calicut TS3+ dock if I get the 2015 model. Can’t run eGPU then.

I would double check that, I think thunderbolt 2 should work with eGPUs, just need the latest software update.

 

[project_2501]

Since this thread was mostly written ... there have been at least three class action lawsuits against Apple regarding the 2016/7 MacBook Pro keyboards.

 

[Acronyc]

Since this thread was mostly written ... there have been at least three class action lawsuits against Apple regarding the 2016/7 MacBook Pro keyboards.

One thing still isn't clear that I and others have asked but have not received a reply from you:

Was this case adjudicated before a judge, with the "law winning," as you have claimed, or were you offered a settlement from Apple that you took?

I only ask because there is a big difference.

It will be interesting to see how the other class action lawsuits play out. I hope Apple fixes the keyboard issue and provides free repairs for all those affected.

 

[Hanson Eigilson]

Thank you for taking the time to fight and document your struggle, i would never ever have gotten even half as far as you did!

 

[project_2501]

Apple hasn't confirmed the 2018 models fix the reliability keyboard issues, only that they reduce the noise a little.
They haven't changed the ergonomics.

New reports are emerging of thermal design issues with the 2018 models.