2017 Macbook Pro fan noise

[thimplicity]

Good morning,
I tried to give the Windows community a chance (SORRY ) and bought an HP x360 spectre. I traded in my 2011 Macbook Air 13 for that one. Unfortunately the fan was constantly running and pretty loud even during web surfing sessions. So I will return the device today.

This experience brings me back to the Mac community. As I am sensitive to the fan noise in general, I would like to know what your experiences are with your MBP 2017 (with or without touchbar).

90% of my time I spent with surfing the web or doing office stuff. I seldomly do photo editing and I normally never play or edit videos.

Thanks for your feedback!

 

[Newtons Apple]

Maybe an iPad in your future. It will be quiet for sure. Many are ditching their computers and going to iPads.

 

[akash.nu]

Yes, if there is not a specific requirement for a laptop, definitely recommend to try an iPad, have a look at many of the other related threads floating around in the iPad forum. Of course budget and specific requirements will determine the model you go for.

 

[c0ppo]

iPad?

Nope. Purchase macbook 12, no fans at all, and powerfull enough for your needs.

 

[JohnnyGo]

iPad?

Nope. Purchase macbook 12, no fans at all, and powerfull enough for your needs.

I second that. The MacBook will be lighter than your old MBA, retina screen and will give you plenty of power to run whatever you throw at it in terms of office/productivity apps.

Be aware that you may need a dongle or a hub to connect to legacy peripherals or external monitors/TV

 

[WhiteWhaleHolyGrail]

My 2016 MBP is ghostly quiet - I have to press my ear to the KB to hear it. Under heavier loads, I can hear a muffled and smooth sounding fan that is still very quiet in comparison to other laptops I have used from Lenovo and HP.

 

[thimplicity]

My 2016 MBP is ghostly quiet - I have to press my ear to the KB to hear it. Under heavier loads, I can hear a muffled and smooth sounding fan that is still very quiet in comparison to other laptops I have used from Lenovo and HP.

Thanks for sharing! Do you have the MBP with TB or without?

 

[jerryk]

Thanks for sharing! Do you have the MBP with TB or without?

Without is cheaper and has longer battery life. Based on your requirements I would get that if you want a keyboard, or an iPad Pro.

 

[WhiteWhaleHolyGrail]

Thanks for sharing! Do you have the MBP with TB or without?

With TB as per my sig. I should also add that with light/medium use I get 12 hours of battery life. If you can afford TB get it - it's very handy and will only get better.

 

[GtrDude]

Good morning,
I tried to give the Windows community a chance (SORRY ) and bought an HP x360 spectre. I traded in my 2011 Macbook Air 13 for that one. Unfortunately the fan was constantly running and pretty loud even during web surfing sessions. So I will return the device today.

This experience brings me back to the Mac community. As I am sensitive to the fan noise in general, I would like to know what your experiences are with your MBP 2017 (with or without touchbar).

90% of my time I spent with surfing the web or doing office stuff. I seldomly do photo editing and I normally never play or edit videos.

Thanks for your feedback!

You could always just get a Macbook.....or any computer, including Windows, that's fanless.

Here's more:

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/6520-fanless-ultrabooks/

I also think the Dell XPS 15 is very quiet. Never hear the fan except under a heavy load. I actually even use it for recording...lol

 

[Queen6]

If wanting absolute silence of operation; Mac opt for the Retina Macbook, Windows opt for the new Huawei MateBook X, both are passively cooled. Currently owning both with the MateBook X being my preference for multiple reason. If looking for a 2 in 1 new Surface Pro is also passively cooled unto the i5, i7 has fan.

Q-6

 

[glhughes]

I second that. The MacBook will be lighter than your old MBA, retina screen and will give you plenty of power to run whatever you throw at it in terms of office/productivity apps.

I third this. I have a 2017 rMB that I bought for work (email, RDP, web, skype) and it's fantastic. So small and it's so much faster than my old 2010 MBA for the same workload. The screen is gorgeous, and the keyboard is actually quite nice (ask me about my 2016 MBP keyboard, lol).

 

[thimplicity]

I third this. I have a 2017 rMB that I bought for work (email, RDP, web, skype) and it's fantastic. So small and it's so much faster than my old 2010 MBA for the same workload. The screen is gorgeous, and the keyboard is actually quite nice (ask me about my 2016 MBP keyboard, lol).

I went to the apple store yesterday and tried both machines side-by-side. I spent 10-15 minutes on each typing and playing with the touchbar and trying to understand the logic. The "normal" Macbook is "out" for two reasons.

1. Screen size: I have a 12 inch laptop in the office which I use in meetings (normally connected to big monitors) and working on this for longer is not my thing. I also had the 13 Macbook Air before and the size was perfect.

2. Keyboard: I troied both the new MBP and the MB keyboard have the new version of this butterfly mechanism, but the MB has even less key travel, which feels to my as if I would type on wood, as you do not get any feedback. I did not fall in love with the MBP keyboard either, but to me it felt much better.

If wanting absolute silence of operation; Mac opt for the Retina Macbook, Windows opt for the new Huawei MateBook X, both are passively cooled. Currently owning both with the MateBook X being my preference for multiple reason. If looking for a 2 in 1 new Surface Pro is also passively cooled unto the i5, i7 has fan.

Q-6

The new surface pro does not have USB-C and I am planning to use the laptop for another 5-6 years, so I want to have at least one of these. In addition, working with the Surface on my lap does not work for me due to stability reasons and also the keyboard then feels wobbly.

I will have a look at the Matebook X though.


So in general the question if I go for a MBP is: TB or non-TB . Pros for the non-TB are:

1. lower price
2. one less item that can break (TB)
3. TB does not add value to me for now. That may of course change in the future with more nifty solutions, but yesterday I was pretty underwhelmed.

Pros for the TB version are:

1. better performance
2. probably lower noise due to 2 fans
3. more ports
4. higher reselling value ??

Looking forward to your recommendations

 

[thimplicity]

If wanting absolute silence of operation; Mac opt for the Retina Macbook, Windows opt for the new Huawei MateBook X, both are passively cooled. Currently owning both with the MateBook X being my preference for multiple reason. If looking for a 2 in 1 new Surface Pro is also passively cooled unto the i5, i7 has fan.

Q-6

The Matebook X looks really interesting. Unfortunately the bigger configuration only seems to be available in gold, for whatever weird reason. Do you own the device or why is it your favorite for multiple reasons?

Thanks again

 

[Queen6]

The Matebook X looks really interesting. Unfortunately the bigger configuration only seems to be available in gold, for whatever weird reason. Do you own the device or why is it your favorite for multiple reasons?

Thanks again

I opted for the MateBook X i5/256SSD in gold as this is enough for my needs as a business ultraportable, soon to replace my 12" Retina MacBook which I have used professionally for over 2 years. MB-X retains the extreme portability of the rMB with far fewer compromises; 13" 3:2 display is a big draw, keyboard is far better having a decent amount of throw (1.2mm) for such a thin & light notebook. The addition of the second USB port also allows the notebook to be more versatile, although with some limitations. MB-X having a full i5U CPU makes for a very significant performance differential versus my rMB and to date the MB-X has performed admirably. Yes the base does get hotter than my 2015 rMB, equally I have yet to observe it throttle, pumping out a very solid 3.1GHz. MB-X has a spill resistant keyboard deck

Huawei also include the MateDock 2 in the box allowing USB A/C HDMI & VGA, I really feel that Apple is literally "milking" it's customers at every opportunity these days. More the principle than the cost, a premium notebook should come with what's required to use it in the box, not require the customer to make multiple purchases to ensure basic functionality.

In all respects the MB-X is a premium notebook, including the audio which is impressive for such a small system. Only downside I've observed is the keyboard backlight could be stronger as in certain lighting conditioned with the same colour keys the key caps can washout. Frankly very impressed with what Huawei has accomplished given the MB-X is their first clamshell notebook, although still early days I will very much be following Huawei's hardware releases.

Q-6

 

[thimplicity]

I opted for the MateBook X i5/256SSD in gold

Thanks for the explanation. Where did you get the config like this? I can only find your combination in gray. I would like to go with the I7 and 512 GB, but in gray and not in gold.

Two more questions :
- Do you think that 8 GB RAM is sufficient? I planned to go with 16, but Huawei does not offer that.
- How long is the battery life for you when doing "normal" office stuff with it?

Thanks again.

 

[Queen6]

Thanks for the explanation. Where did you get the config like this? I can only find your combination in gray. I would like to go with the I7 and 512 GB, but in gray and not in gold.

Two more questions :
- Do you think that 8 GB RAM is sufficient? I planned to go with 16, but Huawei does not offer that.
- How long is the battery life for you when doing "normal" office stuff with it?

Thanks again.

I bought my MB-X in China as I'm a semi resident expat. Here in CN we can get Gold, Rose Gold & Grey what spec they are offered in I am not sure. I do know that the following is available;

4Gb/i5/256
8Gb/i5/256
8Gb/i5/512
8Gb/i7/512

On Windows 10 Home, I flipped mine to Windows 10 Pro as I have a spare license, and wanted to switch to english. For me 8Gb is adequate for this level of notebook and I am using it in a professional role (engineering/business). Same as macOS Windows has come a long way with memory management. I also have a 8Gb/i7/256 Surfaced Book and have never had any memory issues. i7 will only offer 10% - 13% more performance over the i5, mostly on the Turbo Frequency, being a factor in my choice. As temperatures & power draw may be equally higher, to be honest though you would need both the i5 & i7 models to really see the difference was either positive, negative or just moot.

Battery I find around 7-8 hours, equally much depends on the usage, screen brightness. Huawei's own Manager App also monitors usage and performance and down clocks the CPU to match the workload, early days yet so will seen time.

Q-6

 

[thimplicity]

Here in the US I was able to find these two configs:

8GB/i5/256 in grey
8GB/i7/512 in gold

See the shop here.

As I do not want the gold color, I might have to go with the gray version. I sent an email to Huawei, and asked them about different configs, but I did not get an answer back yet.

I will try to optimize the Windows installation with NTLite. The optimizations there might be more valuable than 10% CPU power at the end, but we will probably never find out .

I might go with the MB-X, even though it does not carry Thunderbolt 3 and has some USB limitations (charging only one side etc.) Can you use the dock on both ports though?

Thanks!

 

[Queen6]

Here in the US I was able to find these two configs:

8GB/i5/256 in grey
8GB/i7/512 in gold

See the shop here.

As I do not want the gold color, I might have to go with the gray version. I sent an email to Huawei, and asked them about different configs, but I did not get an answer back yet.

I will try to optimize the Windows installation with NTLite. The optimizations there might be more valuable than 10% CPU power at the end, but we will probably never find out .

I might go with the MB-X, even though it does not carry Thunderbolt 3 and has some USB limitations (charging only one side etc.) Can you use the dock on both ports though?

Thanks!

Huawei are deploying their notebooks with a very clean install of Windows 10, with zero bloat. The MateBook Manager app can be downloaded separately as can drivers, how critical this application is I am unsure, however I believe that Huawei manages the thermals by intelligently controlling Turbo Frequency, equally I've yet to observe my own i5 MB-x throttle holding a solid 3.1GHz.

What I have observed occasionally and potentially coincidental is under rapid high load the CPU will down clock frequency admittedly with some (lot) assumption as the Phase Change material rapidly transfers heat from the CPU to the base of the notebook the CPU Boost Frequency return to max. Could very well be many other factors as it's over and done with in a few seconds. Would be interested in the results of an optimised installation, equally my own i5 MB-X is fast and fluid, impressively so.

Q-6