It's worse in some ways, better in others. Many people prefer it, can type faster on it, have fewer errors, like the feel, etc. Many find the opposite. Based on comments here and elsewhere, I think @CaptRB is justified in his claims about most users liking it. That doesn't mean that can be proven here. You have to read the threads about it and draw your own conclusions.
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After the dust settled, what is the consensus about 2016 MBPs?
- Thread starter Don-Lucio
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I was talking about RAM and battery combined. So what the heck are you arguing about? Or posting (yet again) just to defend precious Apple? 🙂
P.S.
EOD from my part, weekend is over, and since there is no real discussion over here anywhere, I really don't want to argue with anyone, so cya 🙂
Comparing a server to a notebook is rather silly, they are different beasts with different workloads and purposes. That's why they have different kind of hardware and why they are tuned differently. An ssd in a notebook or desktop is more tuned to random reads/writes whereas a server has one tuned for sequential reads/writes. That means a notebook/desktop is faster with random reads/writes than a server is.
Which are meaningless since you didn't post your uptime. The longer the machine is up, the higher these stats will be but that doesn't mean there is a memory issue or that the machine requires lots of memory. The OS will simply keep things in memory until it needs the additional memory. It then only takes what it needs. That way we have hot startup of an app which is a gain in performance.
Mine is actually using 455MB of swap even though 7GB out of 16 is in use. Memory management today is rather different than back then.
Funny to see here that none of the people claiming to need big amounts of memory are capable of mentioning the fun things one can do with memory: caching. Nobody mentions something like ccache which greatly speeds up compiling code.
Moderator Note:
Several posts containing forum rule violations have been removed. Please stop bickering and stick to the topic.
Several posts containing forum rule violations have been removed. Please stop bickering and stick to the topic.
The things eating up significant RAM in that instance were a Windows VM running HP ICR software (where the Windows VM needs 8 GB of RAM to run the applications smoothly), DiskWarrior, Mac OCR ran on the host OS, Excel, Preview, SPSS, and a Windows NT 4.0 VM that would be waken intermittently when-needed from Suspend (but I'm not sure if the OS releases most of the RAM when suspended or not until I shut down the VM?)
(So certainly the computer does pretty well with what it's got already, but I look forward to when we see a little more 🙂)
Yeah, neither Microsoft nor the developer of the ICR suite have quite gotten memory efficiency as well as Mac has with OS X - for whatever reason, working with uncompressed TIFFs in batches of scans seem to impact Windows RAM use more significantly than it does with Mac 🙁
Yes, that seems likely enough.
If Apple can achieve 32GB with LPDDR, I'm sure they will. (Not sure DDRL would make enough difference.) The Kaby Lake specs you link to aren't clear about whether the chip can accept 32 GB LPDDR3, but if it can, that explains the rumor that Apple intends to offer a 32 GB model this year.
I've seen news of 16GB LPDDR3 too, for phones. Looks like Kaby Lake will only accept two modules, if that's what two memory channels means.
Huh? it's very clear what I'm talking about. You very plainly implied that if the MBP were thicker it could accommodate a bigger battery and more RAM. Again, and I don't know how to be more clear and simple about this, it doesn't need to be thicker to accomplish those things. That it does is a persistent myth. Yes, no point to arguing about that.
The list I made was referring to what I would have realistically liked to see from the MBP 2016, not my wish list which is quite different. As I said, increasing GPU performance would be hard given the TDP limitations. But with graphics switching, it wouldn't be as much of a problem.
Actually most standard statistics packages require you to load all the data into RAM to fit a regression for example. I've also run into problems where the data might not be that big but the model is big and programs can crash. Certain kinds of model you can treat each data point as a variable and they get huge in RAM quickly - this is where I first needed > 16GB - a model with 18,000 data points = 18,000 variables running in the niche gold standard proprietary software that would just crap out after 24 hrs runtime. Only solution to that was more RAM. There are other things like hadoop for working with big data of course that can deal with swap space, but its not useful for my problems.
But like I know ye were all thinking about the intricacies of evolving solutions for multi-level hierarchical bayesian mcmc models with thousands and variables when spouting your generalised opinions, right ? (Edit: by the way before someone says I'm talking about a niche. Its that niche known as data science/statistics - heard of it ?)
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I see. Can you be more specific about what chip you have in mind? The 460 is faster than what was offered in the XPS at the time, for example. The alternatives faster than that did seem unsuitable for an MBP, even with graphics switching.
Thing is some are incapable of understanding that others may have a real need for significantly more RAM and or processing power. Apple simply do not produce a heavy lifter for those on the go, with adequate usability. Focus is the well heeled consumer, with "Pro" being little more than a differentiator in Apple's range of notebooks. Consumer products for consumers...
Like others I would like to see the MPB focused on performance, not being ever thiner 🙄
Q-6
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Is there no software available that does what you want that offers swapping? As you say, that wouldn't solve all your issues, but it would be a lot more flexible. Laptops can't realistically do all that a desktop can, so the software needs to fit to get the most out of a laptop.
If I understand, you believe a Skylake laptop could handle your 18K-variable analysis if only it had 32 GB RAM. Have you tested this on, say, an XPS? As dyn and others have mentioned, there are other limitations that might also affect the practicality of doing that on a laptop.
What generalized opinions do you refer to?
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I haven't seen anyone say or imply that.
First: good lord, someone is still using Windows NT 4.0 in 2017! Talking about getting your moneys worth 😛
Second: when you suspend a vm all the memory contents get written to a file on disk. The application may still hold the memory so it can assign it to other vm's but I'm not entirely certain on that. Hypervisors tend to do their own resource (cpu, memory, etc.) management (they request a certain amount from the OS and manage whatever they are given themselves). If the hypervisor does give it back to the OS it probably is going to stay put until something else requires it.
Pausing a vm is a different thing because it only pauses use of the vm, the resources it uses are not being touched so there is no writing to disk.
Don't underestimate memory management in modern Windows versions (and memory usage in Windows NT 4.0 is peanuts compared to todays standards).
That's another thing to note: with 32GB of memory you do not want to have only 2 memory channels available, it has a negative impact on performance. You may have lots of memory now but it will be slower than having 16GB. SSDs have the same issue which is why they equip the large SSDs with additional lanes (i.e. 4 instead of 2).
Again, one does not simply slap in twice the amount of memory 😉
I have a 2016 MBP and have used it at work and home a little over two months. I would say it is the first Apple OS X device I've considered returning (I've owned two previous MBP and an iMac). It has many pro's: beautiful, light machine, with an excellent screen. It's quiet. It's still the most powerful portable device in the Mac ecosystem. I like OS X, which is probably the biggest reason I haven't sold it yet. I like the Finger print ID and find that to be one of the more helpful features.
Neutral: I don't mind the keyboard (though it is unnecessarily loud) or USB C (which was a surprise). I have one new cord that connects to my T'bolt display and a couple of others that I keep in my backpack. This feels like a temporary concern as more devices move to BT or WiFi, but I understand some of the frustration in the interim. I miss the SSD reader, but can connect my camera to it by USB... I don't much care one way or the other about the Touch Bar. It looks cool and my kids like it, but in day to day use for work, I don't find it to be much of an asset. It may become more useful over time, but it's not much use for me right now.
Cons: The track pad is a pain. It is unnecessarily large and with "tap to click" selected in user preferences, the palm rejection is nonexistent. If you turn off "tap to click," it requires an actual click to use the trackpad, but I no longer have so many palm rejection issues. I just don't see the point in the giant track pad. It seems to start up slower than my 2011 MBP with 16GB RAM a 3rd party SSD. Not sure why, but the new MBP takes a few seconds longer to start up, even from sleep. The Bluetooth is a bit temperamental. Typically, it doesn't recognize at least 1 or 2 devices until I open Bluetooth settings and force it or repair. This is odd, since I am connecting it to Apple accessories (track pads at home and work, keyboards at home and work). Connecting to VPN (as we're unfortunately required to do for some of our clients) is much, much slower than on a PC. In fact, I more often use Parallels to connect and get what I need than Mac.
Bottom line: For a very expensive machine, this just doesn't feel like it's worth the premium over similar Windows devices. It feels like a compromise - in RAM, in processing, and even in half attempts to make up for their desires to avoid a touch screen (gigantic track pad and touch bar).
As a small business owner, I frequently purchase computers for our firm and am in the process of getting two additional machines. I'm increasingly inclined to go to the Dell XPS/Precision 15 or SurfaceBook Performance. Both have touch screens and are the same (SB2) or lower cost (Dell).
Hope this helps
Neutral: I don't mind the keyboard (though it is unnecessarily loud) or USB C (which was a surprise). I have one new cord that connects to my T'bolt display and a couple of others that I keep in my backpack. This feels like a temporary concern as more devices move to BT or WiFi, but I understand some of the frustration in the interim. I miss the SSD reader, but can connect my camera to it by USB... I don't much care one way or the other about the Touch Bar. It looks cool and my kids like it, but in day to day use for work, I don't find it to be much of an asset. It may become more useful over time, but it's not much use for me right now.
Cons: The track pad is a pain. It is unnecessarily large and with "tap to click" selected in user preferences, the palm rejection is nonexistent. If you turn off "tap to click," it requires an actual click to use the trackpad, but I no longer have so many palm rejection issues. I just don't see the point in the giant track pad. It seems to start up slower than my 2011 MBP with 16GB RAM a 3rd party SSD. Not sure why, but the new MBP takes a few seconds longer to start up, even from sleep. The Bluetooth is a bit temperamental. Typically, it doesn't recognize at least 1 or 2 devices until I open Bluetooth settings and force it or repair. This is odd, since I am connecting it to Apple accessories (track pads at home and work, keyboards at home and work). Connecting to VPN (as we're unfortunately required to do for some of our clients) is much, much slower than on a PC. In fact, I more often use Parallels to connect and get what I need than Mac.
Bottom line: For a very expensive machine, this just doesn't feel like it's worth the premium over similar Windows devices. It feels like a compromise - in RAM, in processing, and even in half attempts to make up for their desires to avoid a touch screen (gigantic track pad and touch bar).
As a small business owner, I frequently purchase computers for our firm and am in the process of getting two additional machines. I'm increasingly inclined to go to the Dell XPS/Precision 15 or SurfaceBook Performance. Both have touch screens and are the same (SB2) or lower cost (Dell).
Hope this helps
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I normally try to ignore your posts and file under over enthusiastic but as it's self evident even here, you seem to have crossed that point 100's of posts back 🙄
Unless you work for Apple or have hold of statistical data that no one else has your opinions are no more worthy than anyone else and random web sampling of postings and reviews are not facts, which is a point that seems to elude you.
It's simply tiresome and as the Mods have already noted several times encourages bickering to reply to your almost endless countering of negative MBP opinions
It's almost reaching a point where your posts are counter productive to healthy debate and just brings out the worse in people and often ends up with a debate on trivia and miss quotes/interpretation.
I'm sure you have some interesting things to say and points to put across but IMO they are currently muddled by your over enthusiasm.
Lets have some quality over quantity, until then I am not playing ping pong replies with you 😛 😀
Yet more random venting. Why bother quoting something if you're going to ignore everything it actually says and just make stuff up instead? Look inward.
Isn't a bit difficult to gage the overall consensus in a forum? I could be wrong but most of us in these forums don't represent the majority of people outside who but Apple products. From what I've seen in the Apple Store it seems a mixed bag, people gravitate towards the MacBook Pro's with Touch Bar (probably because it's new and looks great) but when they see the price most people hage a little (what we in Britain call) a moan/complain. That was my experience the other day at the Apple Store I went into.
But my general opinion on the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar was better than I thought it would be, i tried out the 13" with Touch Bar and it was very responsive, I was shocked at how bright and clear the display was and I loved the Touch Bar, I think as time goes on more and more apps and developers will make it more useful. They certainly are really nice machines. In fact I'm thinking about picking one up later in the year probably after the spec update (2nd gen is it called?) and there's rumoured to be a price drop.
But my general opinion on the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar was better than I thought it would be, i tried out the 13" with Touch Bar and it was very responsive, I was shocked at how bright and clear the display was and I loved the Touch Bar, I think as time goes on more and more apps and developers will make it more useful. They certainly are really nice machines. In fact I'm thinking about picking one up later in the year probably after the spec update (2nd gen is it called?) and there's rumoured to be a price drop.
I love my 13" tbMBP but the issues with sleep/external lg displays is pretty annoying. In general its fine if you leave it plugged in to the 2 21" LG ultrafines but if you disconnect it and work on the go for a while it quite ofter has a fit when you reconnect it to the displays. The issues can be one of the following:
Bluetooth not working - requires reset
Monitors not turning on - requires reset
System freezes - requires reset
No output to monitors and when you try to disconnect and use the laptop screen that doesn't work - requires reset
I really hope these issues are resolved by software updates but its a bit of a worry that its still not resolved so long after launch.
Bluetooth not working - requires reset
Monitors not turning on - requires reset
System freezes - requires reset
No output to monitors and when you try to disconnect and use the laptop screen that doesn't work - requires reset
I really hope these issues are resolved by software updates but its a bit of a worry that its still not resolved so long after launch.
Haven't had any of these issues on my 13" TB but I'm only using 1 LG external ("Ultrafine") - have you done PRAM and SMC reset?
Here the question though: do you really need all that RAM all the time (that is, will you access random elements within 32GB of RAM scratch space), or is it the case that you will generate 32GB of temporary (or not so temporary) results? Because if first is the case, a quad core CPU is already a limiting factor. With 8MB of L3 cache and random access across 32GB of RAM you will get cache misses constantly, which will cut down your performance dramatically.
In my experience, many "large" problems only work with small portions of data at a time. Image processing is a prime example — the data is accessed basically in sequentially, in very predictable patterns. Statistical modelling, large matrix operations etc. — same thing. For these problems, it doesn't make any difference performance-wise whether you have all your data in RAM or whether you use a multiple-buffering schema (work on one portion of the data while loading the next ones). The real problem is that software developers are most of the time too lazy to write proper code. One just assumes that the entire problem will fit into RAM. Already using memory-mapped I/O would solve a lot of the RAM-related issues that people are having.
