Same here. I have a 10th gen i5 with 32bg. It ran a little slow and hot the first three days but now its great. I currently have some beef with apple, but not about this machine.
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Almost Buyers Remorse On 2020 13" MacBook Pro
- Thread starter gregpod9
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Same here. I have a 10th gen i5 with 32bg. It ran a little slow and hot the first three days but now its great. I currently have some beef with apple, but not about this machine.
I've had the opposite experience sending things in to Apple for repair. Everything comes back in good order.
This is the best advice anyone can give you. If you look for problems you will find them. If you’re looking for loud fan noise your laptop will have it. Also you can Google "problems with" and then put whatever after that and you will find issues with everything. You won’t be able to buy any product when you find out all the bad things about it. Use the laptop and don’t look for problems. You have people on forms running all kinds of checks, scans and temperature monitors trying to find something wrong with their computer that works perfectly. Of course a small percentage of anything is going to have problems so you have people here with legitimate problems but that doesn’t mean you will have those problems.
If you should have buyers remorse for any reason it would be that Apple Silicon is about to come out so there’s going to be a big change. This change may be good or bad but we don’t know yet.
Whilst a lot of us laugh at this, and I love forums, sometimes doing too much research of forums can create unnecessary anxiety and be too overkill. I reckon buy it and see how it goes, you have a little period for return, right? Mine arrived two days ago and it’s been great so far. To be honest even a new MBA would’ve been great for me after upgrading from a 9-year-old MBA.
Please describe your spec. As there is many models of 2020 MBP 13, it would me more helpful to the community to know which you have.
It's the 10th gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.
I've actually managed all of the downsides pretty well so far. I'm using a couple of custom fan profiles to manage temperatures and it's working well. No random fan spins, lower idle/low load temps. The default fan profile is not good but this can be changed manually. The warmness has decreased, but again this is something the user has to do on their own. I've written a thread about it in full details and how to configure the profiles:
A way to resolve overheating issues and random fan bursts on 2020 13" MBP
Hello, as many of you know - some of the 2020 13" MBPs run quite hot. It will always vary depending on which chip you have, but also on the luck you had with chip binning. Chip binning "lottery", as the call it, basically means that some chips can deliver the exact same level of performance for...
forums.macrumors.com
The USB issues were real and still are. They affect all 10th gen models and this has been proven and described in full detail. The original USB 2 problem was "fixed", but only to introduce a new bug for TB3 docks.
Now you get serious crashes when using a TB3 dock, which crash the macbook and do an automatic SMC reset. This is again described quite well here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...after-unplugging-the-dock-it-crashes.2248336/
If you find these types of problems insignificant for a $3000 machine (or less, or way more depending on config), then I have nothing to say about that. For me, it seems ridiculous. Only macbooks are experiencing this issue. There are also issues with monitors not being recognized after sleeping and forcing the user to restart the mac.
The ONLY way I can use my mac right now with my 300$ dock (sold on the apple.com website btw) without crashing it to oblivion on a daily basis and losing all my unsaved data, is to shut down the mac, remove the dock, then power the mac and connect the dock. Or to sleep the mac and never disconnect the dock (which maintains unnecessary trickle charging).
Hopefully this TB3 issue will get fixed with an update, if we are lucky. I have found a way to work around these problems, but the major point here is that you shouldn't have to do that. You should have a working machine, especially at this high price point.
Still, I don't want to leave an impression that I hate using my MBP. It has actually become my main daily driver and I enjoy using it, I practically love it. It's just that Apple need to be held to a higher quality and reliability standard. Not everyone will be OK with searching for workarounds and solutions to problems of this nature. Not everyone even knows they can (or how to) set up custom fan profiles. You'll also see comments of people saying they are not using their (expensive) docks because of the TB3 bugs. This is not a seamless experience and I think that's what mac users usually expect and pay for. I'm prone to fiddling with tech, my job is to test hardware and software and I have been troubleshooting things for years, but the general userbase just wants their stuff to work well out of the box. And they are well within their right to expect that. Doesn't change the fact my mac is a nice machine despite its drawbacks - I have no buyers remorse and I love making music on it. It's just good to expect more and for Apple to make a better effort at QC-ing their products.
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Don't recall anyone, including myself, saying that these problems are insignificant.
I'm running the 10th gen i7, 32GB Ram 2TB SSD with none of those issues. It's driving a 5K LG monitor, and have the twelve south dock attached.
I highly doubt that you don't have the issues. The USB issue were fixed, so you wouldn't be experiencing them now anyway. The new problem is specifically related to a number of TB3 docks from the major brands (CalDigit, Elgato, Kingston, etc). They are listed in some threads here and there. If you are using a USB-C dock, for example, you will not experience the issue. Doesn't mean your machine is not suffering from the bugs. If you never do the things that trigger the bugs, they just won't happen. For months, in the reddit thread where hundreds of users replied about the USB problems, there was only ONE person who claimed they have not had the problem.
Anyway, it's possible that not every machine has the issue. All I care for is that an update is released which fixes it.
P.S. You requested more info - I've literally written huge threads with all possible details I could find for each of these problems, so it's not like I've cried about it without doing anything. I've written all this info to Apple as well.
I am running 10th gen i7, 32GB, 1TB and use it almost exclusively with a usb-c 4K monitor (dell u3219q) and caldigit TB3 dock. I have not experienced any of the issues described above. I have a multitude of USB devices hanging off the caldigit (Samsung T5 2TB SSD, Blue Yeti mic, Logitech BRIO, Ethernet, TB3 1TB SSD, Logitech unifying receiver for MX Keys and Master 3 mouse. No USB issues at all. I had one dud SD card that caused a crash when used in the Caldigit, but other SD cards have been fine.
The fans are almost always at 0 rpm. I typically drive the 4K display via a BlackMagic eGPU, but even when connected without the eGPU the MBP remained quiet (eg playing 4K YouTube on a retina scaled 2560x1440, ie 5120x2880 downsampled to 3860x2160).
I can’t explain why my machine would run significantly cooler than others reported elsewhere. I do have it on a rain design m stand, which helps with cooling, but surely that can’t be the entire explanation.
The fans are almost always at 0 rpm. I typically drive the 4K display via a BlackMagic eGPU, but even when connected without the eGPU the MBP remained quiet (eg playing 4K YouTube on a retina scaled 2560x1440, ie 5120x2880 downsampled to 3860x2160).
I can’t explain why my machine would run significantly cooler than others reported elsewhere. I do have it on a rain design m stand, which helps with cooling, but surely that can’t be the entire explanation.
MBP 13 2020 won't recognize USB devices f… - Apple Community
Here is the Apple discussion (120+ users clicked "I have this question too") for more details.
About the cooling, you could get way better results by getting lucky with chip binning. I've talked about that in the thermal thread I linked above. Not all chips are made equal and some literally use less voltage to provide the same power, thus running cooler than others in the same model line.
Furthermore, it's not about fans running on low RPM - you are better off checking your temperatures. The default fan preset keeps the fan almost fully quiet until the machine is way past 80C. That is not good. By the very least, this heat reaches the battery and could degrade it faster. So while you hear no noise and might be at high temps, I hear some noise occasionally (particularly when doing GPU-intensive tasks or using Ableton for music production) but my temps are being kept in much more reasonable boundaries and my battery hardly ever reaches anything above 37-38C with an external monitor connected. Actually, here's what it looks like right now - just Brave browser open with 10 tabs and Discord, with external monitor. Under no load the temps are great.
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MBP 13 2020 won't recognize USB devices f… - Apple Community
discussions.apple.com
Here is the Apple discussion (120+ users clicked "I have this question too") for more details.
About the cooling, you could get way better results by getting lucky with chip binning. I've talked about that in the thermal thread I linked above. Not all chips are made equal and some literally use less voltage to provide the same power, thus running cooler than others in the same model line.
Furthermore, it's not about fans running on low RPM - you are better off checking your temperatures. The default fan preset keeps the fan almost fully quiet until the machine is way past 80C. That is not good. By the very least, this heat reaches the battery and could degrade it faster. So while you hear no noise occasionally and might be at high temps, I hear some noise (particularly when doing GPU-intensive tasks or using Ableton for music production) but my temps are being kept in much more reasonable boundaries and my battery hardly ever reaches anything above 37-38C with an external monitor connected. Without a monitor and peripherals the temps are perfect and without any heavy tasks the mac would actually be cold to the touch, not warm. I'm not saying that's great, but it is way better than how it behaved with the default thermal profile. Attaching external screens will inevitably put more stress on the GPU of any laptop. I am not even going to mention the 16 inch MBPs, who become jet turbines when you JUST connect external monitors with a browser tab open. That's ridiculous. The MBP 13 is way better in this regard, as it only uses an integrated GPU that draws less power.
my '19 13" had some thermal issues , i took it apart and there was so much thermal paste on it , it was off the sides of the chip itself...not the die. not sure how they are applying the paste but its Wayyy to much. also , i noticed using a thunderbolt dock vs no thunderbolt dock increased my temps by ~15-10C easily. odd.
the machine itself looked alot more rapidly assembled than i would normally see in a macbook pro. thermal pads offset. too much thermal paste. one heatsink screw not torqued down all the way. fan plastic to heatsink completely missing.
i fixed it up myself. not putting applecare on it. ill have to ride this out until i get a ARM.
As far as I've read, the 2019 MBPs were kinda wonky in some regards and particularly hotter than usual. Your case is really bad though, you got very unlucky with some B-rated macbook that had a rough time in assembly.
My gf has both a 2016 13" and a 2019 16" and the 13 inch has really good thermals. Usually cold to the touch. The CPU in it was just a great fit for the body and size and it seems to be working well (excluding the butterfly keyboard which she had issues with). With two 2K external monitors the laptop didn't even get hot and that's without using a custom fan profile. Then the 16 inch starts blasting fans, even when in clamshell mode, with the exact same two monitors. The AMD gpu really ups the heat and apparently it draws 18W by the minimum as soon as it starts being used. I find the 2020 13" to be a good release, IF we turn a blind eye to the USB bugs - likely stemming from the 10th gen Intel CPUs. I'm generally quite happy with it but that's after my software modifications. It's just a bummer if you rely on peripherals. I actually love using the dock - 1 cable for everything, devices are powered by the dock, and charging. It's far too convenient. Honestly, if they fix the TB3 bug for people that have it, this release would probably be the best over the last 4 years. I hope it keeps going at least until there is proof that arm-based MBPs are reliable and software works well on them. After that, in theory, thermals should start becoming a non-issue due to the efficiency of arm.
Does anyone on here have the 10th gen i5 model with ZERO issues? No battery draining, no overheating, nothing?
Thank you for the detailed input. As a test just now, I fired up a 4K YouTube video in Chrome (the Nvidia 30 series release event if you're interested) and let it run for a few minutes. It was playing on my external 4K display (retina "looks like 2560x1440") while the internal display is open and active at default resolution. No other apps were using significant resources.MBP 13 2020 won't recognize USB devices f… - Apple Community
Here is the Apple discussion (120+ users clicked "I have this question too") for more details.
About the cooling, you could get way better results by getting lucky with chip binning. I've talked about that in the thermal thread I linked above. Not all chips are made equal and some literally use less voltage to provide the same power, thus running cooler than others in the same model line.
Furthermore, it's not about fans running on low RPM - you are better off checking your temperatures. The default fan preset keeps the fan almost fully quiet until the machine is way past 80C. That is not good. By the very least, this heat reaches the battery and could degrade it faster. So while you hear no noise and might be at high temps, I hear some noise occasionally (particularly when doing GPU-intensive tasks or using Ableton for music production) but my temps are being kept in much more reasonable boundaries and my battery hardly ever reaches anything above 37-38C with an external monitor connected. Actually, here's what it looks like right now - just Brave browser open with 10 tabs and Discord, with external monitor. Under no load the temps are great.
View attachment 949841 Without a monitor and peripherals the temps are perfect and without any heavy tasks the mac would actually be cold to the touch, not warm. I'm not saying that's great, but it is way better than how it behaved with the default thermal profile. Attaching external screens will inevitably put more stress on the GPU of any laptop. I am not even going to mention the 16 inch MBPs, who become jet turbines when you JUST connect external monitors with a browser tab open. That's ridiculous. The MBP 13 is way better in this regard, as it only uses an integrated GPU that draws less power.
As you can see from the screenshot below, the fans stayed at 0 rpm and the machine was totally silent. The CPU was at 64C and the computer average was at 43C. The battery was at 28C, which seems reasonable. In this scenario would you agree there is little need to change the fan profile from default?
It makes me sad that I didn't go for an i7 if that's the normal situation with it. Either that, or you truly hit the silicon lottery jackpot with an extremely well-binned processor. Regardless, these complaints came from various users (in this forum) who complained about inexplicable temperatures on their 2020 13" MBPs. It sucks that we pay the same price but some machines are vastly superior in efficiency. I pretty much firmly believe binning should be rated and included in the price. Anything less than ideal should be discounted. Otherwise it almost feels illegal but that's how the whole industry works.
P.S. Did you do this test shortly after the laptop was asleep, or turned off? Or after letting it run with the monitor for a while?
I may well got lucky with the i7. My Geekbench 5 result is a little higher than average (1313 vs 1233 for single core), so perhaps it is a "good" example. I don't doubt other users' concerns at all. I just wanted to share another datapoint.
While I seem to have been lucky with the hardware, I wasn't so lucky with the delivery. My CTO MBP was temporarily lost by UPS back in late May and ended up taking an extra 10 days to arrive. Lots of grief chasing it down at the time, but has been very reliable ever since I got it.
Re: the test. The MBP had been awake for around 30 mins before I ran the test (and running both displays). I don't think it would have made much difference how long it was on, because the fans are mostly at 0 rpm. I do have the "benefit" of less than stellar weather here in the UK. It is late summer and yet the temperature is only 21C in this room.
It was theorised a while ago that the i7 would run slightly cooler, but this difference is dramatic - unless it really is just a great binning case with ideal thermal paste application. Although, LTT did a video where they changed thermal paste on a 2020 MBA and the results were not impressive at all.
For a MBP that has been running for a while with an external monitor those battery temps are really good. I don't even care for the other components since they can take a lot of heat and still function over a long period of time, but the battery usually goes first. Technically, these types of cells do not like temps above 35C, and under load I often reach 38C, but even when idle they consistently sit around 30-33C. I'd have to sleep the mac for hours and then turn it on to see something in the ~22-25C range. Still, I hope it lasts a few years even like this, it shouldn't be a huge problem and I go that extra mile by limiting my charge capacity to about 50-60%, so that it never sits on 100% for long. I do a full cycle every week to keep the chemistry moving and I don't know if coconutBattery is right, but factory capacity is a tiny bit beyond 100% and I've been using the mac for 3 months now. I don't mind slightly higher temps as long as it keeps working. Even the dock problems are solved if I make sure to follow the steps to avoid the crash (unplug the dock and shut down the mac when I go to sleep, or sleep the mac and keep the dock plugged).
In all fairness, I should have probably went for the i7 since I do feel a bit of extra power would have been nice, but the i5 is not bad at all, it does the job I need it for.
So did i get it right: you have a CTO with 32GB of RAM?
If yes, that is why your gb5 score is higher than average - ram influence scores in GB. 16 is better than 8, and 32 is better than 16 in those gb5 tests.
I just received my MBP/i5 10th gen/16/512 today from Apple by free next day express shipping which was nice. Mine came with 10.15.6 pre-installed. I'm going to let it index for awhile before starting to really use it. I do hope mine doesn't suffer from any heating issues that I've read about.
FWIW, I've been *very* happy with my 2020 MBP -- no fan noise, normal heat, great performance and an all-around beautiful machine.
My new MBP has been running for 24 hours now and is cool to the touch. I returned the same model a few weeks back due to it getting hot while doing anything. Just 1-2 tabs of browsing and streaming music, and the keyboard and palm rest would get very hot. Not experiencing anything like that with this one.
I do. I had some runaway processes in the beginning that were eating up system resources, but they were all iCloud related. Since syncing there's been zero issues......and yes, I use my Mac every day for work and personal stuff. I'm running a Scarlett solo, a Scarlett 2i2, and an Apogee Apollo Twin in to Logic X mostly. Not at the same time. I also use Final Cut Pro for video editing. Final Cut will make it run hot, but no crashes and not unreasonably so.