Apple Launches 2018 MacBook Pros: 8th Gen Core, Up to 32GB of RAM, Third-Gen Keyboard, Quad-Core on 13-Inch and More

[too many Macs]

No progress with the size of the bezels continues to be a disappointment.
Please, no feedback about where to put the camera. They can keep it on top and still reduce the bezel size.

 

[Schranke]

It's a legitimate question as the cooling system in the previous model is barely sufficient or insufficient to cope with sustained workloads without throttling as it is.

All in all this won't entice me to buy into Apple Macs again, not at this price. I'd maybe consider the non-Touch Bar 13" model if it got 4 cores and 32 GB of RAM, but that's it.

The price have become higher and higer the recent years, and whit a machine which suffers when performing in extended periods I think apple really have to rethink how they will design around this. It is not like the machines need to become thinner and lighter, they makes other machines which focus on this, no reliable performance are where the macbook pro's need to focus on performance

 

[bopajuice]

Actually no, its only about 500 dollars, as I was specing out the Dell, Razer and MBP and a dell with 4k/512GB/16GB of ram was coming in at 2,100 and a similarly configured MBP was 2,600. This is for the 15" model

Still the biggest reason I stay with Apple is customer service. I recently purchased a Razorblade Stealth and decided to return it. Took them almost three weeks to credit my credit card after they received it back. I cringe at the idea of having to send in my laptop for repairs and then having to wait days or weeks to get it back.

Apple is still king in this regard. You make an appointment, go into the store, and deal with the problem. It has happened to me more than once that a repair was done while I waited, or a replacement was offered.

Not sure about any other brands. I have heard Dell is pretty good customer service wise, but I have not used them.

I have learned to factor customer service into the price I pay for a laptop.

 

[Zdigital2015]

I guess the 12" macbook and 13" nTB model will both go away and will be replaced by a single macbook 13" later this year.

Unlikely

Don't forget the MacBook Air as well along with the 12" MacBook and 13" nTB MacBook Pro. I expect that all three will shuffle off this mortal coil after the 13" MacBook is announced.

If the 13" nTB MacBook Pro doesn't go away when the 13" MacBook is introduced, it will simply linger on the way the 2015 MacBook Air has since the 12" MacBook was introduced.

 

[macintoshmac]

Another Mac disappointment under the Cook era. Can't believe they are still selling that gen3 garbage designed keyboard and the worthless crapbar, also the same penny pinching tactics to force you buy it, if you want physical keys you get screwed.

They still offer subpar GPUs, same thermals, haven't even improved battery life, not only far far from what they claim, other brands like Microsoft or LG are even doubling Apple's battery life using an inferior OS such as Windows. Bezels the same, so magsafe is gone for good? Really Apple?! this is your best innovation for power connection? Also wow, impressive how you make 3k+ laptop users carry around dongles like noobs, portability invention of the century!

To those contributing economically to these "upgrades", all the best, I'm sure you are very proud of what Apple has become, the golden era.

So long, it was good while it lasted.

So, are you staying on the forum?

 

[Peperino]

I think it is safe to say that the reaction here is overwhelmingly negative for whatever reason.

Whatever Reason??

A Macbook pro with a 256GB internal? Really? What age are Apple designers living in, 1998?

No Mag Safe
Still the same amount of ports
Poor specs
Same lame keyboard
Way overpriced (a 15" is 2800) due to a lame touchbar that NOBODY CARES...
No Cheaper option without touchbar.

Same old poor design, just internal upgrades.

So sad to see Apple so out of touch with its user base.

 

[edenwaith]

Apple: 32 GB. There. Have it. Ya'll happy now?

Of course not! Now we want 64GB. You know what...forget that. Let's just jump straight to 128GB of RAM. No matter how much RAM is available, it will always be a "paltry amount".

I just hope the keyboard has truly been improved. I'd have to try it out in person to determine if the touch is any better.

But this was definitely a surprise announcement. No real hint that this was going to be announced today. It could have easily been delayed a couple months for a nice, big Mac event in the autumn.

 

[Peperino]

Even when the Butterfly keyboard is working, it's god-awful to type on.

I Agree, the new keyboard is really awful....not even close as nice to the oldes keyboard.

 

[maflynn]

Still the biggest reason I stay with Apple is customer service. I recently purchased a Razorblade Stealth and decided to return it. Took them almost three weeks to credit my credit card after they received it back. I cringe at the idea of having to send in my laptop for repairs and then having to wait days or weeks to get it back.

I was not frustrated with razer, I too did a return, but the money showed back up, a few days after receiving the laptop. They did project a lengthy wait that scared me, but I was notified by amex of the credit, so overall it wasn't a bad experience.

 

[bodonnell202]

The non-touchbar model was not updated. Unbelievable.

Not surprising actually. Since the non-touchbar model uses a 15 W processor an Intel CPU upgrade with Iris graphics doesn't actually exist yet, all the 8th gen 15 W Intel core processors have UHD 620 graphics (i.e. not Iris graphics). I suspect that when Apple introduces the rumored "cheaper" 13 inch Macbook the non touchbar MBP and the MBA (and possibly even the 12" Macbook) will be discontinued.

 

[wiffle]

Wonder how big of a difference the True-Tone Display will make... Hm.

 

[maflynn]

No progress with the size of the bezels continues to be a disappointment.
Please, no feedback about where to put the camera. They can keep it on top and still reduce the bezel size.

Razer has a thin bezel and the camera on the top, I agree that there isn't a reason to have a "nose cam" I will say the MBP looks better then the Dell. I just like the clean lines of the MBP, and the 15" Razer has similar lines and design. I really like both computers, though macOS wins out on many aspects of usability

 

[mithion]

Although I'm pleased with the spec bump, I still feel like they need to drop the price $200-$300 across the board of all macbook pro configurations especially since they are abandoning the non-touch bar pro. I just built a 13in pro to replace my wife's 2011 macbook air and specced it with 16Gb of ram and a 512SSD and it clocks in at $2200. That's eye watering expensive for a fairly average laptop with integrated graphics. At this point, if I'm spending that much, I might as well go with the 15in for $200 more. Is that what apple wants? To entice consumers who are interested in higher specced 13in models to go further and upgrade to the 15in?

It use to be that you paid for the build quality by going with Apple, but other manufacturers have seriously stepped up their game. Take this laptop I have right next to me. It's a 12in dell latitude ultrabook. It's thin and light, is very well made (might be military spec) and has an outstanding keyboard and guess what, comes with both usb-c and usb-a ports and all for about $1200-$1300. With how nice this machine is, only an idiot would want to spend $500 more for an Apple laptop that has basically the same performance.

 

[Kiwikat88]

Yeah from what I have seen, a few of the laptops using the new hexacores run very very hot, but that is to be expected to a certain degree in a laptop.

That's why you don't put them in tiny thin ultrabooks. Get a laptop with a more realistic form factor and it handles it fine. People are talking about shoving 1060s and 1070s in these things like you can just defy physics and have it not overheat or throttle to the point of just using lesser hardware. That's ultimately why I settled on a beefier chassis like the Thinkpad P52. It can handle the heat with its bigger heatsinks and fans.

 

[No Nickname]

Any chance they add a non-Touchbar version to the 15" model in a month or so? Maybe they're waiting for the folks who will buy the Touchbar version immediately before offering the non-TB option?

 

[titans1127]

As much as I would love to purchase one of these, my 2016 13'' Touch Bar Pro is working just fine with no performance issues and no problems with the keyboard to this point. Only thing I notice is the keyboard tends to get imprinted into the display when closed and dirty which goes away when cleaned thankfully.

If anything with the keyboard replacement program good for the next couple of years and I can just take advantage of it which will likely get me a fresh battery as well and extend the life of the machine for me.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

Same old design*

*Aka two years.

 

[MoJoRo]

Sneaky Apple. Looks like a really decent bump if the keyboard issue was addressed!

EDIT: Wait, looks like 32GB DDR4 is only available on the 15-inch, and not the new quad core 13-inch... That's going to make some people angry :/

Is there seriously a demand for a 13 inch laptop with 32GB RAM? Am I the only one who thinks that's irrational?

 

[Jack Burton]

A bunch of my coworkers on the next upgrade cycle are SUPER excited about that 32 GB of ram. $2800 for the minimum entry, though? Not so much.

ArsTechnica is reporting that the keyboards feel different. Here's hoping that a $3000 computer will bring a reliable keyboard.

 

[Rogifan]

It is a flaw. It is an ergonomic flaw and in the end is more likely to cause the user to suffer from things like carpal tunnel syndrome. That is why there are guidelines for key travel (1.5mm) and why the Apple keyboards are so bad for the user (0.8mm of travel). Preference is secondary to health, in this case.

That’s not what people are getting their keyboards fixed over. I use an iPad without a physical keyboard. Is that an ergonomic flaw too?

 

[MrGuder]

So how can we tell visually from the 2017 to the 2018? At least with the 2017 they made a decipher symbol on one of the keys.

 

[macintoshmac]

Wonder how big of a difference the True-Tone Display will make... Hm.

It does on an iPhone 8 to me. On the Mac side, I use the Night Shift for turning down the blues, but having True Tone has other advantages that I could like to have.

These computers are a good bump up and I think are pretty much competitive now, with latest processors at least, if not graphics.

 

[BlueTide]

Apple: 32 GB. There. Have it. Ya'll happy now?

Yeah, pretty close at least. This might finally be worth upgrading to from late 2013 MBP.

My overall reaction is 'finally'. At last the specs are somewhat up to the price point, though the $2800 for a 4TB drive is beyond absurd. Just wish it hadn't taken them two years longer than everyone else to get there.

Yeah, that said, for me _personally_ it's no biggie since 4TB wouldn't be enough anyway so I can do just fine with 512GB and external storage. But that is a major rip-off, though.

GPU is 3 years old. GTX 1050 will outperform this. Similar windows laptops have GTX 1060 for less cost.
Battery is good.

This, and throttling. But it's not that bad, given that laptops are no workstations anyhow. I bet they also knew it and thus lauched the Blackmagic eGPU to counter that.

A pro needs to get things done, an enthusiast likes to play with pro hardware and compare spec charts.

I am sure there are 'pros' who will not find these satisfactory. They adapt and continue to produce. For those that are actually working in a 'pro' capacity the price of any extra (RAM, SSD, etc) is a cost factored into the business.

Having just spent a 18 months trying to go to PC including a $4000 Threadripper workstation … short of long renders I am still to this day more productive on a 2013 rMPB.

Yeah, which is why my work stuff moved to Windows workstation some years ago. Stuff that requires power is just so much faster that it negates any of my personal preferences. Shame that I can't get a mac to do the lighter stuff on the side, for daily productivity. I so hope I could return to Mac side one day to simplify workflow.​

 

[graycrow]

Maxed out with 4tb, 32gb, the 15" costs 74,290 NOK = 9,167 USD!!!

9 288,55 USD in France

USD 9557 in Czech Republic!

 

[Rogifan]

For those wondering about keyboard changes, this paragraph in the Verge article is interesting:

Where is the evidence the butterfly design was the cause of the issue?