No, but I have courage that at some point I will. But seriously, I'm having trouble with the keyboard, touch bar, and track pad ergonomics and its pretty frustrating at the moment. Palm / thumb rejection on the enormous trackpad is not seamless. Wishing will all my might that ill get used to it.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Are you happy with your late 2016 Macbook Pro?
- Thread starter fokmik
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'm very happy. Posted my review just a short while ago My MacBook Pro w/TouchBar review (kind of long)
I WAS happy, and one week in this is the first time I'm considering returning it. My issue is that there's no dock solutions for the 15". Everything being shown isn't slated to be released till next year (AFTER the return period) and I simply can't take that gamble (almost $4k game) that they'll work.
Apple really dropped the ball by not releasing a true TB3/USB-C dock or a TB display replacement.
Apple really dropped the ball by not releasing a true TB3/USB-C dock or a TB display replacement.
You could always return it just before the holiday period ends and buy another one around the same time. I've gotten a few unexpected crashes already with this laptop. I'll keep monitoring it for the next month.
This is the one I got. Not even going to bother, I'll just wait patiently for it. But I don't NEED a laptop this minute either. Although, the message telling me my SSD is out of space is getting old. Looking forward to doubling to 512.
I'm using a mid 2012 non retina, 16GB with 512GB SSD as my daily driver so this is gonna be a massive upgrade speed wise and weight saving alone.
13 in MBP with touchbar. I'm liking it a lot. I thought I would hate the keyboard a lot more, but its much better comparing it to new Macbook, although I didn't try that keyboard much beyond the store. The battery life has been meh, but it seems to be ok right now after I made some battery saving adjustments. On thing I do need to get used to is the trackpad and the touch bar. There are times when I'm typing and my finger will hit the touchbar. It also happens with my thumb hitting the trackpad but both these things are minor annoyances. Hopefully these things quickly become a non-issue because I really love the slim size and the screen, plus I've needed a new laptop for quite a while.
Same here. Ironically I went with a fresh install too (did a time machine restore on my 2012 and never really had a problem until my dGPU died last month). They're supposedly returning my 2012 with a new logic board and top case which includes a new battery and keyboard). Was going to sell it, but I'm torn between holding onto the 2016 till after the holidays or selling my 2012 for a relatively good price before the holidays.
15 base model 2016 here and I love it. I came from a mid-2014 and honestly I really liked that mac as well. I can say that reading this forum really made me worry about my order. Now that I have it I can honestly say that people are either trolling or being pretentious babies. I actually like the keyboard more than the 2014 and I don't even think it much louder. The battery life seems great although I have had it for 1 day so its hard to say. The touchbar is truly more useful to me than the F row ever was. The touchpad works flawless for me and has perfect palm rejection. I will say I never really use the 3 finger swipe so there could be issues there. I can't say that I notice a large difference with the screen but since I sold my 2014 I have been without it for about week so I can't compare. The speakers are way better than the 2014 and that is immediately obvious. The smaller form factor and lighter weight is really welcomed as well. I know I'm an odd one out but I prefer chrome to safari and I really hope some touchbar development is happening.
I wish the forum wasn't full of whiners but I understand that if you need/want attention or you are unhappy you are far more likely to voice your opinion. Just reminds me of the one post "apple sells an expensive brick" then later you can find the guy in other threads talking about the fact he bought the computer and likes it...
I wish the forum wasn't full of whiners but I understand that if you need/want attention or you are unhappy you are far more likely to voice your opinion. Just reminds me of the one post "apple sells an expensive brick" then later you can find the guy in other threads talking about the fact he bought the computer and likes it...
Last edited:
Any great inconveniences that the lack of USB ports are giving you? What have you used to solve them?
Could you update on what kind of battery life you're getting on this new mac as compared to the Mid2014 you used to have?
I have been using my 13" TB Base model for almost a week now and I am really happy with it. I like the keyboard a LOT more than I expected to. In fact, it makes me want to type more! The touch bar is going to need some more software support before I can really call it useful. I do like the customization that comes from it. I knew going in that I was making this decision based on what it will end up being and not what it is now. Even with "only" 8GB of RAM, I haven't had any issues running a Windows 10 Pro VM in VMWare Fusion while having a bunch of native apps open. Today was the first day that I really tested the battery. Currently I am sitting at 13% left after about 6 hours of active usage and 14 hours since being plugged in. Seems a lot better than my old machine that I replaced the battery on - a Mid-2010 MacBook Pro, which would give my 5 hours if I was conservative.
My 2014 battery was at about 83% life and when fully charged iStat would say I have about 10 hours remaining while web browsing. With machine in the same use case, it's estimating 13+ hours. I got the computer at 1030 am did my time machine restore and have been using it on and off all day with web browsing and watching youtube videos in the chrome browser and it is currently (11 hours later) saying i have 4.5 hours of battery left.
For dongle-gate I have bought these 3 items but only have had a chance to use the 2 anker products which have worked great. I did my time machine restore off a 2nd gen Sandisk 480gb SSD in a cheap enclosure and with the anker cable and hub was restoring at 300+ MB/s which I thought was reasonable.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LNA0XCU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AUKU1OO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XU6PM68/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Wow that is some amazing battery life there! Even on your 2014 that's pretty great already.
Thanks, good to know which USB C cables you're currently using. No solutions yet for an SD card or HDMI out?
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I love the laptop but the weak battery and weak processor and minor staggering/lag in the UI is the reason I returned mine. I will wait for the next iteration. But overall its a great laptop.
2016, 13" 16gb, i7.
I love everything about, the keyboard, touchpad, touchbar and the speakers are amazing for their size, although I'm envious of the richer sound the 15" get.
The only gripes are it runs much hotter than the i5 I had to return due to a display issue and the battery life.
At 100% battery it said I had 8h 19m left. After 45 minutes of youtube video it said 5 hours. If the rate is consistent to the end I'd think 4 hours while playing streaming videos would be the max.
This was at 12 clicks up for brightness and keyboard at 50% brightness.
If a local store has an i5 in stock tomorrow I'll try to switch back and run the same test.
Other than those 2 issues I'm very happy with it (ignoring the defective display on my first one).
I love everything about, the keyboard, touchpad, touchbar and the speakers are amazing for their size, although I'm envious of the richer sound the 15" get.
The only gripes are it runs much hotter than the i5 I had to return due to a display issue and the battery life.
At 100% battery it said I had 8h 19m left. After 45 minutes of youtube video it said 5 hours. If the rate is consistent to the end I'd think 4 hours while playing streaming videos would be the max.
This was at 12 clicks up for brightness and keyboard at 50% brightness.
If a local store has an i5 in stock tomorrow I'll try to switch back and run the same test.
Other than those 2 issues I'm very happy with it (ignoring the defective display on my first one).
I've been using the 13" TB i5 model now for the last couple days and here are my current takeaways. First it runs way cooler than the i7 model I had on Saturday so I am happy I made the switch; I didn't need that much power and it saved me quite a bit of money. Anyway, my thoughts:
The Touch Bar is great! I was forcing myself to use it, to get accustomed to it and already it has become something I use all the time--if the app supports it. I can't wait to see all my other apps work with it.
The speakers are flat out amazing! I rarely watched videos on my previous laptops and when I did, I would usually Airplay them to my TV with sound bar, but I find myself watching a lot on this just because they sound so good.
The screen is beautiful, and I like having more screen area than my previous (now my wife's) 12" MacBook.
The keyboard is as good as the 12" MacBook, which I really liked.
Having 4 ports is nice, especially after only having one for the last 18 months with my previous two MacBooks. Also, being able to charge on either side is surprisingly convenient!
Now a bit of negative...
The touchpad is nice, but the sound it makes is slightly annoying to me--a little hollow sounding, not as "tight" as the MacBook--and it does not seem to work as well as the 12" MacBook, especially trying to drag things around with Force Touch activated. I can only rarely make it work. I have, for now, just disabled Force Touch in System Prefs and I can, once again, drag appointments around in calendar and files to my USB sticks.
The battery life just flat out sucks. Maybe 5 hours. Maybe, at best, with medium brightness and me using such power hungry apps as Safari with 3-4 tabs, Twitter, and iMessage. I have a slim hope that Apple will release some kind of firmware or software update to help increase the time, but I am not sure if I am all that hopeful. The battery seems to be just too small for the load it needs to support. But we will see. For now, I have changed a lot of settings to try to eek more battery time out of it. The 12" MacBook made it all day with little issue. I usually only charged it nightly when I plugged in my iPhone and sometimes only ever other night. And, now I am feeling like I absolutely cannot travel during the day without my power supply. Here's hoping for an update...
But overall, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives for me and I will be keeping this. I even formatted my old 12" MacBook and am currently restoring my wife's TM backup to it as I type this. So I am officially a (mostly) happy MacBook Pro user!
The Touch Bar is great! I was forcing myself to use it, to get accustomed to it and already it has become something I use all the time--if the app supports it. I can't wait to see all my other apps work with it.
The speakers are flat out amazing! I rarely watched videos on my previous laptops and when I did, I would usually Airplay them to my TV with sound bar, but I find myself watching a lot on this just because they sound so good.
The screen is beautiful, and I like having more screen area than my previous (now my wife's) 12" MacBook.
The keyboard is as good as the 12" MacBook, which I really liked.
Having 4 ports is nice, especially after only having one for the last 18 months with my previous two MacBooks. Also, being able to charge on either side is surprisingly convenient!
Now a bit of negative...
The touchpad is nice, but the sound it makes is slightly annoying to me--a little hollow sounding, not as "tight" as the MacBook--and it does not seem to work as well as the 12" MacBook, especially trying to drag things around with Force Touch activated. I can only rarely make it work. I have, for now, just disabled Force Touch in System Prefs and I can, once again, drag appointments around in calendar and files to my USB sticks.
The battery life just flat out sucks. Maybe 5 hours. Maybe, at best, with medium brightness and me using such power hungry apps as Safari with 3-4 tabs, Twitter, and iMessage. I have a slim hope that Apple will release some kind of firmware or software update to help increase the time, but I am not sure if I am all that hopeful. The battery seems to be just too small for the load it needs to support. But we will see. For now, I have changed a lot of settings to try to eek more battery time out of it. The 12" MacBook made it all day with little issue. I usually only charged it nightly when I plugged in my iPhone and sometimes only ever other night. And, now I am feeling like I absolutely cannot travel during the day without my power supply. Here's hoping for an update...
But overall, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives for me and I will be keeping this. I even formatted my old 12" MacBook and am currently restoring my wife's TM backup to it as I type this. So I am officially a (mostly) happy MacBook Pro user!
Macbook 13 TB 8GB RAM 512GB Base.
Getting around 10 hours of battery!
That is under the following condition:
Screen brightness 65-70%
Keyboard lighting around 45%
Only using web surfing (no playing music or videos)
Using WhatsApp for constant chatting
Using iMessage for constant chatting.
Tested it by timing how long the laptop would work on 10% of battery usage.
Should I consider myself to be the lucky one?
Getting around 10 hours of battery!
That is under the following condition:
Screen brightness 65-70%
Keyboard lighting around 45%
Only using web surfing (no playing music or videos)
Using WhatsApp for constant chatting
Using iMessage for constant chatting.
Tested it by timing how long the laptop would work on 10% of battery usage.
Should I consider myself to be the lucky one?
Glad to hear you're getting 10 hours.
I just exchanged my 13" 16gb i7 back to a 8gb i5, will let you know if the battery experience is better than what I had with the i7 once it's restored and give it some time for indexing.