First impressions of 2019 MacBook Pro 16" coming from Mid-2015 MacBook Pro 15"

[LinkRS]

Howdy Everyone,

I received my CTO 2019 MacBook Pro today! I am in the process of setting it up, going from my 2015 to this one. As my old one was having issues with some graphical apps (namely Unreal Engine and Diablo 3), I had a BootCamp partition I was using as well. For my new build, I am again trying to go 100% macOS.

When I took it out of the box, it looks very much like my 2015 (I got the silver one), and seems to be about the same size and weight (to me, not actually measured). The screen doesn't look a lot bigger, but the resolution (at defat scaling) is noticeably higher. The second thing I noticed was the keyboard. Coming from the 2015, this one feels quite a bit difference. They keys are definitely shallower, meaning there is less travel. I am not sure how I feel about this at the moment, but it is different. The 16" is also much quieter than my 2015 model. I had the "mid" 2015 model with the Radeon GPU, and a 2.5 GHz Quad Core CPU. My CTO has the 2.3 GHz i9 and the 8 GB Radeon Pro 5500.

I have not noticed the speaker popping (supposedly fixed now), nor the ghosting/smearing display. This screen does no refresh as fast as my desktop (gaming PC), but it doesn't seem much different from my 2015.

As I play with the new one, I'll update this post for those that are curious. Thanks!

Rich S.

 

[aajeevlin]

Howdy Everyone,

I received my CTO 2019 MacBook Pro today! I am in the process of setting it up, going from my 2015 to this one. As my old one was having issues with some graphical apps (namely Unreal Engine and Diablo 3), I had a BootCamp partition I was using as well. For my new build, I am again trying to go 100% macOS.

When I took it out of the box, it looks very much like my 2015 (I got the silver one), and seems to be about the same size and weight (to me, not actually measured). The screen doesn't look a lot bigger, but the resolution (at defat scaling) is noticeably higher. The second thing I noticed was the keyboard. Coming from the 2015, this one feels quite a bit difference. They keys are definitely shallower, meaning there is less travel. I am not sure how I feel about this at the moment, but it is different. The 16" is also much quieter than my 2015 model. I had the "mid" 2015 model with the Radeon GPU, and a 2.5 GHz Quad Core CPU. My CTO has the 2.3 GHz i9 and the 8 GB Radeon Pro 5500.

I have not noticed the speaker popping (supposedly fixed now), nor the ghosting/smearing display. This screen does no refresh as fast as my desktop (gaming PC), but it doesn't seem much different from my 2015.

As I play with the new one, I'll update this post for those that are curious. Thanks!

Rich S.

I’m so tempted. I got the MacBook Air base to see if it’s good. It’s cheap for sure. I have the MacBook Pro 13” 2011. Very tempted to get a refurbished 16”.

 

[LinkRS]

Howdy Everyone,

I received my CTO 2019 MacBook Pro today! I am in the process of setting it up, going from my 2015 to this one. As my old one was having issues with some graphical apps (namely Unreal Engine and Diablo 3), I had a BootCamp partition I was using as well. For my new build, I am again trying to go 100% macOS.

When I took it out of the box, it looks very much like my 2015 (I got the silver one), and seems to be about the same size and weight (to me, not actually measured). The screen doesn't look a lot bigger, but the resolution (at defat scaling) is noticeably higher. The second thing I noticed was the keyboard. Coming from the 2015, this one feels quite a bit difference. They keys are definitely shallower, meaning there is less travel. I am not sure how I feel about this at the moment, but it is different. The 16" is also much quieter than my 2015 model. I had the "mid" 2015 model with the Radeon GPU, and a 2.5 GHz Quad Core CPU. My CTO has the 2.3 GHz i9 and the 8 GB Radeon Pro 5500.

I have not noticed the speaker popping (supposedly fixed now), nor the ghosting/smearing display. This screen does no refresh as fast as my desktop (gaming PC), but it doesn't seem much different from my 2015.

As I play with the new one, I'll update this post for those that are curious. Thanks!

Rich S.

Howdy Everyone,

Well, I have had my 2019 MacBook Pro 16" for exactly a week today! I though I would update my initial impressions, now that I have had a chance to use it more. As mentioned earlier, the speakers have been fine. I have to be honest, and I don't see how these speakers are better than others, don't get me wrong I have no complaints. The display is also fine, I am really enjoying the extra real estate from the 2015" (more to do with the resolution than the physical size). I found the ghosting test (https://www.testufo.com/ghosting), and I really don't notice the ghosting on this display. I have a 144Hz on my desktop, which I also ran this test on, and other than the option to go faster than 60 fps, it looks about the same to my eyes. According to coconutBattery my MBP was built on 25 May 2020 (the day after I placed my order), so I don't know if this means newer builds "fixed" it, or if my eyes just don't see it?

I spoke too soon about noise. Once I got all of my software (minus BootCamp) loaded up, and started to use my system, I heard the fans spin up. At max volume, this is just as loud as my older system. I am not on an external monitor (defeats my purpose of using it as a laptop LOL), and my temps seem to start around 50C, and build up to 60C when using the AMD GPU, and hit 80C when pushing the card, before the fans kick in, dropping it down to 60C pretty quickly. I am not actually sure how to monitor actual clock speed(s) in macOS, but I am running with hyperthreading on.

They keyboard is definitely not the same as the 2015 model. I find myself making more typing mistakes due to the shallowness of the keys. Maybe it will get better overtime, but I think the 2015 is still better. FWIW, I never used the butterfly keyboard, and completely side-stepped those.

So far, the Unreal Engine and Diablo 3 are working fantastically under macOS. I am optimistically hoping that I don't have to use BootCamp on here.

I have seen some strange behavior, with some applications/programs. When I installed OneDrive, it ran horrendously slow when it was download the contents, and did not give me the option to unselect items to sync until it downloaded its initial files. iCloud Drive works much better under macOS than OneDrive (I guess a 'duh' is in order here lol). My gaming mouse, the Razer Orochi (2015 model) is not supported for Catalina, and uses a USB A connector anyway. So I don't have the software for it installed, and am connecting via Bluetooth, and it is working OK.

I did a trade-in on my 2015 model when ordering this one. I still have not received the kit to return my old one. I would not be surprised if Apple waits for the 14-day return period expires before they ship it, which kind of makes sense.

I am happy with it so far. Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any questions.

Rich S.