Hands-On With Apple's New 16-Inch MacBook Pro

[Plutonius]

Those pictures with adapters makes me sad. So, you spend such money in a laptop, and have to spend more to have the ports you need, and converts a beatifuful piece of Macbook in a horrible thing , much wider and ugly.

You do have to spend more to get the ports you need but that's just cost Apple would charge you if they put it into the computer.

As far as it being wider, it does make it slightly wider and you can't fit it in a laptop bag with the adapter still plugged in.

I also don't think it's ugly and looks like it's part of the Macbook Pro when it's plugged in.

The dimensions are only 4" long, 1" wide, and 1/2" high.
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I really want one of these. Eyeing the i9 with 1TB storage. They are in stock at the Apple store near my house. Been using my mid-2010 MacBook Pro 17" for almost the last 10 years. Think it's time for an upgrade 🤗

My advice would be to anyone who wants one, wait to buy. There are always issues when an Apple product is first released and the price will only go down.

 

[Howard2k]

Yup, go into your high end profesionals environement and measure the bandwidth to RAID, especially in multi-user environment, even on 10gigE (the best performance I got out of 16 disk RAID6 off a hardware controller with 4GB battery-backed cache on a 10gigE was about 400MBps sustained write and I had a monopoly on the data-path), and good luck finding 40gigE dongles for TB3... If you want to go out and buy a TB3 RAID box, then you have my sympathy!

If storage bandwidth is of primary importance then 10Gb/s Ethernet is not the right interface.

 

[0x0x0x0]

If storage bandwidth is of primary importance then 10Gb/s Ethernet is not the right interface.

What would the interface be in your mind then?..

 

[fehhkk]

Reviews seem to say that USB blacks out intermittently on this adapter. Has that beem your experience too?

I'm currently running into issues with my external USB drive (Samsung Evo 970 1TB, on an SSK enclosure). Worked fine on my 15" i9, getting blackouts/thermal throttling on the new 16" ... I think it's Catalina, since I have no issues with my 13" MBP with Mojave work machine... I wonder if anyone else having issues with external USB drives as well?

 

[Howard2k]

What would the interface be in your mind then?..

I’m not a hardware geek any more and haven’t been for a long time but I’m thinking TB3 or SAS. Perhaps Fibre Channel.
I have a hard time believing 10Gb/s is the best we can do these days. Am I wrong?

 

[posguy99]

Can you please test for VM environments (Parrallel or VMFusion)? Would be interested whether 16gb ram is sufficient to run Windows and MS Office products (mainly excel) smoothly using the base configuration or whether 32gb is needed. Thanks!

I've got to ask... what does this laptop over here have to do with this laptop over there regarding whether xxGb of RAm is enough to run a VM? Or more than one VM?

 

[0x0x0x0]

I’m not a hardware geek any more and haven’t been for a long time but I’m thinking TB3 or SAS. Perhaps Fibre Channel.
I have a hard time believing 10Gb/s is the best we can do these days. Am I wrong?

You're not a hardware geek, I am, and take it from me the problem is not ethernet, it's the architecture---when you want to properly configure RAID, you need cache and a way to back that cache in case of power failure, on top of that you switch off disk caches in a proper RAID set up, because you need to guarantee writes! SAS interface requires you to have RAID inside your mac (no go save for the new Mac Pro), then you need need the RAID hardware's firmware to interface with your mac EFI, good luck there! TB3, don't even go there---what is the random disconnect (both SAS and, CAT5/6, Direct Attach, and LC have latches to prevent accidental disconnect, TB3 does not!) and what happens in case of unplanned power loss???

 

[MarkB786]

why don't you just use an external monitor with your 13" MBP?

I do have a decent ext monitor, but it's clumsy for the way I work. I move around a lot during the day.

 

[Howard2k]

You're not a hardware geek, I am, and take it from me the problem is not ethernet, it's the architecture---when you want to properly configure RAID, you need cache and a way to back that cache in case of power failure, on top of that you switch off disk caches in a proper RAID set up, because you need to guarantee writes! SAS interface requires you to have RAID inside your mac (no go save for the new Mac Pro), then you need need the RAID hardware's firmware to interface with your mac EFI, good luck there! TB3, don't even go there---what is the random disconnect (both SAS and, CAT5/6, Direct Attach, and LC have latches to prevent accidental disconnect, TB3 does not!) and what happens in case of unplanned power loss???

The new Mac Pro is what we’re talking about though right?

 

[0x0x0x0]

The new Mac Pro is what we’re talking about though right?

Yup, but show me a RAID controller than can be plugged in there---I can't find support on neither Broadcom's nor MicroSemi's websites... Best I suspect you're gonna get is plain SAS HBAs at some point down the long line...

 

[Howard2k]

Yup, but show me a RAID controller than can be plugged in there---I can't find support on neither Broadcom's nor MicroSemi's websites... Best I suspect you're gonna get is plain SAS HBAs at some point down the long line...

Yeah I don’t know one either.

All the same, I’d be totally amazed if 10Gb/s Ethernet was the best we could do in 2019.

 

[0x0x0x0]

Yeah I don’t know one either.

All the same, I’d be totally amazed if 10Gb/s Ethernet was the best we could do in 2019.

So basically you're saying you suspect there could be something but you haven't a clue what, yet you make some outragous claims about some mythical unicorns in fluffy clouds in "professional environments"?.. 🤔

 

[CarlJ]

The only benefit of upgrading your own RAM is saving money buying third-party RAM.

There's another angle - you buy the machine with the amount of RAM and SSD you need now, and 2-3 years from now, when you need more capacity, you buy replacements. Sockets for the RAM and SSD do not take all that much space, and taking out a dozen screws to take off the back plate to access them is well within the skillset of a lot of users (or their technically inclined friend). It also gets rid of any fear/angst over having to guess your needs for the next several years and maybe guessing wrong. They've replaced the ability to upgrade with a guessing game, and that saddens me - it's a lousy trade.
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It wasn't until watching this video that it occurred to me: what does the "fn" (function) key even do on a Mac with Touch Bar? On an older keyboard, it switched the function key row between F1-F12 and Mac-controlling functions. Does it do that on Touch Bar-equipped machines? Would seem weird to have a physical key dedicated to controlling the operation of a set of virtual keys, where their whole thrust was that they were virtual. Like if you had a hardware Shift key on an iPhone.

 

[laz232]

Can you please test for VM environments (Parrallel or VMFusion)? Would be interested whether 16gb ram is sufficient to run Windows and MS Office products (mainly excel) smoothly using the base configuration or whether 32gb is needed. Thanks!

Have 16GB 2018 15". Give the VM about 6GB and it runs Win10 Office fine.
(I often have a 2GB Win7 and a 6GB Win10 machine open at the same time in Fusion)

 

[Populus]

I come from an Apple Store and I have been typing on this new MacBook Pro 16”. It’s strange to feel again this soft touch, similar to the old keyboard but, at the same time, thinner and a bit bigger.

But it felt strange and, if it wasn’t because of the issues the Butterfly Keyboard is giving to people, I wouldn’t mind to have a MacBook Pro with a butterfly keyboard. Actually, I kinda ended up liking it, it felt precise and accurate. It felt great. The scissor keyboard is quieter, but now I feel it a bit too mushy... I don’t know.

************​

I don't "need to use the Touch Bar" but you know what I do need to use? The function keys.

Same, I do need to use the function keys, without looking at the keyboard. With a TouchBar, you have to stare down at the keyboard in order to know what are you “touching”.

 

[Howard2k]

So basically you're saying you suspect there could be something but you haven't a clue what, yet you make some outragous claims about some mythical unicorns in fluffy clouds in "professional environments"?.. 🤔

No, not at all. I’m saying that I’m not an expert in Enterprise DAS and I suspect you aren’t either.

I already provided examples of several faster interfaces than 10Gb/s Ethernet.

Sorry I don’t believe you. Nothing personal. No need to degrade the conversation to unicorns.

I simply don’t believe that 10Gb/s
is the maximum storage interface available on the Apple world.

 

[CarlJ]

With a TouchBar, you have to stare down at the keyboard in order to know what are you “touching”.

It was funny to see in the video that sometimes the touch bar shows suggested corrections/next words - it's like the people designing it don't know what touch typing is.

 

[cocoua]

what I love the most is WIFI 6 and a 120mhz screen, Face ID also great.
oh wait! Its not 2023?

 

[laz232]

Use the function keys on MacBook Pro with Touch Bar - Apple Support

Press and hold the Fn (Function) key to see F1 through F12 in your Touch Bar.

support.apple.com

You can make it so that the function keys are permanently displayed in whatever app you need.

And it's 2019, deal with the dongles already. You're a professional photographer, do you complain about having to lug around multiple lenses, extra SD cards, batteries, etc.?

You may need an SD card reader, others need a headphone jack, some need HDMI, VGA, DVI, USB, Thunderbolt, etc. etc. etc. If Apple pleased every "pro" with their ULTRA LIGHT AND PORTABLE top of the line computer, the thing would weigh about 20 lbs.

Or go buy a PC and stop complaining here.

Just to be a little contrarian - as a professional electronic engineer / consultant. Going to meetings and to the lab: carrying around dongles is a hassle, yet another thing to forget.

The Macbook Pros are no longer ground-breakingly light, compared to the Dell and HP and Lenovo pro level laptops.

VGA is pretty dead now, but every meeting room I have been to has had HDMI connection - none have had USB-C. Similarly, every piece of lab equipment (100k+ pricing) has USB-A ports, none have USB-C.

So I don't think that an HDMI port and 2 USB-A ports (in addition to 3 / 4x USB-C and a headphone jack) would have been out of place on this mechine, especially as it could have been achieved by reducing the battery by 5Wh.

Again - I can buy every dongle I want - but it's annoying to be forced to carry them around every single time to be able to do basic stuff (like copy a file, connect to a projector / monitor / network) - I keep a USB-C to A adapter in my wallet, but it keeps on getting crushed despite being in the lower percentiles of body mass

 

[watchmainspring]

If I want to play games with eGPU and keep it for 4 years should I get the 13" i7 or the 16" i9? I really like how the 16" can handle 32gb ram

 

[cocoua]

Of course you can, why do you think you wouldn't be able to?

Thats right (only not a very common but you can)

 

[sarge]

I’m baffled by the Touch Bar hate and “no SD card” agony. ... Likewise, Apple ditched the SD-Card port (which I used occasionally when I wanted to edit pics from my digital camera) 3 years ago. Since then I’ve embraced the Apple ecosystem (including iCloud storage) and have only picked up my digital camera a handful of times and only for nostalgic purposes — as my iPhone is convenient and all the camera I need.

Net-net: I cannot find any defensible justification for Touch Bar hatred. And unless you’re a professional photographer, I just don’t understand why the lack of a built-in SD-Card reader is an issue — when all media, documents and files are available to multiple Mac and non-Mac devices via iCloud.

The most popular pastime on MacRumors has to be criticizing people for purchasing hardware they don't need because they're not media professionals and then turning around and telling seasoned pros to stop complaining when features that adversely impact their ability to perform their jobs at maximum efficiency are compromised. Understanding takes persistent effort, and that is what separates the amateurs from the professionals (along w/an SD slot I would argue).

 

[0x0x0x0]

No, not at all. I’m saying that I’m not an expert in Enterprise DAS and I suspect you aren’t either.

I already provided examples of several faster interfaces than 10Gb/s Ethernet.

Sorry I don’t believe you. Nothing personal. No need to degrade the conversation to unicorns.

I simply don’t believe that 10Gb/s
is the maximum storage interface available on the Apple world.

What makes you think I am not, especially given what I said? You also fail to read my posts---I said the problem with RAID is not the link speed!

 

[Zen_Arcade]

It appears as if Apple fixed the keyboard . . . The new one feels MUCH better than any of the butterfly ones.

Let’s hope it matches the endurance of the prior scissor keyboards.

 

[CarlJ]

If I want to play games with eGPU and keep it for 4 years should I get the 13" i7 or the 16" i9? I really like how the 16" can handle 32gb ram

The 13" doesn't have the new good keyboard. For me that would be the deciding factor.

I expect in the next 3-6 months they'll release similarly updated 13" MBPs.

 

[Howard2k]

What makes you think I am not, especially given what I said? You also fail to read my posts---I said the problem with RAID is not the link speed!

I assume you’re not because I think if you were you would know of faster mechanisms than 10Gb/s Ethernet.

Again, possible I’m wrong and 10Gb/s is the upper limit, I’m just saying I’m incredibly skeptical that this is the case.

I did read your comments on RAID.