I've been using dongles on a portable that moves multiple times a week since the first USB-C machine came out, and never had a single failure. I might agree with an HDMI port (but it would take a much thicker machine chassis), but USB-A is on it's way out, and will largely be gone within a few years. I've had tons of failures with USB-B - it's probably the worst connector ever designed, and can't disappear soon enough.
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.
Hands-On With Apple's New 16-Inch MacBook Pro
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I've been using dongles on a portable that moves multiple times a week since the first USB-C machine came out, and never had a single failure. I might agree with an HDMI port (but it would take a much thicker machine chassis), but USB-A is on it's way out, and will largely be gone within a few years. I've had tons of failures with USB-B - it's probably the worst connector ever designed, and can't disappear soon enough.
Absolutely.
When I bought my 2017 MBP first thing I did was buy two USB C to A/B cables. Less than $20.
Why is everyone talking about USB dongles? I guess it's because using the word dongle is an opening to have a nice woe-is-me whine.
How many studios, traveling sound engineers, trucks etc. are going rewire miles of cables with USB C to B cables? In some cases, the USB A to B cables used are extremely expensive (e.g. 3 meter Chord Company Music T USB cables) and they certainly aren’t going to be replaced anytime soon. In addition, the smaller USB C connectors are more prone to breaking. This is the reality of the industry and why adapters are needed. I also can’t tell you how useful the 3.5 mm optical output was for audio professionals. We’re not talking about home users who buy two less than $20 cables, we’re talking about the entire music/sound industry that moves slowly.
Last edited:
Then there's three choices - dongles, docks, or windows. Apple's not going to go backwards on ports.
Any port transition is painful. Firewire for example, hit the audio industry hard. The Lightning/USB-C split is painful too (as was the iPod connector). The good news is that once we're to USB-C, we should be good for a long while as the port's forward compatible with future protocols.
I just picked mine up today from my college's store and initially I am super impressed. For a little bit of background, I upgraded from the 2015 MacBook Pro and it has been a big difference for me. I actually bought the 2015 MacBook Pro last year because I didn't want to run into a lot of the issues the 2016+ models were having. I also liked that it had the potential to do an SSD upgrade. It was a hard decision to make but I took the plunge on this new model (I just bought the base model). I intend to use this machine for programming just as I have been using my old one.
From my limited usage, typing with the new keyboard mechanism feels like a hybrid between the 2016+ models and the older 2015 model. I can still type really fast and I think it works fine. Definitely less key travel than the 2015 model but it still is a really pleasant experience. The biggest thing to me so far has been the sound of the speakers. I can't believe a laptop can have speakers that sound this good. I don't think any of the review videos do them justice. I also immediately noticed a huge difference in battery life between my older model. I even got the older model's battery replaced last week due to the battery recall and the new model seems to be lasting a lot longer on battery life. The screen looks more modern and it's nicer to have the smaller bezel but it doesn't seem like a huge difference to me. I went ahead and shelled out $50 for a 9 in 1 dongle adapter and an SSD external HD. I'll have to see if the dongle life is as horrid as every cracks it out to be on here.
If you're on the older models and holding off from upgrading, from my limited usage I'd recommend considering an upgrade. On paper, my older MacBook Pro had similar specs to what this one has but the Geekbench scores are almost twice as high.
From my limited usage, typing with the new keyboard mechanism feels like a hybrid between the 2016+ models and the older 2015 model. I can still type really fast and I think it works fine. Definitely less key travel than the 2015 model but it still is a really pleasant experience. The biggest thing to me so far has been the sound of the speakers. I can't believe a laptop can have speakers that sound this good. I don't think any of the review videos do them justice. I also immediately noticed a huge difference in battery life between my older model. I even got the older model's battery replaced last week due to the battery recall and the new model seems to be lasting a lot longer on battery life. The screen looks more modern and it's nicer to have the smaller bezel but it doesn't seem like a huge difference to me. I went ahead and shelled out $50 for a 9 in 1 dongle adapter and an SSD external HD. I'll have to see if the dongle life is as horrid as every cracks it out to be on here.
If you're on the older models and holding off from upgrading, from my limited usage I'd recommend considering an upgrade. On paper, my older MacBook Pro had similar specs to what this one has but the Geekbench scores are almost twice as high.
According to notebookcheck.com, the Pro 5300M should be comparable to the GeForce GTX 1650, and the Pro 5500M should be comparable to the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. Both the Pro 5300M and Pro 5500M have TGP's of 50 W (less than the 65 W and 85 W TDP's of the RX 5300M and RX 5500M).*
www.notebookcheck.net
"The RX5300M competes directly with the GeForce GTX 1650 and should offer a similar gaming performance. Therefore, we expect the Radeon Pro 5300M to offer a similar performance. The faster Radeon Pro 5500M in the higher end versions of the MBP16 is faster and compares against a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.
The mobile RX5300M is specified with a TDP of 65 Watt (versus 85W of the RX 5500M). The "Pro" version however is specified at 50 Watt TGP and therefore the same as the faster Radeon Pro 5500M."
[*TDP = Thermal Design Power = max rate of heat flow from the chip (or TDP = Thermal Design Parameter); TGP = Total Graphics Power = power required. These are not well-defined terms, but should be *roughly* comparable; see: https://www.geeks3d.com/20190613/graphics-cards-power-tdp-tgp/.]
AMD Radeon Pro 5300M GPU - Benchmarks and Specs
Specifications and benchmarks of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300M GPU.
"The RX5300M competes directly with the GeForce GTX 1650 and should offer a similar gaming performance. Therefore, we expect the Radeon Pro 5300M to offer a similar performance. The faster Radeon Pro 5500M in the higher end versions of the MBP16 is faster and compares against a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.
The mobile RX5300M is specified with a TDP of 65 Watt (versus 85W of the RX 5500M). The "Pro" version however is specified at 50 Watt TGP and therefore the same as the faster Radeon Pro 5500M."
[*TDP = Thermal Design Power = max rate of heat flow from the chip (or TDP = Thermal Design Parameter); TGP = Total Graphics Power = power required. These are not well-defined terms, but should be *roughly* comparable; see: https://www.geeks3d.com/20190613/graphics-cards-power-tdp-tgp/.]
Me too. I'm afraid the "time bombs" (engineering flaws - quickly dying capacitors and comparatively high-voltage lines just next to CPU lines, easily frying the latter) are still in this model too.
The 16MBP top bezel is a lot wider than side bezel and that is an atrocious design crisis.
Why are you talking about rewiring miles of audio cable? It’s not every cable in the studio, it’s from your MBP to whatever, like a MIDI interface. USB is limited to 5 meters max anyway.
re: the magical voodoo $9,000 USB A to B cables, there’s no one on earth who can tell the difference between that and a $2 USB cable in an A/B/X comparison. Because there is no difference. The product is complete and utter BS and nothing but a scam designed to separate those who have too much of it from their money. Ask any legit audio or electrical engineer on the planet.
Answer: zero. There is no reason, none, to "rewire miles" of USB, because "miles" of USB doesn't exist in any studio, anywhere. To the extent audio signals need to be routed, studios and pros use balanced/unbalanced cables (usually with a direct injection box to combine both TR and TRS). Mics, instruments, DACamps, all of them are using balanced/unbalanced, and that's not changing because of USB-A or USB-C. Speakers use speaker wire/RCA jacks/banana plugs, and this too has absolutely nothing to do with USB-C or computer ports.
At most you're going to have a very short USB run from computer to MIDI, or to the DACamp, or a mixer, or another similar box. Period. Cheap and easy to replace, if necessary.
Only the foolish buy "extremely expensive" USB cables for audio. USB is digital, not analog. Whether it's a $5 USB/HDMI cable, or a $500 USB/HDMI cable, the identical digital signal (0s and 1s) is traveling over a digital USB cable.
What's more, test after test confirms expensive analog cables also are snake oil nonsense -- though this is irrelevant to the Macbook Pro's digital T3 USB-C ports and digital USB cables.
So, I don't understand this point. At all.
The argument falls flat if you care about longevity of your device. I am still surprised how some people managed to pull off cMBPs until last year, just by adding some more ram, adding a SSD,maybe a secondary harddrive and swapping the battery.
Why Mac used to hold easily for 5+ years was a combination of good build quality, software support and some form of user repairability.
Furthermore, the devices get more and more expensive, mainly due to additions such as touchbar, complex and expensive yet offering little to no marginal utility...
Actually the cost of a top-tier MBP is not a lot more than the equivalent Microsoft offering. This could possibly mean that the price, although high, is actually competitive.
It also poses some interesting questions on the economy generally.
True... but SD card’s are originally a consumer product accidentally used by professional users... some professionals also need XQD, P2, SXS, Cfast... so where are the build in readers for that.
Even with an internal sd card reader ... i still need several fast external usb-c card readers, and an external raid with more than 8tb of capacity.
Now I could also complain that this computer is not ‘exactly’ what I need. Or i could just accept it and look for a ‘dongle’ with my specific needs... in this case being a usb-c multi card reader. As I am always relying on external drives for editing... I am allready used to some dangly nonsense.
Been doing this. Saved me from using adaptors for my externals.
Yes. The MacBook Pro is priced competitively after this upgrade. It costs a lot of money, but it also delivers a lot of performance and features.
A 15-inch Microsoft Surface Book costs more than the 16-inch MacBook Pro if you put 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. And while the Surface can turn into a tablet, Apple's offering has superior performance.
Received mine last night by courier from the local Apple Store - moving from a 2016 15".
Waiting for the Time Machine backup to complete to get to work.
The keyboard is much better.
Not the awesome 17" MB Pro that is sitting in my Mac museum but size matters and I'll take the extra inch of screen size - it is noticeable and an improvement.
Felt like a dumb ass for three years after buying the 15" unit. Really be happy when the trade in box arrives to send it to wherever it lands next.
Waiting for the Time Machine backup to complete to get to work.
The keyboard is much better.
Not the awesome 17" MB Pro that is sitting in my Mac museum but size matters and I'll take the extra inch of screen size - it is noticeable and an improvement.
Felt like a dumb ass for three years after buying the 15" unit. Really be happy when the trade in box arrives to send it to wherever it lands next.
If I mis-read your post, I apologise. However, it did offer possible defenses for Apple's pricing and "It's easy to argue..." could be taken as a fairly dismissive statement about the counter-arguments.
Again, you're being very ambiguous about whether your defending or attacking Apple. Point is, a gold, mechanical wristwatch is jewellery and is fundamentally a luxury product. Macs aren't (or haven't been in the past) luxury products - they have been tools that people paid a premium for because (at least for them) they do the job better. Apple have managed to combine that with distinctive design which probably did sell a few computers on looks alone - but even that was always very functional, minimal design.
The question is, whether a Rolex-esque 'luxury' computer with its own proprietary OS platform is a viable product. Ans: not if there are insufficient super-rich customers to justify industry support for the platform. If you look at other computer brands that might be called 'luxury-priced' - MS Surface, Razer Blade, Dell XPS, Google Pixel Book, they're all based on mass-market 'platforms' (Windows or ChromeOS/Android) - Dell has a huge range of cheaper computers, while Microsoft and Google are primarily concerned with making 'halo' products to promote their software and services.
PS: a quick trip to Wikipedia shows that even Rolex own a subsidiary - Tudor - making more affordable (c.f. Rolex) watches.
Maybe 100 years ago navigators, astronomers etc. bought Rolex because they needed a pro-grade wrist chronometer, but these days your novelty musical golf-ball holder with built in digital clock tells better time and we have 30 caesium clocks orbiting the Earth transmitting atomic time... Maybe in 100 years time, Apple will be selling gold-plated Mac Classics or PowerBook 100s to rich people who want a retro HyperFaceBook terminal... but they'll probably be running Disney Seven Lucky Cat Linux rather than MacOS.
So true. I think the biggest problem is that the touchbar is annoying for some, okay for others, and nice for some. It might be a wash if it didn't add to the cost, both in components and software development. It did seem like a good idea, though.
Trouble is, people keep comparing with the MS Surface or Razer Blade ranges, which are about the most expensive laptops you can get short of paying someone to encrust it with Swazwhatnot crystals. The Surface range, in particular, offer interesting design and display possibilities (with, arguably, better screens than macs, especially if you prefer more 'square' aspect ratios) have always been let down by so-so tech specs.
...but then you have the Dell XPS 15 where $2899 gets you 5GHz i9, 32GB RAM, 4k screen, 2TB PCIe SSD - the spec of a $3799 MBP. And it's quite a slim, good-looking machine. The only obvious fly in the ointment is the Dell's so-so GPU, but its not a $900 difference - and not everybody needs the best possible GPU in a laptop. Then again, I just picked out Dell at random, without shopping around Lenovo, HP, Asus....
Maybe the Dell has flaws, maybe it throttles badly - the problem is that the previous 15" MBP had too many flaws to claim the quality/reliability high ground and we'll have to wait a while to see if the 16" has fixed that.
The touchbar is the good solution to the non-existing problem. Nobody was really asking for it, it consumes battery life, adds to the cost, and it is not necessary. But it is nice.
Professional users need to work to budgets. Having a machine where I can upgrade the RAM later to extend its working life means that I can avoid paying loan interest or make a better initial return on the cost or even order a better machine (often there will be budget limits). It also makes a difference if you are purchasing a large number of machines for e.g. corporate use. Slimmest, lightest on the other hand doesn't impact the bottom line.