How come, everyone is willing to compromise just because of the excitement of a new product?

[jerryk]

Luckily the SSD's aren't soldered in or anything crazy, so we are free to swap in a different NVMe drive if we'd like!

NVMe's have coil whine also. I am listening to one right now in a Dell XPS 15. And the Samsung 970 Pros in my deskside system make noise all the time. Luckily I don't have my ear under my desk that often. But on occasion I hear a few seek like clicks from 4+ feet away.

I am wondering if any 512GB or larger SSD does not make noise in certain situations.

 

[bsbeamer]

There is speculation the noise is caused by the controller, not the SSD itself but that’s probably a semantic argument at this point.

Until/unless anyone is willing and able to chart these experiences and reports (and reports of without) there is no way to find a common denominator or culprit. There are at least 160+ combinations of this MBP16 machine And not every one is impacted.

Apple is not even close to getting even a 50% return rate on these machines impacted by this issue or any issue at this point so it’s not (necessarily) something they will track and issue guidance based on serial numbers and/or build dates. If you’re one that’s just hoping it’ll be fixed, it won’t unless you report to Apple.

 

[junkw]

seek like clicks

how can a PCB and chips make "seek like clicks" ?

 

[jerryk]

how can a PCB and chips make "seek like clicks" ?

Good question. I don't know enough about electronics to understand the reason. But, that is the sound you hear when you access the ssd modules. I assume it is something to do with electronic frequency harmonics.

This video demonstrates the noise. And mine are louder.

 

[covedrop]

Wait, isn't TrueTone meant to determine the proper display settings for your ambient environment for better reading/etc wrt eye health?

So you're complaining that you shouldn't have to turn off a feature designed to potentially affect the brightness of the screen so your screen can be brighter? You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either blast your eyes with brightness or use the feature that "tries" to give you the best display for your environment. If that's not for you, it's literally by design that you can, and should, turn it off.

 

[iemcj]

So on a $2500-4000 laptop, we are ok with "turn off a feature" (TrueTone) to fix the brightness,

Yes? That's what true tone is doing, basically the light sensor can tell you're in a warmer (let's say tungsten) lighting environment so to make the display easier on the eyes for reading, it dims the blues so your display color shifts warmer to match.

It's a completely optional thing, people who are doing anything that requires color accuracy (such as photoshop or lightroom or video editing) of course turn it off. If you want the "full" screen brightness under all lighting conditions then yes turn it off, Apple literally gives you a one click choice.

 

[RedTheReader]

Still, he mostly had praise for the 16".

I really do love Dave's reviews. I was not surprised, however, to find in his next video that he returned the 16" MacBook Pro and stuck with the Razer Blade 15", despite not too long ago being someone who preferred macOS. Apple needs to realize that in times when they screw up, people move away, and then they don't move back. The reason he sited? The price. I wonder how many Mac Pro users moved away in the last 6 years, and how many of them won't be coming back due to the price of the new Mac Pro.

I've had some rare instances of double pressing with the keyboard, even though it was allegedly "fixed".

I really do wish Apple had managed to fix Butterfly, maybe by making it taller and giving it more resistance. It could have been the ultimate switch. But they were unwilling, and in it's current state I agree that it breaks too easily (even though my 2 Butterfly machines have been running fine for over 2 years). Point being, the scissor Magic Keyboard is definitely not perfect in any way, either.

NVMe's have coil whine also. I am listening to one right now in a Dell XPS 15. And the Samsung 970 Pros in my deskside system make noise all the time. Luckily I don't have my ear under my desk that often. But on occasion I hear a few seek like clicks from 4+ feet away.

I am wondering if any 512GB or larger SSD does not make noise in certain situations.

That's not the problem. The older 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pros didn't have coil whine, and they were NVMe's. The 2018, 2019, and 16" are also NVMe's. The problem is WHICH NVMe drives are being used. Apple moved to Toshiba sourced drives in 2018, and that's when the coil whine issue really got started. If we could independently test out other NVMe options until we find a brand (or even a specific unit) that doesn't have the issue, we could swap it out with the one in our MacBook Pros. But we can't. Because Apple chose to solder them in.

So you're complaining that you shouldn't have to turn off a feature designed to potentially affect the brightness of the screen so your screen can be brighter?

This is NOT how True Tone works. It doesn't adjust brightness, Auto-Brightness does that. True Tone only adjusts white point based on ambient lighting. You can be as dim or as bright as you want with True Tone doing its job. Yes, it kind of defeats the end goal if you turn Auto-Brightness off, but don't think that they're one and the same feature. They're not.

 

[Timothy Leo Crowley]

Buy the gear YOU like. It doesn't affect you, AT ALL, what anyone else buys. Life is beautiful and we all have choices we make. You make yours. I'll make mine. Good luck.

 

[covedrop]

This is NOT how True Tone works. It doesn't adjust brightness, Auto-Brightness does that. True Tone only adjusts white point based on ambient lighting. You can be as dim or as bright as you want with True Tone doing its job. Yes, it kind of defeats the end goal if you turn Auto-Brightness off, but don't think that they're one and the same feature. They're not.

Sure, I misspoke. But you'll know for sure that if you use something like flux or truetone and it's warmer, the display is going to be perceived as less bright. If you turn it off it's perceived as brighter, depending on how aggressive their environment is wrt truetone. Just flipping it on and off in a bright tungsten environment yields a warmer tone for me. Since it's noticeably less blue, I'm perceiving it as less bright. Absolutely it doesnt mean the display is actually less bright, but it will appear less intense, which can be interpreted as brightness, or "more dim" as was described.

Either way they're complaining that turning the feature off that will affect that sort of thing is a nuisance when they don't want that feature. That's like saying "why should i not use an internet browser that comes with this expensive laptop if i dont use the internet"

Just... don't use it. It's not for you then.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Yes? That's what true tone is doing, basically the light sensor can tell you're in a warmer (let's say tungsten) lighting environment so to make the display easier on the eyes for reading, it dims the blues so your display color shifts warmer to match.

It's a completely optional thing, people who are doing anything that requires color accuracy (such as photoshop or lightroom or video editing) of course turn it off. If you want the "full" screen brightness under all lighting conditions then yes turn it off, Apple literally gives you a one click choice.

True Tone adjusts the color temperature, not the brightness, does it not?

 

[bsbeamer]

Some people see more yellow colors as darker and more blue colors as brighter, especially for tints involving white. That is an ocular thing that varies with each individual, even if lux meter readings are equal between the two. If turning this feature off “fixes” the issue for you, there is a chance you are one of those individuals.

 

[sat24]

Sorry that you're disappointed. I honestly don't have any of those things in my 2019 i9 16in, so you might want to exchange yours and give it another go?
No coil whine; it's whisper quiet.
screen is eye-burningly bright on full brightness - I don't need it brighter than 50%. next to a 2018 model, it's at least as bright if not brighter.
I don't watch much YouTube but I'm not noticing any popping sounds while scrubbing in VLC, Apple TV, iMovie or QuickTime.

I've had a 2017 and 2018 MacBook Pro; this machine is by far my favourite of the three, owing to the battery life, screen, keyboard and speakers.

May I ask what the manufacturing date on your unit is? You can find it on coconutBattery app. Appreciate it!
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About Youtubers: not all of them are shills (but many are, I can't watch a Jonathan Morrison video). Dave2D roasted Apple very hard with the thermal throttling on the 2018 version, he was the one to famously put it in a fridge to get it to perform. He is usually fairly critical. Still, he mostly had praise for the 16".

Jonathan Morrison is a total selloff. Dave2D is the one I can relate to. Another good one is NotebookReviews.

 

[chrono1081]

How come when everyone is so excited about their purchases that they are automatically willing to ignore big mistakes, and ready to lie to them self, just to justify their purchases?

No one is “lying to themselves”, most people have a perfect machine, me and two of my coworkers (and by the sounds of it, the YouTube reviewers you watch) included. Sorry you got a lemon but there’s a really easy solution to that...exchange it.
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they definitely have experienced it because it shows up in final cut and they all harp night and day about video editing as if its the pinnacle of computing. and yet they dont mention it. which leads me to believe apple really pays them and thus none of their "reviews" can be based on any merit

Or the people this machine was meant for understand that under heavy loads the fans will kick in. This is 100% expected behavior. I’d much rather hear some fan noise than have the professor throttled.

 

[mightyjabba]

So much of this is subjective. I hear no coil whine, my screen seems just fine, and I couldn't care less if my Delete key sounds slightly higher pitched than the others (can't believe we're still talking about that one). But someone else might care about these things or see something I don't. That doesn't mean that I'm deceiving myself -- just that people care about different things (and in the case of something like the coil whine issue, some may be physically incapable of hearing it even if it's there).

These machines have more or less the same amount of issues as any other new machine, and more than the typical number of upsides, so of course most people are enthusiastic about them.

 

[phas3]

1. Can't hear the coil whine
2. Brightness is good for me, not sure how much brighter people want it.
3. Popping sound is something Apple can fix with a software update.
4. I have no issues with backlight bleed. If you do go exchange it.
5. Keyboard is dope.
6. Thermals are much better.

 

[NeroAugustus]

Apple needs to realize that in times when they screw up, people move away, and then they don't move back.

I mostly agree with you but I'd just like to nuance this a bit. It's not like everyone goes to the other side and stays there. Case in point, I'm doing the opposite move. I had a Retina 15", upgraded to the XPS 15 because the 2016 MBP turned out to be a disaster, upgraded that to a Gigabyte Aero that I kept for less than a week before getting a Razer Blade 15 and now I just ordered a 16" MBP. While I was overall happy-ish with the XPS and Blade, none of these laptops had the finish of a Macbook Pro and all felt like a step down in everything but raw power.

The XPS 15 had coil whine and the same huge issues with thermals in 2017/2018 as the 15" MBP, the VRMs were ticking time bombs because they were not cooled at all. No airflow, no heatsink, nothing. The latest model fixes that but the laptop still throttles, way worse than the 16". The Blade 15 performed well, but the backlight bleed was bad, the lid felt super flimsy and the synapse software which is necessary is hot garbage. Something both the XPS and Blade had in common: their lids when closed didn't align perfectly with the chassis. If you ran your fingers where the two parts met you could feel them being ever so slightly misaligned. It's not important but that's one more thing that tells me these laptops just aren't quite there quality wise. Also if you follow the scene a bit you might know Razer's support is very, very bad.

Oh and I mentioned the Aero right? While setting up windows, the F key literally popped out and wouldn't stay on the keyboard without me having to push a metal prong in place before hand. That was a $2.7k laptop.

So yeah Apple is not even remotely perfect but it's not like the grass is greener on the Windows side. Holding Apple accountable is important, for example the whole "the screen is actually 420 nits" thing is unacceptable, and I hope Apple addresses this soon. I would love to have upgradability in Macbooks back, but it's been sacrificed on the autel of thinness and I don't see it coming back. I can accept that and higher prices than the competition as long as the hardware is top notch. Which is why I'll definitely return my 16" if it has a dim screen and a cat hissing inside.

 

[impulse462]

Or the people this machine was meant for understand that under heavy loads the fans will kick in. This is 100% expected behavior. I’d much rather hear some fan noise than have the professor throttled.

i never mentioned fan noise. i'm talking about the audio popping crackling coming from the speakers when you scrub through a youtube video or change a track in final cut pro. unless you think its ok that these amazing speakers are dwarfed by fan noise? lmao

 

[Nacho98]

Some of these machines are legit perfect. I have one.

-No coil whine when in a room so silent I can hear the seconds tick on a clock in an adjacent room. None while scrolling through the Music app, while doing a clean install/reformat, or while doing the first huge initial Time Capsule backup. Some of these really are quiet and some of us have good ears.

-Screen is plenty bright, but because I'm a screen brightness whore I am hoping anyway we get a software brightness bump from Apple like they did for the Air. I'll always take more brightness, but it sure isn't dim.

-Speaker pop, again don't have it but who really cares when it's a software/driver bug that will be fixed soon?

If yours sucks, bring it back and exchange it, or vote with your wallet and return it. There's a reason I didn't buy a 2016-2019, and it was called voting with my wallet and not buying junk.

The 2016 is an exceptional machine, don't hate - just do something about it if you don't like it besides complaining.

 

[LoganT]

Because most of the people on here are reasonable and understand that every product has bugs and as long as it’s something that can be fixed in a software update we’re not too worried about it. We work around it. I experience the popping audio thing when I’m editing in FCPX and because of that I have QuickTime open to make a new audio recording which prevents the popping. Is it ideal that I have to do that? No, but I found a solution and I moved on. I trust Apple will fix these problems ASAP and I don’t think my screen is dimmer than my 2013 15.4” MBP.

 

[iemcj]

True Tone adjusts the color temperature, not the brightness, does it not?

It's HOW it adjusts it.

It doesn't magically change the native color temperature of the leds powering the screen. What it's doing is darkening specific colors so it can create that perceived effect.

On a screen all light is made by blue, green, and red lights. If you have all the pixels on, it'll make a white color. If you want to make the color yellow, then the red and green lights stay bright and the blue one dims.

Obviously now there will be less total light output because literally a third of your available light isn't "on". That's how all color works on all screens.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It's HOW it adjusts it.

It doesn't magically change the native color temperature of the leds powering the screen. What it's doing is darkening specific colors so it can create that perceieved effect.

Interesting -
It sounds like you know how the technology works better than I do.
Cheers

 

[covedrop]

-Speaker pop, again don't have it but who really cares when it's a software/driver bug that will be fixed soon?

Almost every person in that thread about the popping who said they didn't hear it, eventually heard it under the right repro circumstances. Maybe give it a good go to try and get it.

 

[turbineseaplane]

delete

 

[retta283]

Apple has reviewers by the balls honestly..

Nobody wants to risk "not getting review units" in the future -- understandably so.

Curious - do we have a tally of reviewers who only "buy it themselves" and do reviews?
That's really the only hope for truly unbiased opinions.

Sadly it's been like this for a while. Walt Mossberg was basically the same way. I don't watch tech reviews because I guess I am old-fashioned and do it from forums. Too much extra crap in the videos that it feels less like an objective review and more like a paid promotion made to look good.

 

[Donnation]

Almost every person in that thread about the popping who said they didn't hear it, eventually heard it under the right repro circumstances. Maybe give it a good go to try and get it.

That may be, but if you don't hear it in regular daily use and have to create a circumstance in order to hear it then it really isn't something you should be concerned over in my opinion.