I returned it and bought the Dell XPS 9560.. Better specs, better laptop, better price..
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.
How happy are you with you Macbook Pro 2016?
- Thread starter esaelias
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I returned it and bought the Dell XPS 9560.. Better specs, better laptop, better price..
Have you even got it yet, or is this another of your vapor-reviews?
Actually people have been getting the 9560 delivered all this weeks, seems like lots of issues, although I suppose that is no different than any release of a new product.
Go onto Reddit you will see all the people that got it, it was available direct from Dell since the second week of January and so orders placed at that time are now started to show up.
It is delayed hitting retail due to the fingerprint scanner had issues and so was not implemented in the first batch.
So I finally decided between the two (2015 vs 2016) and cracked open the 2016 MacBook Pro for myself. I did so right after the most recent update that was supposed to address all the battery and graphic issues so I wouldn't have any bad taste in my mouth from the initial teething issues.
I set the touch bar to basically be the old style bar and if I hit function then it will show me the app specific features for the touch bar. I suspect I'll switch this around as time moves on and the bar gets more features. For now though it is interesting and not much else.
I LOVE the new speakers. They are really great. I usually have to wear headphones to enjoy my music but I don't mind just letting it play through these because they sound pretty amazing for laptop speakers.
Battery life has been fine for me. I don't drive external monitors nor do I normally use Chrome or Safari. I'm a Firefox guy for my private browsing on my own computer. Chrome gets partial duty often when at work and mix of home stuff. Firefox doesn't activate the dGPU at all except for when playing certain videos.
The new keyboard does take some getting used to but I've been using a small bluetooth keyboard with my iPad mini for quite a while anyway. I think this keyboard issue is just generational. I see younger kids just type on iPads like they were regular keyboards. Also they've all been using Chromebooks and the like for school so I am not certain they've ever gotten to adapt to real keyboards that ever had a lot of travel. I love look of the new keyboard but I'm adjusting to the feel. The old keyboard is already starting to feel mushy in comparison and when I'm "on" with the new keyboard it seems like I type faster and with less effort.
I've bumped escape and brightness down a few times. I've had no issues with the new trackpad at all. I love space gray for the color. This is my first force touch trackpad so that has taken some time to adjust to but I am one of those that loved the new home button on the iPhone 7 so I'm adjusting pretty quickly so far.
I set the touch bar to basically be the old style bar and if I hit function then it will show me the app specific features for the touch bar. I suspect I'll switch this around as time moves on and the bar gets more features. For now though it is interesting and not much else.
I LOVE the new speakers. They are really great. I usually have to wear headphones to enjoy my music but I don't mind just letting it play through these because they sound pretty amazing for laptop speakers.
Battery life has been fine for me. I don't drive external monitors nor do I normally use Chrome or Safari. I'm a Firefox guy for my private browsing on my own computer. Chrome gets partial duty often when at work and mix of home stuff. Firefox doesn't activate the dGPU at all except for when playing certain videos.
The new keyboard does take some getting used to but I've been using a small bluetooth keyboard with my iPad mini for quite a while anyway. I think this keyboard issue is just generational. I see younger kids just type on iPads like they were regular keyboards. Also they've all been using Chromebooks and the like for school so I am not certain they've ever gotten to adapt to real keyboards that ever had a lot of travel. I love look of the new keyboard but I'm adjusting to the feel. The old keyboard is already starting to feel mushy in comparison and when I'm "on" with the new keyboard it seems like I type faster and with less effort.
I've bumped escape and brightness down a few times. I've had no issues with the new trackpad at all. I love space gray for the color. This is my first force touch trackpad so that has taken some time to adjust to but I am one of those that loved the new home button on the iPhone 7 so I'm adjusting pretty quickly so far.
Majority of this thread has 15" model, but I got the base model 13" since I already gotta nice spec 5k iMac.
I previously had a 12.9" iPP, so getting this has been an adjustment. I've had MacBooks in the past, but I really enjoyed the flexibility of the iPad. The MBP has been awesome... enjoying the TouchBar, using Better Touch Tool to customize it to however I want.
At first, I was hesitant about buying one... but I'm glad I made the choice. I was also deciding between the Surface Book as well, but really didn't catch my attention. But I'm sure many of you have heard of Better Touch Tool... if not, please give it a go... puts more functionality toward the TouchBar.
I previously had a 12.9" iPP, so getting this has been an adjustment. I've had MacBooks in the past, but I really enjoyed the flexibility of the iPad. The MBP has been awesome... enjoying the TouchBar, using Better Touch Tool to customize it to however I want.
At first, I was hesitant about buying one... but I'm glad I made the choice. I was also deciding between the Surface Book as well, but really didn't catch my attention. But I'm sure many of you have heard of Better Touch Tool... if not, please give it a go... puts more functionality toward the TouchBar.
I am in exactly the same position as you in all ways. I still use the iPad pro for sketching but much much prefer the MBP for almost everything else. Made the same decision over the Surface Book for several reasons, but size was a big factor, with that hinge.
I bought the 13" as a secondary home notebook initially and also got a maxed 15" for work. The 15" went back........ 13" is the way to go for me from now on and when Kaby lake comes out will spec one up to keep for a while [could do with more GPU power].
I have the 13" nonTB base and it's okay.. Nothing to jump up and down over... Kind of wishing I had given the Surface Book a serious look before buying though...
It's a fine machine and while I don't really have any major complaints there are better options out for the price..
It's a fine machine and while I don't really have any major complaints there are better options out for the price..
Got the 13" nTB and I love it. The keyboard is a bit loud, but I prefer it over the old keyboard. Feels more solid and less mushy. I didn't think the screen would be much of an improvement, but wow, its very bright and the colors are more vibrant.
If I didn't crack the display of my iPad Pro, I wouldn't be in this thread discussing my experience with a MBP. But I'm wondering why'd you decide going with the 13" over the 15"?
I have the 15" rMBP with the 2.9 GHz i7 and the AMD Radeon Pro 460. It's okay overall, but overall underwhelming.
The performance is good, but not spectacular. I tried some heavy number crunching, and the new rMBP is just about 10–15 % faster than my old 2012 rMBP. The GPU gets badly impaired by macOS (it really flies under Windows). The SSD speed is awesome, though.
The screen is great, although almost too bright at full brightness for my taste. But I'm disappointed by Apple's decision to stick with the old Retina resolution of 2880x1800. Pretty much all competing 15" HiDPI laptops have higher resolutions up to 4k. Apple's "solution" to compete with these? Redefining the standard setting to be "Looks like 1680 x 1050"…
The Touchbar does its thing, but not as useful as implied. Technically, it's fine, even if I think it could be brighter, and even if it fairly sluggishly updates. It's clear that the developers have yet to figure out what to really do with it. I have tried it in a couple of application that boast Touch Bar support (aside Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Affinity Designer, and Pixelmator), and I didn't find it particularly useful in any of these. Often you might be better off with old-fashioned keyboard shortcuts or even just using the mouse to select the appropriate options. Many things require actually two or three taps, are hidden in sub-menus or obfuscated with strange symbols that have no equivalent anywhere else in the application. You might remember the demonstration from the MacBook event where they showed how, e.g. in Pages, you can easily switch the text format to bold or italic on the Touch Bar. Well, unfortunately, these formatting options are by default hidden by the Quick Typing suggestions… (which you can at least disable). It doesn't help that in most applications the Touch Bar isn't configurable – this includes most Apple apps. (I do like TouchID, though, but the dedicated button feels very flimsy and wobbles…)
The battery life is a disappointment. The 10 hours claimed by Apple are a blatant lie in my experience. The longest battery life I saw so far with this machine was under 6 hours, doing nothing but some web browsing. iTunes streaming easily shaves off a whole hour from this. My 2012 rMBP actually held out longer on batteries when it was new (7+ hours).
The keyboard is terrible. Period. Admittedly, it's improved compared to the first generation butterfly keyboard in the rMBs, but that's a very low standard to compare to. The new keyboard is just so good enough that I can type with it without having too many problems, but make no mistake: it's nothing but merely acceptable. It's still a massive step back in comparison to every other keyboard I ever worked with. Even the foldable Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard feels better to type on. I wish I were joking, but I'm not. I also already had the first keys acting up (i.e. not registering). That does not bode well…
And yes, I'm still miffed that they removed the SD card slot and MagSafe, especially since the charging cable sits so tight in the USB-C port in the rMBP, that it's almost guaranteed not to be pulled out when someone yanks it. So Apple not only has removed MagSafe, they basically achieved the polar opposite…
USB-C in general is fine. Yes, you do need adapters, but that's not as much of a problem as many make it seem.
Overall, the new rMBP is good, but definitely not worth the 3500 € I paid for it. I basically only bought (and kept) it because it was the last opportunity for me to get a Mac with my university discount.
The performance is good, but not spectacular. I tried some heavy number crunching, and the new rMBP is just about 10–15 % faster than my old 2012 rMBP. The GPU gets badly impaired by macOS (it really flies under Windows). The SSD speed is awesome, though.
The screen is great, although almost too bright at full brightness for my taste. But I'm disappointed by Apple's decision to stick with the old Retina resolution of 2880x1800. Pretty much all competing 15" HiDPI laptops have higher resolutions up to 4k. Apple's "solution" to compete with these? Redefining the standard setting to be "Looks like 1680 x 1050"…
The Touchbar does its thing, but not as useful as implied. Technically, it's fine, even if I think it could be brighter, and even if it fairly sluggishly updates. It's clear that the developers have yet to figure out what to really do with it. I have tried it in a couple of application that boast Touch Bar support (aside Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Affinity Designer, and Pixelmator), and I didn't find it particularly useful in any of these. Often you might be better off with old-fashioned keyboard shortcuts or even just using the mouse to select the appropriate options. Many things require actually two or three taps, are hidden in sub-menus or obfuscated with strange symbols that have no equivalent anywhere else in the application. You might remember the demonstration from the MacBook event where they showed how, e.g. in Pages, you can easily switch the text format to bold or italic on the Touch Bar. Well, unfortunately, these formatting options are by default hidden by the Quick Typing suggestions… (which you can at least disable). It doesn't help that in most applications the Touch Bar isn't configurable – this includes most Apple apps. (I do like TouchID, though, but the dedicated button feels very flimsy and wobbles…)
The battery life is a disappointment. The 10 hours claimed by Apple are a blatant lie in my experience. The longest battery life I saw so far with this machine was under 6 hours, doing nothing but some web browsing. iTunes streaming easily shaves off a whole hour from this. My 2012 rMBP actually held out longer on batteries when it was new (7+ hours).
The keyboard is terrible. Period. Admittedly, it's improved compared to the first generation butterfly keyboard in the rMBs, but that's a very low standard to compare to. The new keyboard is just so good enough that I can type with it without having too many problems, but make no mistake: it's nothing but merely acceptable. It's still a massive step back in comparison to every other keyboard I ever worked with. Even the foldable Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard feels better to type on. I wish I were joking, but I'm not. I also already had the first keys acting up (i.e. not registering). That does not bode well…
And yes, I'm still miffed that they removed the SD card slot and MagSafe, especially since the charging cable sits so tight in the USB-C port in the rMBP, that it's almost guaranteed not to be pulled out when someone yanks it. So Apple not only has removed MagSafe, they basically achieved the polar opposite…
USB-C in general is fine. Yes, you do need adapters, but that's not as much of a problem as many make it seem.
Overall, the new rMBP is good, but definitely not worth the 3500 € I paid for it. I basically only bought (and kept) it because it was the last opportunity for me to get a Mac with my university discount.
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Very happy. No problems with battery life, the new keyboard has really grown on me and the overall compact form is something I've really grown to appreciate when lugging the laptop around town. The display (and basically everything else as well) is a great improvement over my old computer, and having taken care of the necessary adapters / cables before getting the machine itself there are no connectivity issues at all.
As for the Touch Bar, I have great expectations. Let's see if they actually come to fruition, but articles such as this give me hope.
As for the Touch Bar, I have great expectations. Let's see if they actually come to fruition, but articles such as this give me hope.
Very happy with my 15 inch 2.7/1TB/460 machine. Replaced my 2014 4.0GZ maxed iMac (got $1550 for it at CashForYourMac...recommend their service). Sure the laptop can't be as fast as the iMac, but don't really notice the difference. Used to have my apple keyboard/trackpad in a connector on my lap working with the iMac with my larger iPad Pro as a companion sometimes also on my lap. Now MacBook Pro sits on my lap instead of the keyboard/trackpad. Have had to change my use case a bit as I used to do say Bankivity on the iMac and use the iPad Pro to look up details like check images etc. Found that the split screen on the 15 inch MacBook works just as well. Thought I might sell the iPad as well, but still enjoy sketching and reading magazines. Could do Zinio on the MacBook, but full screen portrait on the iPad Pro can't be beat. Also use iPad Pro with Digital Director for my part time photography work and don't want to give that up. Moved to the MacBook primarily for mobile photography work. Know that there are lots of things you can do on a iPad Pro, but not like using Affinity Photo or Luminar on a Mac. 1TB drive together with 2TB mobile USB-C SSD drive allows me to have my 25K photo library on the MacBook and all the video/slide show stuff and photos I don't need to keep live on the external drive. Happy with the transition. Love the keyboard, screen and speakers. Machine rarely gets hot....exporting movies tax it a bit and kill battery life, but otherwise very comfortable on my lap with reasonable battery life. No regrets with purchase.
I'm waiting for the Kaby Lake processors before I update from my 2011 MacBook Pro. Does anyone know if the jump from the 13" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar to the 15" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is worth the extra cash? Especially for those of us in the U.K. I can't decide between them.
A few steps below maximum brightness. I almost never use max brightness, but I reckon it would be great for outdoors.
I just went through the "education" site and got £500 off my 15" so that's why I went for that over a 13".
I have the MacBook Pro wTB 256gb 8gb since 2 days and I really like the machine, I come from an old macbook pro late 2008 upgraded with SSD and 8gb of ram so there is a lot of new things to like. It is very well build and under normal use is very snappy. I plan to buy also the 5k monitor
I have some concern about performance. I don't make graphics or 4k video editing, so I bought the 13'' being smaller and supposedly enough powerful for me. I do SEO and web marketing and use a lot of web app like Google Adwords or Analytics. Adwords can take 1gb of ram or more in Safari, even if it get memory compressed after some times. I also use Screming frog, a web crawler that can take 2-3 gb of ram for crawling and it's CPU intensive while crawling.
so far I got these "symptoms" of too little power:
- Mission Control become laggy when I have more then a dozen of open windows (browser, Spotify, mail, keynote, note, pages, finder). also changing Space is not always smooth. It is perfectly smooth on my 2008 MacBook Pro 15''
- scrolling through web pages is also not smooth when screaming frog is crawling a website
- while memory pressure is usually on the green side, it goes sometimes in yellow and I can see some swap (see attachment). I can't tell that the system is slowing down for this. If I would have not looked at the monitor I would haven't noticed that
Now I'm thinking to return it and get the 13'' with 16gb. Do you think it will a better machine for me? I should consider the 15''? personally I like the size of the 13''
I have some concern about performance. I don't make graphics or 4k video editing, so I bought the 13'' being smaller and supposedly enough powerful for me. I do SEO and web marketing and use a lot of web app like Google Adwords or Analytics. Adwords can take 1gb of ram or more in Safari, even if it get memory compressed after some times. I also use Screming frog, a web crawler that can take 2-3 gb of ram for crawling and it's CPU intensive while crawling.
so far I got these "symptoms" of too little power:
- Mission Control become laggy when I have more then a dozen of open windows (browser, Spotify, mail, keynote, note, pages, finder). also changing Space is not always smooth. It is perfectly smooth on my 2008 MacBook Pro 15''
- scrolling through web pages is also not smooth when screaming frog is crawling a website
- while memory pressure is usually on the green side, it goes sometimes in yellow and I can see some swap (see attachment). I can't tell that the system is slowing down for this. If I would have not looked at the monitor I would haven't noticed that
Now I'm thinking to return it and get the 13'' with 16gb. Do you think it will a better machine for me? I should consider the 15''? personally I like the size of the 13''
Attachments
Last edited:
I'm no longer a student so i won't be able to do that. But the 15" does seem more future proof.