Is the 16 inch MBP good replacement for a 2018 Mac Mini + 2017 MBP?

[Hessel89]

I currently own a 2017 Macbook Pro 15 inch and a 2018 Mac mini. While I love both machines they were both really a compromise to begin with. I bought the 15 inch when my trusty 2010 17 inch finally broke down (spilled coffee on it), and I got the 2018 Mac Mini to do the heavy CPU intensive stuff. but unfortunatel it fails heavily in the graphics department and investing in an eGPU would rougly cost the same as selling it and getting the 16 inch MBP.

Now that the 16 inch is out, the specs tell me it's actually enough to replace both machines, but I'm held back by a couple things I read on here.

First; Temperature when lid is closed. This would be an issue for me since 90% of the time I'd be using it as a desktop replacement with an LG Ultrafine 5K. How bad is it, and is the performance affected much?

Second: The screen smearing issues. Is it really that bad? Is it any worse then the 2016/2019 Macbook Pro's?

Third: Timing. It surprises me that the 16 incher still doesn't feature a 120hz screen while this is rapidly becoming the industry standard. How high are the chances a mid 2020 refresh would feature a 120hz screen?

 

[bsbeamer]

#1 - MBP16,1 is not a desktop replacement no matter what dock or similar solution you want to implement, including eGPU.

#2 - It's an overblown complaint at best. You will not notice if you're using 90% of time with lid closed anyway.

#3 - Your guess is as good as anyone else's. There are enough kinks with MBP16,1 and AMD 5XXX drivers that I'd have to think they're working on resolving those before truly working on an updated model for a less than 2-3 month old release. Would assume focus on MBP14,1 or at least update for the smaller model would be priority over this quick of an update/refresh for MBP16,1.

 

[leman]

Honestly, I wouldn’t get a thin laptop if I knew that I will end up running it as a desktop replacement with external display most of the time. Not that you can’t do it - sure, it will be slightly warmer (not a big big deal) - but a desktop might make more sense economically. I run it in clamshell mode connected to a 4K Dell display and it works fine even though the display can only offer 85Watts of USB-C power.

As to your other questions: not sure what you mean by “screen smearing” and no, high-DPI 120fps displays with this level of accuracy and brightness, at such low power consumption are definitely far from being an industry standard. If I remember correctly, there are just two or three such models on the market - neither suitable for power efficient laptops, and I don’t think any of them are actually available in any significant quantities. Maybe in a year this tech will become mainstream. Right now it’s still mostly limited to desktop monitors, where power consumption is not an issue.

 

[Fishrrman]

My opinion only, but NOTHING beats having BOTH a decent laptop for "laptop things" AND a decent desktop for "desktop things".

So my answer to your original question is, "no!".