Is Touch Bar worth $300?

[woodynorman]

I'm considering a new MacBook Pro to replace my 2015 MacBook Air (which still works fine for my needs but my daughter needs a computer soon). My needs are basic. Evernote, Messages, Safari, Photos, Notes, etc... I don't do any kind of video or photo editing. Just the basic stuff.

My big question is the TouchBar. Those of you who have it do you use it often? Will I regret dropping an extra $300 that I could have put towards more storage/faster processor? I rarely use the function keys, except for the volume and display brightness.

One other question:

I had a Macbook Pro a few years ago but didn't like it. I use it as a true laptop...on my lap. It ran so hot it was uncomfortable at times. Do the new ones run any cooler? Do the faster processor ones run hotter than others?

Thanks!

 

[Apple_Robert]

For your usage, I would use the $300 savings for storage or some other upgrade / accessory.

As to getting hot, I don't think your usage would cause that. Just the same, it is wise to put something between you and the Mac.

The 2017 and 2017 TB models I had didn't get hot.

 

[R3k]

The Touch Bar is still a bit of a gimmick so I wouldn’t consider it all when buying the MBP. Most of us barely use it. If the model you want has it, go for it, if you’re fine with a cheaper model without it, you won’t be missing out.

I find the latest gen MBPs to be quieter and cooler than that last 2 generations.

 

[poorcody]

Oh boy, the touchbar causes a lot of emotions in this forum. There was just a thread talking about some of the positives and the fact some people hate it. Maybe you can check that out instead of rehashing it here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/positives-with-the-touchbar.2127450/

I for one like the touchbar and use it with a lot of customized macros. Not sure I would pay $300 for it though. Sounds like you are looking at the 13"? If you can hold off until the fall, there is supposed to be a redesigned MacBook replacement for the Air, which honestly sounds like it might fit your needs better than a Pro.

And no, I don't find the Pro to run hot on my lap. Good luck!

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

TouchID is probably worth $100, depends on your usage but I find it extremely useful. Otherwise the $200 better CPU, cooling, ports etc. make up the difference. So the TouchBar is more of an addition, not a flat out $300 extra.

If you don't need any of that and just want the raw base minimum then it's fine.

 

[unagimiyagi]

The best part is the Touch ID which I think remains superior to Face ID as there have been too many use cases during which Face ID fails for me. I enter my passcode more with Face ID than with Touch ID.
For more and more people, though, I suspect that the Secure Enclave will prove the most valuable over time as privacy issues matter more and more to the ordinary people. I think we're getting into a hardware race again as open source has made every significant advance in software free for everyone. hardware, not so.

 

[BayouTiger]

I don't know if it's worth the extra $300, but like others I love TouchID, and the step up to the new processors soften the blow for the new ones. I don't use that many apps that seem to make great use of it, AutoCad LT does basically place an icon for the functions that the same function key would work so it's pretty nice to get that visual for a beginner. My only real gripe is that I wish they had kept a hard escape key as so many apps I use make me hit the ESC key an awful lot.

I have played with BetterTouchTool and if allows you to do some very cool stuff that can make the TB well worth the cost if you take the time to set up some useful macros.

I may also see if there is an easy way to remap the tilde key as ESC. Seems simple enough and I can't think of a single time I've use the tilde in my 35+ years of computer use.

 

[cfdlab]

Touchbar is hated by developers who do lot of coding. Many others dont mind it and many also dont find it that useful.

I personally think it is waste of precious resources on a thin laptop. How well these things will age also remains to be seen.

 

[robvas]

I would sell my tb for $300

 

[burgman]

IPad Pro

 

[woodynorman]

TouchID is probably worth $100, depends on your usage but I find it extremely useful. Otherwise the $200 better CPU, cooling, ports etc. make up the difference. So the TouchBar is more of an addition, not a flat out $300 extra.

If you don't need any of that and just want the raw base minimum then it's fine.

The model with the Touch Bar has better CPU and cooling?
[doublepost=1531803532][/doublepost]Thanks for the replies. I love my MacBook air. But do look forward to a better screen the Pro offers. If only the MacBook air would come with the Pro screen...

 

[smirking]

I had a Macbook Pro a few years ago but didn't like it. I use it as a true laptop...on my lap. It ran so hot it was uncomfortable at times. Do the new ones run any cooler? Do the faster processor ones run hotter than others?

I have a 2016 sitting on my bare legs right now. I'm just surfing MacRumors and I'm not doing anything strenuous.

I do often put a lot of stress on the CPU with the VMs and debuggers that I'm running and when I do that, I'll need at least a pair of jeans to make it tolerable to put directly on my lap, but going at max performance, my 2016 is considerably cooler than my 2012 unibody and 2009 before that. I could never have used those on my bare legs. Those models were uncomfortably warm when doing nothing else but charging.

There is one area where my 2016 model does run warm. The spine is the hottest part of the laptop and when it starts running hot, the spine is a very unpleasant area of the laptop to be in contact with whereas the heat was a bit more spead out in the older models, but still pretty intense toward the spine.

I don't know how much my observations will apply to the 2018 models though.

 

[leman]

Touch Bar alone is not worth $300. But you are not paying $300 for it. In fact, its a "free" addition to higher-end MacBook Pro's, which costs the same as what they used to cost long before touch bar was ever introduced.

In case of the 13" model, you pay $300 for an upgrade to a premium quad-core CPU, faster GPU, faster thunderbolt controllers and more ports, significantly faster storage, improved display, larger battery as well as significantly faster WiFi/Bluetooth chip. That is definitely worth $300.

 

[throAU]

No, but unfortunately "because apple" you don't just give up the touchbar for $300.

The touchbar macs have better internals in them (cooling especially), and if you want those better internals, but without the touchbar, you're now SOL.

Ironically, the most "pro" users among Apple's professional user-base are saddled with an emoji bar they don't want, whilst the casuals who just want a retina display and a couple of ports who might actually make use of the emoji bar for facebook, etc. are forced into the upper level machines to get it. Which many of them are probably unwilling to do.
[doublepost=1531806009][/doublepost]

Touch Bar alone is not worth $300. But you are not paying $300 for it. In fact, its a "free" addition to higher-end MacBook Pro's, which costs the same as what they used to cost long before touch bar was ever introduced.

Except they don't.

The touch-bar models are significantly more expensive than the models they replaced. In Australia about 300-500 dollars more expensive. For something I don't want.

 

[leman]

The touch-bar models are significantly more expensive than the models they replaced. In Australia about 300-500 dollars more expensive. For something I don't want.

They are not? The higher-end 13" MBP was $1799 for quite some time now. And you should be looking at the US pricing, since that is what Apple bases everything on. I have no idea how Australian currency has changed in respect to USD. Anyway, I have edited my post to point out what those $300 get you. If you still think its just the touch bar, well, think again

Edit: it is also true that the $1799 model used to get you 512GB SSD, while now its 256GB... So yes, there has been a hidden price increase in that regard.

 

[throAU]

They are not? The higher-end 13" MBP was $1799 for quite some time now. And you should be looking at the US pricing, since that is what Apple bases everything on. I have no idea how Australian currency has changed in respect to USD. Anyway, I have edited my post to point out what those $300 get you. If you still think its just the touch bar, well, think again

I don't think it's the touch-bar only.

Fact is though that I DO NOT WANT A TOUCH BAR. If it was a free upgrade to get the better hardware (and it's not really) i'd still tick the option box for "physical keyboard please". If it was a PAID UPGRADE to get a physical keyboard instead of the touch-bar, I'd pay a reasonable amount for it on the high end machines. But it isn't offered.

I don't think some people get that the touch bar for some users is a negative impact. Anyone who makes heavy use of the escape key (i.e., anyone who uses the mac to administer unix machines for example) hates it.

For what it's worth the USD/AUD exchange rate isn't significantly different from when i bought my machine.

 

[leman]

Fact is though that I DO NOT WANT A TOUCH BAR.

Ah, well, that is a different issue. You don't want a touch bar, some people don't want retina displays, some people don't want USB-C ports. Apple has a certain vision which does not align with what you want. Probably time to look somewhere else then. For instance, I don't want a 2-in-1 laptop. So I don't buy a Surface Book.

 

[Naimfan]

Apple should pay users $300 to use it.

MBPs would be significantly better without it.

 

[haruhiko]

"I don't want the Touch Bar" has become the latest cool thing to say on the internet

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

"I don't want the Touch Bar" has become the latest cool thing to say on the internet

So said the Mac pretending to be a 10 year old girl.

There will always be some feature people don't actually want, I don't particularly want the Eject button that's for some reason present on my iMac keyboard. Maybe I'll wait till Apple ditches that and stops charging me $1 for something I don't want!

I have no problem at all finding and hitting the Escape key on my MBP. Maybe I'm special, but it's a pretty big hit box and further away from the other items than it is on a standard keyboard. I hit it all the time, with resounding accuracy. Contrast that to the delete key however, and Siri is always popping up like an unnecessary paperclip assistant. Hey I don't want Siri either! Come to think of it, I'd be just as happy without the camera. When will Apple make a laptop just for ME?

 

[smirking]

When will Apple make a laptop just for ME?

I understand the gripes people have. I think they're valid and I share some of them, but some people take it too far. I'm a touch typist, coder, and I manage some UNIX environments too. I hate not having an ESC key and I'd choose to forego the Touchbar if given an option too, but I wouldn't avoid buying a computer because I was so offended by the touchbar.

The thing that surprises me is that there appear to be all of these coders and sysadmins who are spending most of their time on the laptop keyboard. Even if the touchbar was removed, I would never want to spend all day on one as someone who types constantly. I'd expect most hardcore users to be plugging into an external keyboard and most likely a large monitor when they're doing serious work. I'm not a fan of the touchbar, but it's a non issue for me 90% of the time because when I'm doing something that really counts, I'm suppying my own ESC key because whatever one given to me on a laptop whether virtual or real is going to suck in comparison.

 

[leman]

The thing that surprises me is that there appear to be all of these coders and sysadmins who are spending most of their time on the laptop keyboard.

I am typing pretty much all the time and I am using the laptop keyboard. I just don't see any point in using an external keyboard, the laptop one is super comfortable for me and the one I am used to. Didn't really have any issues with the escape key, although I understand what people mean — a physical escape is indeed easier to hit. I don't use touch bar too much, but I expect it to become essential to my workflow in Mojave. Custom context-aware automator scripts? Yes please!

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

I understand the gripes people have. I think they're valid and I share some of them, but some people take it too far. I'm a touch typist, coder, and I manage some UNIX environments too. I hate not having an ESC key and I'd choose to forego the Touchbar if given an option too, but I wouldn't avoid buying a computer because I was so offended by the touchbar.

The thing that surprises me is that there appear to be all of these coders and sysadmins who are spending most of their time on the laptop keyboard. Even if the touchbar was removed, I would never want to spend all day on one as someone who types constantly. I'd expect most hardcore users to be plugging into an external keyboard and most likely a large monitor when they're doing serious work. I'm not a fan of the touchbar, but it's a non issue for me 90% of the time because when I'm doing something that really counts, I'm suppying my own ESC key because whatever one given to me on a laptop whether virtual or real is going to suck in comparison.

I think that's a fair point. Always worth remember that laptops are designed to be portable first and foremost, and are not designed to be a main machine used all day every day. With that in mind, a lot of people do use them this way and they can absolutely be used this way. But always worth remembering the compromise, if you're at a desk then you should just plug in a monitor/keyboard, and make the most of it when you need to be portable.

 

[The Mercurian]

They are not? The higher-end 13" MBP was $1799 for quite some time now. And you should be looking at the US pricing, since that is what Apple bases everything on. I have no idea how Australian currency has changed in respect to USD. Anyway, I have edited my post to point out what those $300 get you. If you still think its just the touch bar, well, think again

Edit: it is also true that the $1799 model used to get you 512GB SSD, while now its 256GB... So yes, there has been a hidden price increase in that regard.

See again, the US pricing is different to other places. In Europe the Touchbar came in with like a €300-€400 increase and that hasn't gone away. And no - we should not be looking at US pricing, we should be looking at pricing int he currency we will be paying !! US pricing is meaningless to me - I base my purchasing decision on the price I will pay, not on th eprice something is in the US. Although I could probably fly to New York and buy a MBP and save money versus the price I would pay in Europe

 

[throAU]

The thing you clowns appear to be missing is that the user experience loss for professional users vs. the gain (yay, emojis) is a bad trade even if the touch bar was free.

And it's not.