It's Good to be back on a MBP

[Wreckus]

Picked up a new 13 inch Space Grey MBP with 512GB of HDD today as I gave up trying to since my reminders, etc between my iPhone, iPad, & iMac. Been trying for months and Windows always screwed up one thing or another. My god Space Grey MBP looks beautiful.

The Touch Bar is a godsend and I'm eating crow of what I said way back when about it. I guess I was too old school when it came to the F keys and now realize that Apple was right replacing it with the Touch Bar. Pretty much out of the box, I was using Touch ID and this feature alone is well worth the purchase.

When it comes to the keyboard, I have no problems. Actually, I find it easier to type than pre-butterfly (or whatever it's called) keyboards...especially my Dell machine.

Speakers sound a heck of a lot better than what my dell XPS can output. Retina screen, as usual, looks fantastic. However, they must of change some of it as it feels a lot easier to my good & bad eye than my old MacBook or even my 1080p dell xps screen...which is very good news. when I had an older MBP, I was experience eye strain quite a bit.

I know a lot of people don't like that MagSafe is gone; however, I'm not one of them. I absolutely love that I can plug in on either side of my MBP my usb-c cord (a lot with the power adapter) to charge my MBP. USB-C cord length is long enough as well.

I can go on & on when it comes to comparing windows 10 to MacOS but I won't. In summary, Windows 10 looks like a hot mess when it comes to their built in mail, calendar, & desktop. It's nice coming back to a clean calendar, mail, and desktop. Even the notifications on the MacOS is much more update to date and responsive than Windows 10 live tiles, which feels too windows 8 and gimmicky. Heck, Even office 2016 is a heck of a lot better on Mac because of the touch bar.

Finally, its good to back on a MBP.

 

[jrichards1408]

Touch bar is rubbish. Low res and makes no sense. I have the 15inch version and it's way overpriced for what it is plus standby battery life when lid is shut is worse than my old 2013 model! It can lose all its battery left on standby for a whole day whilst my old one i dont use it for nearly a week and when I open it up and use it. Only about 50 percent of the battery is gone!

 

[Wreckus]

Some may think its rubbish but I don't (and I just got the machine). Not sure about the battery life while in standby mode either so I'll have to get back on that one.

 

[smallcoffee]

It can lose all its battery left on standby for a whole day

Something is wrong then.

 

[Wreckus]

Something is wrong then.

Think I'm going to agree with you as I just opened up my Mac (man that feels good to do that again) from sleep and it's at 90%, and I used it for a bit not plugged in before closing it for supper.

 

[smallcoffee]

Think I'm going to agree with you as I just opened up my Mac (man that feels good to do that again) from sleep and it's at 90%, and I used it for a bit not plugged in before closing it for supper.

Yeah I can leave mine (after a charge) unplugged on standby for well over a week with plenty of battery power left.

 

[Wreckus]

Quick update. I cannot believe how well World of Warcraft runs on this thing. Haven't tried any other games but I'm already impressed.

 

[chiamac]

Think I'm going to agree with you as I just opened up my Mac (man that feels good to do that again) ...

And feels good to be able to do it with one finger reliably, one of life’s pleasures.

 

[Wreckus]

And feels good to be able to do it with one finger reliably, one of life’s pleasures.

LOL, yea no kidding.

 

[macjunk(ie)]

Hope you have better luck with the machine than this chap:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-macbook-pro-13-non-tb-review.2056971/

 

[Wreckus]

Hope you have better luck with the machine than this chap:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-macbook-pro-13-non-tb-review.2056971/

Don’t have any of the issues that he/she had.

 

[jrichards1408]

And feels good to be able to do it with one finger reliably, one of life’s pleasures.

I could do that on my old one

 

[0989383]

Just got one yesterday (nonTB) but using it in the store it looks fantastic for pro workloads. People saying it's stupid probably said the iPhone was a toy too...

Keyboard, whilst at first I thought was noisy seems to be very accurate tbh! Hope the battery lives up to expectations of all my old Mac's and then it'll be perfect. Speakers are unreal!!!

To add to the lifting the screen.. you guys forgot to mention how satisfying the closing of the lid feels on these machines!!! The laptop equivalent to Rolls Royce.

 

[polbit]

I keep trying to remember to use the Touch Bar, but it just ends being a glorified volume/screen brightness hot key row. I remapped Esc key to caps lock, so I don't even use it for that. The only annoying this is Siri - keep activating it...

 

[Wreckus]

I keep trying to remember to use the Touch Bar, but it just ends being a glorified volume/screen brightness hot key row. I remapped Esc key to caps lock, so I don't even use it for that. The only annoying this is Siri - keep activating it...

For me, I'm already using more than I thought I would. Especially for Office.

Anyways, before I went to bed, I had it unplugged and at 100% when I closed the lid. This morning, open up the lid and still at 100%, which is great to see. One major different between my Dell XPS & this little beast is this: On my dell XPS (w/ an M2 SSD or whatever), I couldn't put it to sleep (just close the lid). It would stay warm, regardless if I had it on a table or in my bag. Hence why I always shut that down. With my MBP, it stays cool (or a bit cold where my palms rest) to the touch, I love it.

 

[smallcoffee]

Don’t have any of the issues that he/she had.

What!? You’re supposed to have issues with everything! It’s the worst laptop ever1!1!!!!! How could Apple change he keyboard and add a touch bar the resolution on it is too low!!!

😀

 

[Wreckus]

What!? You’re supposed to have issues with everything! It’s the worst laptop ever1!1!!!!! How could Apple change he keyboard and add a touch bar the resolution on it is too low!!!

😀

Ah sarcasm, figured I get used it in these forums. 🙂

 

[palmerc2]

Can you please explain why you like the Touch Bar? Is there anything you don't like about it? Do you have much use for it outside of pro apps?

See, I have always used an iMac, now that I'm moving around a lot more I got a Windows 10 laptop to use on the go, and I can't stand it. Going to get a 13" MBP in the next couple of weeks, and have been doing some research....I don't think I'd get the touchbar version. In one write up in particular the person said in order to do something simple, such as adjusting the screen brightness, volume, etc, requires going through an additional step on the touchbar so those controls appear...whereas on the non-touchbar version, they're always available.

I'm not a pro user by any stretch....wouldn't get any pro apps such as photoshop, or aperture. Other than simple photo touchup, emails, and web browsing, pretty much the only thing I'll do is take footage from my GoPro and pictures from my digital camera and splice a small video together, but that's about it.

Also, quite frankly, I don't frickin' care about choosing an emoji.

The only drawback I can think of to getting non-touchbar is there'd be 2 USB-C ports vs 4 ports on the touchbar version, but I look forward to your thoughts on why you like the touchbar.

 

[Edelheid]

Good to hear you're also happy with your purchase!

I pretty much went for the Touch Bar version mainly for Touch ID and the two additional ports. Several weeks later I'm still trying to get used to it. I'm much more familiar with repeatedly tapping or holding a physical key to quickly adjust volume versus sliding. It doesn't help that I have to distract myself from the display each time I have to use it.

It also doesn't feel right that I can't feel the ESC key either, but overall my situation is bearable all for the sake of the reasons I purchased this machine with the touch strip to begin with. But something positive did happen because I'm now beginning to use the Touch Bar to switch tabs in Safari and to enable Picture-in-Picture—without having to double right-click on YouTube. I'm looking forward to getting more use out of this investment.

 

[netdudeuk]

The CPU and graphics are also better on the 13" touch bar versions.

 

[polbit]

Can you please explain why you like the Touch Bar? Is there anything you don't like about it? Do you have much use for it outside of pro apps?

See, I have always used an iMac, now that I'm moving around a lot more I got a Windows 10 laptop to use on the go, and I can't stand it. Going to get a 13" MBP in the next couple of weeks, and have been doing some research....I don't think I'd get the touchbar version. In one write up in particular the person said in order to do something simple, such as adjusting the screen brightness, volume, etc, requires going through an additional step on the touchbar so those controls appear...whereas on the non-touchbar version, they're always available.

I'm not a pro user by any stretch....wouldn't get any pro apps such as photoshop, or aperture. Other than simple photo touchup, emails, and web browsing, pretty much the only thing I'll do is take footage from my GoPro and pictures from my digital camera and splice a small video together, but that's about it.

Also, quite frankly, I don't frickin' care about choosing an emoji.

The only drawback I can think of to getting non-touchbar is there'd be 2 USB-C ports vs 4 ports on the touchbar version, but I look forward to your thoughts on why you like the touchbar.

I think one of other drawbacks of not getting the TB version is cooling - only one fan on the nTB - significantly louder, and a common complaint.

While I don't care either way about the TB, the volume/brightness controls work fine, and you can slide with your finger. TouchID is also really nice to have.

 

[andy9l]

In one write up in particular the person said in order to do something simple, such as adjusting the screen brightness, volume, etc, requires going through an additional step on the touchbar so those controls appear...whereas on the non-touchbar version, they're always available.

Said person was incorrect. Tap and drag on volume/brightness/etc to adjust them in one step.

The TouchBar complaints are wildly overblown. It is very simply a more useful Fn row. That's it. It's not life-changing, but it is categorically more effective than a standard Fn row. Touch ID is also an obvious nice-to-have for login/Apple Pay.

 

[smallcoffee]

Said person was incorrect. Tap and drag on volume/brightness/etc to adjust them in one step.

The TouchBar complaints are wildly overblown. It is very simply a more useful Fn row. That's it. It's not life-changing, but it is categorically more effective than a standard Fn row. Touch ID is also an obvious nice-to-have for login/Apple Pay.

Yup, plus you can customize. Locking my MacBook Pro from the touch bar is a breeze. Plugging in another display and having the Touch Bar pop up with a configuration for extended display or mirror without me having to dig through the Systems menus is another random example of ease of use.

 

[Macintoshrumors]

Some may think its rubbish but I don't (and I just got the machine). Not sure about the battery life while in standby mode either so I'll have to get back on that one.

Thats subjective. I find use out of it with different applications. No complaints here, I guess I'm more open to new concepts and pushing ahead with tech leaving legacy behind.

 

[Wreckus]

Gave in and just bought AppleCare online, close to 300 bucks up here in Canada. Easier than I thought though. Thought there would be an scan of my system or whatever.