Long time Apple fan here. I've greatly enjoyed the majority of things they've come out with, but they missed the mark in a huge way on this one. I cancelled my $3,700 pre-order yesterday. A large number of my photography associates have canceled their orders too. Believe what you will, but this says something.
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Your side note is wrong re CPU. The i7 still uses a U series CPU
I am in the same position as everyone here. I was ready to get a new MBP but the surface book and what Microsoft are doing at the moment with surface studio is a telling example of how much they're innovating.
I'll be jumping onto a new surface book straight after Christmas. I'm also returning my one week old iPhone 7 Plus tomorrow and buying a pixel phone.
If Apple had launched the new MBP and had taken the courage to suck up the less profits to push their new vision I would have been all over it but the pricing and lacklustre features have shown me Apples true colours.
I'll be jumping onto a new surface book straight after Christmas. I'm also returning my one week old iPhone 7 Plus tomorrow and buying a pixel phone.
If Apple had launched the new MBP and had taken the courage to suck up the less profits to push their new vision I would have been all over it but the pricing and lacklustre features have shown me Apples true colours.
Keep in mind your resale value of your Dell (or any PC really) vs Mac, as well as the build quality, not to even mention the UI issues. Also, as IBM has found, TCO of Macs are far less than PCs. Time is money, and spending two hours every 6 months to clean viruses and bloatware from my daughter's Dell (Inspiron 14z) and the fact that after two years its dying has lead me to give up on PCs, even initially seemingly a 'bargain.' She's getting a 2014 Macbook Air, which I'm sure will last her at least two more years without the headaches.
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This isn't a card for gaming laptops... it's just that entry-level ultrabook class GPUs (ie designed for it, heat-wise) are now incredibly powerful.
I have a 2010 macbook pro and was planning on buying one but the 13" that I want with 512 gb hd and 16 gigs of ram is 2300 so I'm going to wait a little. I was reading the threads about the Dell and other laptops that have more features and are better priced and was pondering changing. The thing that prevents me from getting a PC is going back to all the crap I experienced when I used PC's all my life. The BSOD, the reinstalling of windows ever year because the computer slows down, the malware and viruses etc.. I spent many nights up until 1 am trying to reinstall windows because of some virus or what not. This MacBook pro is like a Toyota. It just keeps chugging along and I never had to reinstall anything or even worry about a virus etc.. I'm hoping apple will cut the prices of laptop in 2017. I'll wait it out some more but thinking about all the bad times with windows makes me want to stay and pay the premium to keep my mind at peace.
Why surface book? I presume you are talking about the recently announced i7 model. It is even more expensive than the new 15" mbp.
Both are 2399 and you get:
- only 8gb ram instead of 16gb
- much slower 256gb ssd
- much slower dual core CPU while the 15" mbp is quad core
- both have dGpu. Not benchmarked so not sure which is faster.
Of course if you after a smaller screened detachable laptop, then it is great, but in terms of price, Microsoft is just as expensive.
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Well, with a tdp of 60w ..it definitely will not fit in anything but a fairly chunky laptop.
The Dell XPS isn't chunky.
The new Razer has a 1060, the next class up... and that's thinner than the 2015 MBP.
The 2016 MBP is too thin for it, combined with their other design decisions... which is precisely why people are in this position... Apple have thinned themselves out of anything but old, mediocre innards.
So it's photographers that are bailing after this redesign?
Last redesign, the forums were full of IT pros that were switching back to Windows because Apple dropped the Ethernet port.
Pointing out legitimate flaws is not whining.
[doublepost=1478445563][/doublepost]Photographers are definitely disappointed in the loss of the SD card slot. And maybe that's not a devastating loss if some go to other platforms.
But you can't underestimate the loss of USB ports. Basically , Apple said that a 20 year old standard, something that people rely on more than any other port in a laptop, should no longer be convenient for its users. Now you must buy and carry cumbersome and expensive dongles.
Apple should have added a mix of USB 3 and USB-C ports - similar to what they did with TB 2 and USB 3 on the previous Macbook Pros. Get people used to the new standard, let them upgrade their devices over time, then next refresh, go full TB 3.
But to just go cold turkey on USB convenience like this...It just reeks of arrogance.
An SD card slot on a dongle is also not the same as a built in SD slot. A dongle freezes you.
Transferring many GB of data that takes a while? You can safely move your laptop around while that happens with a built-in slot. With a dongle, a slight tap on the cable and BOOM! transfer failed. You have to treat the laptop like it's made of eggshells. Ban cats from the room. I've got several peripherals that I don't even dare type when in use, they're so susceptible to even the most minor nudge.
It's like being back in 1986, where I had to turn all the sound down in a room because loading anything off cassette tape to a BBC Micro was so prone to failure from loud interfering noises.
It sure is. There is a dongle for everything. You can also get a nice fanny pack and carry all of them with you
At the moment, I can sell the dell for more than I paid.
MacBook pro resale value will be greater, but when I pay a third of the cost of the bottom of the line MacBook Pro 15, resale matters less. Also, if one wanted to, one could upgrade more often with the money saved.
That being said, windows 10 is rather secure. Windows defender or a basic virus protection is all one needs. If you constantly have viruses on windows 10, with a virus protection program running, then your browsing habits are at fault. If you want a laptop that can surf the more nerfarious parts of the web, without any common sense, then a mac may suit you better for at this time.
I don't have to clean out my pcs twice a year. This time isn't windows XP, or even 7. Windows 10 is a totally different ball game.
Your points were valid a few years ago, it are less so now. But if one pays $2400+ for a laptop, I would hope it last more than two years.....
You should watch last Wednesday's episode of KelbyOne's The Grid. The changes/updates to the MacBook Pro were one of the issues discussed.
As they noted, Apple has always been at the forefront of pushing tech. Chances are in 6 months, the consensus will be that Apple's move to make the MBP thinner, eliminate USB and SD card slots was actually the smart thing.
Feel free to switch to that other inferior OS. You'll wind up with an expensive laptop that runs an OS that will make you say naughty things, and that needs constant babysitting.
As they noted, Apple has always been at the forefront of pushing tech. Chances are in 6 months, the consensus will be that Apple's move to make the MBP thinner, eliminate USB and SD card slots was actually the smart thing.
Feel free to switch to that other inferior OS. You'll wind up with an expensive laptop that runs an OS that will make you say naughty things, and that needs constant babysitting.
Except for the fact that this dongle is usb 3.0 which is older than 3.1 and might have issues with the OS since it uses a chipset and drivers. Then it will also stick out like s sore thumb from the magical macbook pro its attached to. By the time people are done getting dongles they need, macbook will look like an ICU patient with dongles sticking out of every orifice.
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No-one disagrees with this: the Windows world also has paper thin port-lite ultra-portables. It's a niche that fulfils many people's usage - couchsurfers and coffee shop typists.
Which is why this is a new MacBook Air. And a great one. No-one is going think it's sensible for any sort of "pro" use.
Some people will support whatever Apple does and don't really have a mind of their own.
I'm an SDE. Right now I have a Mid-2015 15" MBP with 2.2 and upgrade to a 512GB SSD given to me by my office. There's 8 or 9 developers at my local office, another 15 at the office in another city, overall about 45 developers total. Another 50 designers.
IT asked us if we wanted the new MacBook Pro's. Zero people requested them.
Myself included. I told them not to waste my yearly computer purchase on it because it's a downgrade to me.
I set aside over $2000 for the new Mac because I wanted one for personal use/personal projects. I heard the rumors, saw the shell and I already had doubts. I thought, "Okay, it's fine... Maybe the internals will be better."
And then... 16GB max on the 15". And then the blatantly false, acid toxic childish behavior of everyone on this forum: "Wahh! If you need more than 16GB go use a desktop!!"
Really? lol
The most advanced and valuable computer company in the world and power users like me are told, go use an iMac or go back to Windows? lol.
Okay fine. Yeah Windows is inferior to Mac OS. But if enough of us feel the same way, the minor inconvenience of using Windows will not overshadow the amount of damage that will happen to Apple's computer revenue and they'll learn their lesson. And at least I'll get more than a Fischer Price baby's first computer level of performance out of my $2000.
16GB max was fine in 2012, 2013 and even to some extent 2014. But it was long in the tooth in 2015... In 2016, ultrabooks can have 16GB of memory... a 15" having 16GB max that costs $2400 at minimum? That's pathetic.
I opted for the i7 Surface Book, as far as I am aware, the i7 with Performance Base utilises the same i7 processor. Certainly compares very well to my 2014 13" Retina with 2.8GHz i5, with the Surface Book benchmarking a little haigher. In real world usage their is no perceptible performance differential, unless the dGPU comes in to play.
Q-6
Resale value of this generation of MBPs will not be the same as with past generations. Maybe, just maybe, Apple without Jobs has some brain left in them and will add slots and macsafe back in next summer, along with reduced pricing and better upgrade options including RAM. Famous analyst Kuo has already confirmed this. Then resale value of this failed shortlived generation will really be crap.
And if Apple decides to go down this illogical customer unfriendly dongle-for-everything-including-charging-your-iphone path with future revisions, against Kuo's expectations, resale value will be even worse, since longtime loyal Apple users will have been forced to switch ecosystem, as I am in the process of doing.
And if Apple decides to go down this illogical customer unfriendly dongle-for-everything-including-charging-your-iphone path with future revisions, against Kuo's expectations, resale value will be even worse, since longtime loyal Apple users will have been forced to switch ecosystem, as I am in the process of doing.
I don't think as many people as you think are constantly worrying about resale value. Many buy a laptop for years rather than months.
I also disagree with the constant windows bashing on these forums. I have been a mac/OS X user for almost a decade now but also use windows regularly. I have had no major issues since XP and 7. Windows 8 was a not great but I again have no issues with Windows 10. Almost all hardware and software will run with windows which is not the case with OS X and requires dual booting or visualisation software.
Also much like windows laptops I have recently done clean installs of OS X on 3 family members mac's for what you describe as "bloatware". Mac's are not infallible to this and if the end user has not clue what they are installing the same issues occur on OS X as they do on windows.
Please can you explain what you mean by her Dell is "dying"?..are parts failing? does it need a clean install? I currently have a 6 month old rMB with 92% battery health after only 70 charge cycles and my old MBP had to have a new logic board fitted (£400 cost covered by apple luckily), SD card socket stopped working, 1xUSB failed and needed a new charger twice. I kept it going for almost 6 years by regularly upgrading the RAM and SSD. Maybe all the Dell needs is a bit more RAM, larger hard drive/SSD and a clean install. I suspect it will run like new.
I’m new to this forum but a long-time Mac user and I just wanted to give my perspective. I mainly use my current 2011 MacBook Pro for (advanced amateur) photography running Photoshop and Lightroom as well as some video editing using iMovie.
First, this obsession with thinner and thinner has reached the point where it is simply ludicrous and almost embarrassing that they make such a big deal about it, as well as case colors. After a certain point, who cares if it’s a few mm thinner, especially if that detracts from the function of the laptop, or what color the thing is as long as it's not polka dot. And please don’t say this wouldn’t happen if Jobs were still around because this was in full swing when he was running things, as well as the continual move to seal everything up so it isn’t user-upgradable (next paragraph).
I’ve also acceded to the “Apple tax” on hardware in the past because I thought I was getting a reliable, state-of-the art machine with well-integrated software. But the new MB Pro pricing can only be described as predatory, especially considering that it uses last year’s processors and we would have to go out and spend anywhere from $100 to $200 to buy dongles. We all knew that Apple always charged excessively for RAM upgrades on their machines, but at least we had the opportunity to do the upgrades ourselves at more reasonable cost. Their move to make the machines incapable of upgrades by the user, thus forcing their predatory pricing on us, is further evidence of their contempt for their loyal customers.
Now for the dongles. This whole idea that you need dongles now but you’ll be all set in a couple years when the rest of the world is using USB-C is, I think, a bit optimistic. I’m sure that in the not-too-distant future we will be hearing about USB-D and Thunderbolt 4. What counts is what you need NOW - USB3, connections to monitors, SD card slots, etc. So why not have those plus a couple of USB-C ports?
Okay, the new screen is attractive. But what creative professional or even advanced amateur doesn’t have the laptop attached to a large monitor for editing except when away from the office? Why put all that cost and effort into the screen of a 13” or 15” laptop when the pro is not going to be using that screen most of the time?
Bottom line is that for my purposes I wouldn't mind the dongles and use of last year's processor if the prices were reasonable. I would feel that I’m being ripped off, however, if I bought even the base 13” MB Pro plus dongles, and that is not something I would do. Only if there is a significant price drop would I even consider it. I’m in no rush to go out and get a Windows laptop either, so I guess I’ll go along with my current MB Pro as long as I can.
First, this obsession with thinner and thinner has reached the point where it is simply ludicrous and almost embarrassing that they make such a big deal about it, as well as case colors. After a certain point, who cares if it’s a few mm thinner, especially if that detracts from the function of the laptop, or what color the thing is as long as it's not polka dot. And please don’t say this wouldn’t happen if Jobs were still around because this was in full swing when he was running things, as well as the continual move to seal everything up so it isn’t user-upgradable (next paragraph).
I’ve also acceded to the “Apple tax” on hardware in the past because I thought I was getting a reliable, state-of-the art machine with well-integrated software. But the new MB Pro pricing can only be described as predatory, especially considering that it uses last year’s processors and we would have to go out and spend anywhere from $100 to $200 to buy dongles. We all knew that Apple always charged excessively for RAM upgrades on their machines, but at least we had the opportunity to do the upgrades ourselves at more reasonable cost. Their move to make the machines incapable of upgrades by the user, thus forcing their predatory pricing on us, is further evidence of their contempt for their loyal customers.
Now for the dongles. This whole idea that you need dongles now but you’ll be all set in a couple years when the rest of the world is using USB-C is, I think, a bit optimistic. I’m sure that in the not-too-distant future we will be hearing about USB-D and Thunderbolt 4. What counts is what you need NOW - USB3, connections to monitors, SD card slots, etc. So why not have those plus a couple of USB-C ports?
Okay, the new screen is attractive. But what creative professional or even advanced amateur doesn’t have the laptop attached to a large monitor for editing except when away from the office? Why put all that cost and effort into the screen of a 13” or 15” laptop when the pro is not going to be using that screen most of the time?
Bottom line is that for my purposes I wouldn't mind the dongles and use of last year's processor if the prices were reasonable. I would feel that I’m being ripped off, however, if I bought even the base 13” MB Pro plus dongles, and that is not something I would do. Only if there is a significant price drop would I even consider it. I’m in no rush to go out and get a Windows laptop either, so I guess I’ll go along with my current MB Pro as long as I can.
You are correct, I was misinformed.
I had a surfacebook for a while, it really was a great machine.
Windows 10 works fine. I don't have to babysit MacOS or Windows 10. Now it is merely a matter of choice and not that one OS is superior to the other.