It's ordered and should be here on June 6. So this is just a placeholder. I'll post pictures and a review comparing it to the 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pro Retina models for those looking to upgrade or get a second system running Windows.
● 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8750H 6 core processor (2.20GHz, up to 4.10GHz with Turbo Boost Technology, 9MB Cache)
● Windows 10 Home 64
● Windows 10 Home 64 English
● 17.3” UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) IPS anti-glare, 400nits
● 8GB DDR4 2400MHz
● NVIDIA Quadro P600 4GB
● IR&720p HD Camera with Microphone
● Backlit Keyboard with Number Pad - English
● Fingerprint Reader
● Fingerprint
● Hardware dTPM
● Hardware dTPM2.0 Enabled
● 256GB Solid State Drive PCIe-NVMe OPAL2.0 M.2
● 256GB
● 6 cell Li-Polymer 99Wh
● 230W AC Adapter (3pin) - US
● Intel® 9560 vPro 802.11AC (2 x 2) & Bluetooth 5.0
● 17.3" UHD (3840x2160), LED backlight, IPS, Anti-glare, No touch, IR-Camera, Mic, WLAN
● NVIDIA Quadro P600 4GB GDRR5
● Publication-English
● 1 Year Depot or Carry-in
$1,385 which is $1,000 less than the equivalent 2018 MacBook Pro 15 with the exception of the 8 GB of RAM. I plan to order 2x16 GB from Amazon for $134. 32 GB should be fine for now and it's nice to know that I can easily add another 32 GB of RAM. I had a look at 32 GB DIMMS and those are about $240 each. It's not cost-effective at this time but I could do 2x16 right now and add one or two 32s in the future.
I have a spare 2.5 inch SATA 3 1 TB SSD which I might put in. I have a 500 and a couple of 240s too. Another option would be to add a 1 TB NVME ($110). 2 TB NVMEs cost more per GB. I am sure that I will not need more than 1 TB of SSD. Right now my 2014 MBP has a 500 GB SSD and I have a 512 GB SD card for slow, multimedia storage. That SD card is quite handy.
I did not order the 4-in-1 card reader and maybe I should have. It's only a $7 addition.
Of course if anyone else has one of these, please chime in.
What I plan to run:
- Think or Swim. This is a TD Ameritrade application which is a pro trading platform. I use it to display 80-100 real-time charts and it uses moderate CPU and RAM resources. I have several friends that also run the platform. One friend runs it on a Mac Pro with dual Thunderbolt Display and an overall hefty configuration. It's coded in Java for portability but this makes it a resource hog.
- Fidelity Active Trader Pro. This is Fidelity's pro trading platform. This is written for Windows but it runs in macOS under Wine. That said, there are times when it doesn't work due to macOS/Wine incompatibilities which can happen with macOS updates (security or major). There are also some glitches which I assume are Wine issues. I suspect that performance suffers somewhat running though the additional API.
- Firefox - for whatever reason, Firefox often uses about 5 GB of RAM on my Macs. I dropped the number of concurrent processes from 7 to 2 and that's helped somewhat but I think that a lot of software assumes that you have unlimited memory.
- Email - I run Apple Mail on macOS and will likely run Thunderbird on Windows.
- iCloud Notes - Can't run it (I can run it in the web mode but web mode doesn't support tables)
- iCloud other apps - web mode only
- iTunes - I think that I'm going to continue to run this on the MacBook Pro but my multimedia library will be on the Lenovo and I'll do net copies to get them to the Mac
- Calendar - web mode I guess
I can also use Notes, Reminders, Calendars, etc. on my iPad Mini if they are annoying enough on Windows.
I am also looking forward to a quieter machine. My 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pros can spin the fans up when it's 80 degrees or above in the room and I'm running something like UberConference. The airflow on the P72 should be far superior (that's what you get with a 7.5 pound machine. The P72 is 198 cubic inches compared to 98 cubic inches for my 2015 MacBook Pro and 80 cubic inches for the 2018 MacBook Pro. It's actually quite amazing to look at the numbers for the volumes of these computers.
I will use my 2008 MacBook Pro 17 (Swissgear) backpack for the Lenovo. This bag was made specifically for the MacBok Pro 17 and it should work for this monster. The volume of the 2008 MacBook Pro 17 is 160 cubic inches.
● 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8750H 6 core processor (2.20GHz, up to 4.10GHz with Turbo Boost Technology, 9MB Cache)
● Windows 10 Home 64
● Windows 10 Home 64 English
● 17.3” UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) IPS anti-glare, 400nits
● 8GB DDR4 2400MHz
● NVIDIA Quadro P600 4GB
● IR&720p HD Camera with Microphone
● Backlit Keyboard with Number Pad - English
● Fingerprint Reader
● Fingerprint
● Hardware dTPM
● Hardware dTPM2.0 Enabled
● 256GB Solid State Drive PCIe-NVMe OPAL2.0 M.2
● 256GB
● 6 cell Li-Polymer 99Wh
● 230W AC Adapter (3pin) - US
● Intel® 9560 vPro 802.11AC (2 x 2) & Bluetooth 5.0
● 17.3" UHD (3840x2160), LED backlight, IPS, Anti-glare, No touch, IR-Camera, Mic, WLAN
● NVIDIA Quadro P600 4GB GDRR5
● Publication-English
● 1 Year Depot or Carry-in
$1,385 which is $1,000 less than the equivalent 2018 MacBook Pro 15 with the exception of the 8 GB of RAM. I plan to order 2x16 GB from Amazon for $134. 32 GB should be fine for now and it's nice to know that I can easily add another 32 GB of RAM. I had a look at 32 GB DIMMS and those are about $240 each. It's not cost-effective at this time but I could do 2x16 right now and add one or two 32s in the future.
I have a spare 2.5 inch SATA 3 1 TB SSD which I might put in. I have a 500 and a couple of 240s too. Another option would be to add a 1 TB NVME ($110). 2 TB NVMEs cost more per GB. I am sure that I will not need more than 1 TB of SSD. Right now my 2014 MBP has a 500 GB SSD and I have a 512 GB SD card for slow, multimedia storage. That SD card is quite handy.
I did not order the 4-in-1 card reader and maybe I should have. It's only a $7 addition.
Of course if anyone else has one of these, please chime in.
What I plan to run:
- Think or Swim. This is a TD Ameritrade application which is a pro trading platform. I use it to display 80-100 real-time charts and it uses moderate CPU and RAM resources. I have several friends that also run the platform. One friend runs it on a Mac Pro with dual Thunderbolt Display and an overall hefty configuration. It's coded in Java for portability but this makes it a resource hog.
- Fidelity Active Trader Pro. This is Fidelity's pro trading platform. This is written for Windows but it runs in macOS under Wine. That said, there are times when it doesn't work due to macOS/Wine incompatibilities which can happen with macOS updates (security or major). There are also some glitches which I assume are Wine issues. I suspect that performance suffers somewhat running though the additional API.
- Firefox - for whatever reason, Firefox often uses about 5 GB of RAM on my Macs. I dropped the number of concurrent processes from 7 to 2 and that's helped somewhat but I think that a lot of software assumes that you have unlimited memory.
- Email - I run Apple Mail on macOS and will likely run Thunderbird on Windows.
- iCloud Notes - Can't run it (I can run it in the web mode but web mode doesn't support tables)
- iCloud other apps - web mode only
- iTunes - I think that I'm going to continue to run this on the MacBook Pro but my multimedia library will be on the Lenovo and I'll do net copies to get them to the Mac
- Calendar - web mode I guess
I can also use Notes, Reminders, Calendars, etc. on my iPad Mini if they are annoying enough on Windows.
I am also looking forward to a quieter machine. My 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pros can spin the fans up when it's 80 degrees or above in the room and I'm running something like UberConference. The airflow on the P72 should be far superior (that's what you get with a 7.5 pound machine. The P72 is 198 cubic inches compared to 98 cubic inches for my 2015 MacBook Pro and 80 cubic inches for the 2018 MacBook Pro. It's actually quite amazing to look at the numbers for the volumes of these computers.
I will use my 2008 MacBook Pro 17 (Swissgear) backpack for the Lenovo. This bag was made specifically for the MacBok Pro 17 and it should work for this monster. The volume of the 2008 MacBook Pro 17 is 160 cubic inches.
