Theres a need for a Mac Pro. The whole mac line itself doesnt make up a huge percent of apple's profits.
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Let's tell cook We Want 17" MacBook Pro With Retina Display
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Theres a need for a Mac Pro. The whole mac line itself doesnt make up a huge percent of apple's profits.
We love 17 inches MacBook Pro, we also love the retina display. It's time to back. Make it happen. Please...
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Let's @ cook to make it happen !
This is your personal preference. WE don't love it.
Theres also a need for a 17 inch Macbook Pro too. Its much easier to work with large photos and videos on a 17 inch screen, the same way working with 4k video is easier on a Mac Pro than an iMac.
But there is an alternative to the 17 inch MacBook Pro. Something the Mac Pro lacks.
Having a few crusty geeks tweeting/emailing Tim Cook is not going to make any difference.
Clearly, if Apple thought there was serious demand for 17 inch MacBook Pros, they'd make them...
But who knows, maybe with the knowledge Apple obtained engineering the 12 inch Macbook, they might be able to produce a 17 inch MBP that doesn't weigh a ton...
A smaller screen is not an alternative, its having to settle. What if someone told you that you could only have an 11 inch laptop and not a 13 inch? I believe almost every, single major computer manufacturer aside from Apple still carries at least one 17 inch laptop. Its pretty embarrassing for a company like Apple who prides itself on being so advanced for and used by graphic pros to not offer a 17 inch laptop. That new 17 inch Alienware is looking better and better every day...
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My gf wants 17", but not in rMBP.
You sir, are great! I was too tired to catch that when you posted it..... Anyways 17" should and possibly will be brought back.... Will see, hopefully it won't be too hard....
I really don't see a need for a 17" if the 15" Retina already scales 1920x1200.
Also, as I've said in other 17" threads, a 17 rMBP just be a physically larger 15" rMBP, no extra SSD, no more powerful GPU, no 32GB of RAM. Let's stop pretending that 17" cMBP didn't have the exact same internals as the 15" cMBP. It's screen size and resolution was the only difference.
Also, the whole industry has moved away from large laptops. They are either very expensive gaming Machines that are 10 lbs or cheap laptops from OEMs like HP.
I love large screens, and would totally buy 17" rMBP, but in the end I wasn't suprised it got killed off.
Also, as I've said in other 17" threads, a 17 rMBP just be a physically larger 15" rMBP, no extra SSD, no more powerful GPU, no 32GB of RAM. Let's stop pretending that 17" cMBP didn't have the exact same internals as the 15" cMBP. It's screen size and resolution was the only difference.
Also, the whole industry has moved away from large laptops. They are either very expensive gaming Machines that are 10 lbs or cheap laptops from OEMs like HP.
I love large screens, and would totally buy 17" rMBP, but in the end I wasn't suprised it got killed off.
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I agree with most of your points, especially re the market moving on. I only disagree with one point about the scaling capabilities of the 15". Sure, the 15" scales competently, and I'm fortunate to have good eyes and use it that way when the need requires....but it's far from ideal, and so small as to be useless for anyone with less than good vision.
I imagine the nearest we'll get to a 17" screen is when Apple embraces almost bezelless designs, although I'm not holding my breath. I don't mind, I hope to get several more years out of my maxed 2013 15". It's easily the nicest computer I've owned since the ZX81 and the only thing I'd prefer, in current reality, is 17" 3840x2400 display.
I imagine the nearest we'll get to a 17" screen is when Apple embraces almost bezelless designs, although I'm not holding my breath. I don't mind, I hope to get several more years out of my maxed 2013 15". It's easily the nicest computer I've owned since the ZX81 and the only thing I'd prefer, in current reality, is 17" 3840x2400 display.
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Display resolution, that's good.
Discrete GPU standard, yeah, on the high-end machine.
32 GB RAM? Seems doable. A 17" might have enough space for four SO-DIMMs.
Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort 1.3 - there is no Thunderbolt 3 yet, although it is coming soon, so sure.
3 rather than 2 Thunderbolt ports - this is where it starts to get tricky - the mobile CPUs only have a limited number of PCI Express lanes, and Intel makes 2-port Thunderbolt controllers, but not 3-port. This would require adding another chip, and eating up more PCI Express lanes.
3 rather than 2 USB ports - heck, with the move to USB 3.1 Type-C, I say two old-fashioned USB type-A ports plus 3 USB Type-C ports. (For charging on either side of the machine, and still have two.)
2nd PCIe for second SSD - well, if we're adding a 3rd Thunderbolt port, we may be out of PCI Express lanes. But this would be nice.
The processor itself has 20 PCI Express 3.0 lanes - 16 of those go to the GPU, leaving 4 for other high-bandwidth connections. Thunderbolt is the usual user of this, using 2 lanes per Thunderbolt port, so the dual-port Thunderbolt controller uses up those 4 lanes.
Then the chipset has 8 additional PCI Express 2.0 lanes. Apple's latest PCIe SSDs use 4 lanes each. So two of those would eat up all of those lanes, leaving no lanes left over for any other devices. (Such as that third Thunderbolt controller you wanted. Especially since you wanted Thunderbolt 3.0, which will use 3 lanes of PCIe 3.0 - which would take 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes to equal the bandwidth.)
You could 'short' either the SSD connection or the Thunderbolt connection (or both) by using fewer PCI Express lanes, but then what would the point of having it be?
LOL. Apple is all about milking the average joe using their popularity. No way they will make their macbook pros bleeding edge
They were the first with DisplayPort, the first with Thunderbolt, the first with an ultra-high resolution ("retina") display, the first with standard PCIe SSDs...
They may not always use the bleeding edge technology you want, but they certainly use it.
There is one exception. The Razer Blade Pro is virtually identical in size and weight to the 17" Macbook pro, but includes fully modern internals and still manages to cost less than a 15" rMBP.
Other companies were using DP before Apple decided to. All they did was introduce a smaller connector for it, but the truth is that HDMI was better for most people anyway. That was a prime example of them being contrary just to be contrary.
True, though I'd expect it to cost less when it only has a 1080p screen and a SATA III 128GB SSD and a 500GB HDD.
The 14" Razer Blade is obviously the flagship, which comes with the QHD+ screen and the more powerful GPU. Starting price? $2200 for a 128GB SATA SSD. This still proves my point, the 17" isn't even the flagship and clearly isn't the focus to Razer.
Completely false. There are some very nice 17 inch offerings from Samsung, Asus, Acer, HP, Lenovo, and Dell aside from the gaming laptops from Alienware and MSI. Toshiba is really the only one who doesn't make a high end 17 inch laptop. Its embarrassing that Apple does not offer a 17 inch laptop to be honest. Especially for a company who likes to tout all the graphics professionals who use their products. Graphics professionals, photographers, videographers, etc...don't want 2 lb MacBooks with garbage processors and tiny 12 inch screens. Apple is seriously risking losing a huge portion of their consumers if they continue down this path of making devices for people who do nothing but browse websites and check emails on their computers. I have Apple everything and haven't touched a Windows product in almost 10 years. However, Im seriously thinking about the new Alienware 17. It destroys the high end MBP 15s specs and offers a larger screen for about half the price. Better wake up Apple.
You are grossly overestimating the importance of the pro user to Apple these days. Macs as a whole make up a small fraction of their profits, and pro users are an even tinier fraction of that. They don't make pro software worth a damn anymore. The "pro" desktops and notebooks are sealed with proprietary parts that can't be upgraded.
Look at the latest ad campaign... it's not pro photographers using Aperture on MacBook Pros; it's average users shooting with iPhones. The writing is on the wall... Apple's doesn't need or care about pro users anymore.
They use it to grab headlines and justify the ridiculous cost of these machines. Why do people still buy even though the specs are outdated? Because of their awesome integration between OS X and IOS, which also allows Apple to sell their iOS devices with the laptop. Professionals aren't a priority anymore, not enough profits. This is why companies like IBM sold off its Thinkpad line.
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Bingo. High-end "Professional" laptops are an ultra-niche market - about on par with the Mac Pro. Apple figures the high-end existing MacBook Pro is "good enough" for professional use without wasting development effort on a significantly higher-end device.
Unfortunately, they don't have a similar non-Mac Pro machine they can just offer slightly higher specs on and have a "real Pro" machine, so they had use the Mac Pro as the "halo" Pro desktop. The desktop that while it is useful to pros, is more about the image of it than the usability.
Please point me to these "nice" offerings. The only 17" laptops I've seen from Major OEMs have been cheap laptops. You couldn't pay me to buy an Inspiron 17" if that is what you are implying. If you have links, please provide. I'd love to be proven wrong, I'm not here to argue.
You're acting like the retina Macbook affects the Macbook Pro. Graphics professionals can get a rMBP, not sure how Apple making 12" MB has anything to do with professionals when it was designed to replace the Air, which wasn't the target market for anyway. As I said before - I don't see what difference is between a 15" rMBP scaling 1920x1200 vs 17" cMBP with a 1920x1200 which had the same internals as a 15" MBP. There is physical screen size, yes, but this one difference obviously does not justify a 17" rMBP. I'd buy a 17" rMBP myself-but I'm not going to pretend to not understand why it got axed.
I admit, I'm also quite surprised someone who "hasn't touched a windows product in 10 years" is considering an Alienware 17. I would figure something like a Razer Blade would be more inline to a rMBP. Heck, an Alienware laptop didn't have nothing in common with the cMBPs for goodness sake. I'd hope the Alienware would be cheaper when it's 3 inches thick, 10 lbs, 1080p screen, and a 1TB SATA Spinner. The only thing the Alienware 17 beats at the rMBP is the GPU.
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I agree with some of this.... Apple is going down a road of smaller and smaller, and should not be taking the MacBook Pro line with it. I honestly don't see how they can shave anymore weight off the Pro.... As far as some comments about not a lot of Professionals using the MacBook Pro's, then who is using them? The people who just need a computer for Mail or Safari, can use an Air, MacBook, or Pro, depending on what they want. They can make a 15" Air/MacBook at a cheaper cost than the Pro, for those who don't want to spend $2000, too. Hopefully we will at least get a great MacBook Pro 15" this year.... I have a question for you all, what do you want? Would you want the MacBook Pro to really change and not have better specs, but just average, because not many Pro's use them? I want to see the 15" with Skylake, 2 Thunderbolt ports, 2 USB-C ports (as long as we can get a USB 3 adapter), MagSafe, SDXC, 3.5mm I/O, 16GB DDR4 RAM, PCIe SSD, and maybe a High-Resolution Display BTO. I think they should try and give the best technology they can....
You obviously haven't looked around too much. There are a few more but this is the best of the bunch IMO. This doesn't even include the 17 inch offerings from Alienware or MSI. Here you go:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NVV2B98/ref=psdc_565108_t1_B00COQIKB4
http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Y70-TOUCH-Laptop-80DU000HUS/dp/B00MHGDU1Q
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-Edition-VN7-791G-71P5-17-3-Inch/dp/B00NJNFW1C
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...iveASIN=B00CTJ38HC&linkCode=as2&tag=best5s-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...iveASIN=B00D3F9HT4&linkCode=as2&tag=best5s-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...iveASIN=B008KC10P4&linkCode=as2&tag=best5s-20
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