First off, I got this as soon as they were available in the UK. I actually cancelled my Apple store order as it turned out PC World on Oxford Street had some stock. The order process was very frustrating but thankfully the machine turned out to be great.
I sold my MacBook Pro Retina 13inch 2013 to fund the purchase and was a bit concerned about giving up all the power and ports but when I thought about it I realised that the only time I connected anything to my laptop was when I was using it at my desk at work. The rest of the time the only thing I’d connect was power.
I’m the IT Manager of a web design company and typically at work I’ll be running: Outlook 2016, Safari, Chrome, Skype, Mail, Spotify, Sublime Text, iA Writer, Excel, Pages, Logmein, OneDrive for Business (Beta), Dropbox, and Parallels Windows 7 from time to time throughout the day. At first it handled all of impressively well not even slowing down during backups to a USB3.0 hard drive.
Things changed at some point and I started getting frustrated by increasing sluggishness and hanging. I realised that when I’d added an external monitor (HDMI running 1920x1080) and ran dual-screen then performance was taking a nose dive (especially when Parallels was running). It was usable but frustrating. This week I’ve been running the machine at work with the lid down and it’s back to full speed.
I think enough has been said about the keyboard; it’s great once you adjust although I do find switching between a standard Apple keyboard and back can be a bit confusing - I’d like to see a bluetooth Apple butterfly keyboard. Battery life is excellent, the ability to charge overnight from an iPad charger has come in handy a few times. Docking at work via one USB-C cable is neat and quick. I’m still staggered by the fact there isn’t the option of a USB-C extension cable so I can’t hide the display dongle under the desk].
The trackpad is the best I’ve ever used and when you get used to being able to click anywhere on the glass (including the top of the pad) you don’t want to go back to the older style. One port has not been an issue at all. I have the USB-C digital adaptor on my desk at work and a USB-C to USB 3.0 in my bag. I’ve done some video editing in Final Cut Pro X and it’s been fine (HD but not tried 4K).
For me, it’s the best laptop I’ve owned although only really beating the MBP ’13 on size, looks and weight. If those 3 things aren’t of concern for you then get the Pro.
I sold my MacBook Pro Retina 13inch 2013 to fund the purchase and was a bit concerned about giving up all the power and ports but when I thought about it I realised that the only time I connected anything to my laptop was when I was using it at my desk at work. The rest of the time the only thing I’d connect was power.
I’m the IT Manager of a web design company and typically at work I’ll be running: Outlook 2016, Safari, Chrome, Skype, Mail, Spotify, Sublime Text, iA Writer, Excel, Pages, Logmein, OneDrive for Business (Beta), Dropbox, and Parallels Windows 7 from time to time throughout the day. At first it handled all of impressively well not even slowing down during backups to a USB3.0 hard drive.
Things changed at some point and I started getting frustrated by increasing sluggishness and hanging. I realised that when I’d added an external monitor (HDMI running 1920x1080) and ran dual-screen then performance was taking a nose dive (especially when Parallels was running). It was usable but frustrating. This week I’ve been running the machine at work with the lid down and it’s back to full speed.
I think enough has been said about the keyboard; it’s great once you adjust although I do find switching between a standard Apple keyboard and back can be a bit confusing - I’d like to see a bluetooth Apple butterfly keyboard. Battery life is excellent, the ability to charge overnight from an iPad charger has come in handy a few times. Docking at work via one USB-C cable is neat and quick. I’m still staggered by the fact there isn’t the option of a USB-C extension cable so I can’t hide the display dongle under the desk].
The trackpad is the best I’ve ever used and when you get used to being able to click anywhere on the glass (including the top of the pad) you don’t want to go back to the older style. One port has not been an issue at all. I have the USB-C digital adaptor on my desk at work and a USB-C to USB 3.0 in my bag. I’ve done some video editing in Final Cut Pro X and it’s been fine (HD but not tried 4K).
For me, it’s the best laptop I’ve owned although only really beating the MBP ’13 on size, looks and weight. If those 3 things aren’t of concern for you then get the Pro.
