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Macbook pro 13 2020, good choice?

D

Dentifrice

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 27, 2008
448
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Hi,

I’m about to get a macbook 13 inches with i5 2.0ghz (10th gen) and 16 gb if ram.

is there any known problem with this laptop? Battery, keyboard, anything?

i crurently have an old 2013 MBP. I must say going from 15 inches to 13 scares me a little but I can’t afford the 16. Problem is, my old one do more and more kernel panics and isn’t h’as responsive as before.

From what I read, if a 14 inches MBP is coming is coming 2021, it will probably be ARM. Unfortunately, I need to run vmware fusion so I won’t wait for this.

good choice right now?

thanks

Edit: well well. I was going to buy a refurbished in Canada but I realize they offer English keyboards only. I normally use French Canadian keyboards. I wonder if it is easy to adapt because I can save as much as $400 witj refurb
 
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I bought a 2020 MBP 13" with the 10th gen I7 and 32GB of ram. I haven't had any issues out of it. It's been rock solid and stable. Before this I had a Toshiba that died on me in late 2018 so I went awhile with out a computer. I got tired of not having a computer and I wanted to start learning certain areas of IT. I have wanted a MacBook Pro 13" for awhile but I didn't want to take the risk of having a computer with a butterfly keyboard so I waited until they updated the MacBook Pro 13" with a magic keyboard. With the IT I am learning being able to use boot camp and have Windows on the computer is nice. The MacBook Pro 13" will always be my main computer but I do want a Purism Librem 14 so I can have a linux OS as well. As far as I can tell from my MacBook Pro 13" no issues to speak of so I would say it's a good choice at the moment. I plan to keep this MacBook Pro and see how the transition to ARM goes. If everything is good to go I will buy a ARM based MacBook Pro in the 13" or 14" size. If you need it then buy it and don't look back. I don't think you will be disappointed because I surely wasn't.
 
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I’m in the same boat. Need to replace my Mac Mini so I can travel with it. MBP 13” with 10th gen or wait for ARM. I think I am going to be the MBP now.
 
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anyway, the more I think about it, I won't get the first ARM generation. I'll wait several years.

My only fear would be that Apple releases an intel based 14in laptop in 2021...
 
If they do release an Intel based 14" you could always sell the 13" to fund the Intel based 14". I would hope the 14" would be the same outer dimension as the 13" but the screen goes edge to edge so almost no bezels are left.
 
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do you think getting the 10th gen worth the price over the 8th gen ? The most intense cpu task I do is Lightroom CC so ...
 
If you’re close to buying then I would jump on that MBP 13” Amazon Prime deal.

www.macrumors.com

Amazon Prime Day: The Best Early Apple Discounts

Amazon will kick off Prime Day 2020 tonight at midnight, and the event will introduce hundreds of deals through Wednesday, October 14. To add on top...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com

That’s a lot of MacBook for the money.
 
anyone has experience with the macbook air ?

It's way cheaper and it seems, from the benchmark I saw, it still destroy my old MBP Late-2013 i7
 
My main issue with the MacBook Air is the fact it heats up very quickly and will throttle. My Mother has one and for her it's fine because she doesn't do any CPU or GPU intensive tasks. She bought the base model because that is all she needed. Even with the i3 CPU it will get hot quickly. I can only imagine how hot it would get with a i5 much less the i7 like I have in my MBP. I can't say if the 10th Gen Intel is worth it over the 8th gen for you but I know for me it is worth it. I think the MBP 13" i5 10th gen and 16GB of ram would probably serve you very well. Also with those specs I would imagine you would be happy with it for a long time or until you decided to upgrade. The resell value should hold up until you are ready to upgrade again.
 
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When it works, I am really pleased with my MBP 2020 (4TB). But sadly it is the least stable Apple product I have owned. Want to use it as an“pro“ machine and connect it to a thunderbolt 3 Dockingstation? You are out of luck, as a bug that has been introduced with the .6 update will crash your MBP every time you want to reconnect it. Putting the MBP to sleep? Bad idea because it often freezes while doing so. BUT if you don’t want to use the TB3 ports I think you will be fine. If I had the choice I would have waited, but I needed a machine for work....
 
I'm only having an issue with sleeping. Just weird stuff happens around it. The machine itself is great, there isn't any great OS to run on it for stability.
 
Glad to hear it my Friend. I love mine so much I couldn't imagine ever going back to anything else beside another 13" or 14" MacBook Pro. LOL! One program I would recommend to help it run cooler if it's needed in your situation is TG Pro. It allows me to change the fan settings so they come on sooner and ramp up faster but they also turn back off below a certain temperature so they don't run 24/7 sucking dust and other debris inside my computer at all times.
 
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It‘s cool. I bought the 13 inch 2020 high-end version to replace my 12.9 iPad Pro when it was released and running without problems so far.

To me, this is one of the last great Mac‘s because it still allows me to run native Windows and Linux.
 
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Congrats on your purchase!

For anyone else on the fence, I can highly recommend the 2020 13” MBP. I bought a used one with the 10th gen Core i7, 32GB RAM, and 2TB SSD (plus AppleCare+) for $2,400 on Swappa (7 battery cycles), and I love it. Before, I was pretty adamant about getting the AS MacBook, or even waiting until next year for the rumored 14” MBP, but right now I’m pretty happy with this machine, and with the deal I got!

If you can hold off for a month, there are likely to be deals on slightly used ones though after AS MacBook comes out next month. Check eBay and Swappa for deals. You also can go the Apple Refurbished option, which from what I have heard are barely used and usually a couple hundred bucks off. Good luck!
 
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Aka757 said:
Congrats on your purchase!

For anyone else on the fence, I can highly recommend the 2020 13” MBP. I bought a used one with the 10th gen Core i7, 32GB RAM, and 2TB SSD (plus AppleCare+) for $2,400 on Swappa (7 battery cycles), and I love it. Before, I was pretty adamant about getting the AS MacBook, or even waiting until next year for the rumored 14” MBP, but right now I’m pretty happy with this machine, and with the deal I got!

If you can hold off for a month, there are likely to be deals on slightly used ones though after AS MacBook comes out next month. Check eBay and Swappa for deals. You also can go the Apple Refurbished option, which from what I have heard are barely used and usually a couple hundred bucks off. Good luck!
Click to expand...
Good to hear that you are having a good experience with that. I bought the same model from the Apple Refurb store and it should be delivered today. moving from a 2015 15 inch
 
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it was one of my better ideas! 2020 13in I7 32gb ram 1tb storage!
 

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Dentifrice said:
Ubuntu is a classic
Click to expand...

I haven't tried Ubuntu yet. I am more interested in Kali, Parrot and Black Arch linux. I have been looking at the more security focused distributions to load on my Dad's computer. He is running windows 10 right now and has had nothing but issues with viruses, malware and all kinds of other stuff. I am trying to get his computer rebuilt with new hardware and software so he doesn't have as much trouble as he has been having. Finding the right linux distribution that is high on security and lite on system resources will be perfect for him. Again congratulations on picking up a 2020 13" MBP. I haven't regretted purchasing mine since the day I placed the order.
 
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Mike Slayer said:
I haven't tried Ubuntu yet. I am more interested in Kali, Parrot and Black Arch linux. I have been looking at the more security focused distributions to load on my Dad's computer. He is running windows 10 right now and has had nothing but issues with viruses, malware and all kinds of other stuff. I am trying to get his computer rebuilt with new hardware and software so he doesn't have as much trouble as he has been having. Finding the right linux distribution that is high on security and lite on system resources will be perfect for him. Again congratulations on picking up a 2020 13" MBP. I haven't regretted purchasing mine since the day I placed the order.
Click to expand...

I use mac os as my main OS but I run Kali and Parrot in VM on it. If your dad doesn't know Linux, I would go with something like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS (looks like macos) or Manjaro.
 
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