MacBook Pro 2020 13" USER Reviews

[Jochheim]

Hi everyone,
I have been passively following this thread and wanted to report my first experience with my new 2020 MBP. I have been a MBP user since 10 years and replaced my aging early 2015 MBP with a base 2020 4TB. I set it up as new because I wanted to start with a clean machine.

The MB got hot during setup, but not uncomfortable and I did not hear the fans a single time. After 4 days the Macbook stays mostly cool, but Spotlight is sometimes still indexing (at least it uses a significant amount of power) - then the MB gets hotter. I have my photo library on an external SSD and since I set it up as main-library, Fotos tries to upload over 30.000 pictures to iCloud (iCloud fotolibrary is activated, but all pictures were already uploaded). It seems Apple is not able to check for duplicates BEFORE it uploads the pictures and now I have to wait several days (or weeks, because iCloud is extremely slow) before this will stop. So whenever I have my SSD connected the MacBook gets pretty hot - but again, I did not hear the fans kicking in once.

Aside from this I'm pretty happy with the machine. I don't have heavy work to do, but the amount of open tabs, PDFs, documents, apps and a 4K display and a 2K display slowed my old MBP down to a point I was not comfortable with. So far the new MBP handled all of that well and with the golden chaos Preset in BTT the Touch Bar is really helpful - so to my surprise I don't hate the Touch Bar. When the whole foto-uploading is finished I will report back if the MBP gets hot again or not.

Greetings.

 

[AjTee]

Exchanged for a third time because of blemishes...Third unit looks pretty ok.

Quality control has very low quality in today day's.

 

[Jochheim]

@AjTee Did your MB have blemishes every time oder were it different issues? My MBP is still running extremely hot because of the unnecessary foto upload and spotlight is still "using a lot of power" - still indexing after 4 days? Sometimes the MBP is not usable because of this (lags several seconds). For anyone that is not aware of those processes this is a really bad experience and I think apple s software department is going downhill in the recent releases. I did also notice that my right speaker does sometimes rattle when playing in some frequency, but not the left one and only at specific frequency's. I hope that spotlight and fotos will have finished before the 2 week return policy is over ...
I will update.

 

[AjTee]

New one = 0 blemishes. Mine is cold

 

[Jochheim]

Wanted to update:
After several days fotos was finished uploading and spotlight seems almost finished (sometimes it is requiring "a lot of power" though). Without a second display the MBP stays quite cool, although the area above the Touch Bar is still warm even with simple tasks but I think that is the heat management apple has chosen - in the last two weeks I did hear the fans come up only ones for a short time but never again.
With my 4K Monitor connected the MBP gets warmer - especially above the Touch Bar - but it is acceptable and even then I don't hear any fans.

And while I am pleased with the experience, I have a faulty right speaker (mentioned in another post) and an apple certified service provider told me it would be easier if I just called apple, because I am on the last day of the return window. I called Apple and after some "tests" they told me that they can't fix it without a repair but I could also exchange it because I am in the return window. So I chose the return option and on the phone they said that I will get a new machine and a "return stamp" - so I can restore from my time machine and then send my "old" MBP back to Apple. Now I got an email saying I have to send my "old MBP" back first and after that I will get the new one? So now I have to wait and see what I get, but I think that is not a good customer support (it would be okay if they also said it on phone, but now I don't know what I have to do and when I will have a working MBP again ...).

Will update again ...

 

[0128672]

Now I got an email saying I have to send my "old MBP" back first and after that I will get the new one? So now I have to wait and see what I get, but I think that is not a good customer support (it would be okay if they also said it on phone, but now I don't know what I have to do and when I will have a working MBP again ...).

Will update again ...

That's standard to send in your current machine before they ship the replacement unless you want to buy the new one, ship back the current one and wait for the credit.

 

[Jochheim]

@Namara Yeah sure, that was what I was expecting as well - therefore I went to the certified repair shop before. But on the phone they told me that they will send the new one BEFORE I have to ship the old one back and I was happy to hear that so I would not "lose" a / several work days with the machine. Therefore I am now puzzled why they tell me otherwise in the mail. As long as the new MBP isn't defect on arrival it does not bother me that much - but I have to say that this is not the best service they could have provided (and it would have been easy to be clear about that). Maybe I am lucky and they will send me the new machine beforehand - who knows.

 

[0128672]

@Namara Yeah sure, that was what I was expecting as well - therefore I went to the certified repair shop before. But on the phone they told me that they will send the new one BEFORE I have to ship the old one back and I was happy to hear that so I would not "lose" a / several work days with the machine. Therefore I am now puzzled why they tell me otherwise in the mail. As long as the new MBP isn't defect on arrival it does not bother me that much - but I have to say that this is not the best service they could have provided (and it would have been easy to be clear about that). Maybe I am lucky and they will send me the new machine beforehand - who knows.

I would say if they explicitly told you they'd send out the new one first, maybe call them back (or chat if that's available where you are so you have it in writing).

 

[0128672]

The other possibility is that once your current machine is in the hands of the shipper, and Apple can see its status via the tracking number on the return label they sent you, they'll release the replacement to you.

 

[citivolus]

I've had my i5 10th gen/16/512 for just over two weeks now. Finally have it all set up and working how I want, with 2x Dell 2720q UHD external monitors over USB-C. I have one of the monitors actively charging the laptop, and the other monitor acting as my "USB 3" docking station.

All in, everything has been pretty good. No fan noise unless I open up Windows in Parallels, but that goes away after a couple of minutes. Otherwise, the laptop is very quiet.

Only thing I am trying to figure out is the random waking from sleep mode, but its not a big deal. It may be the monitors.

I have the exact same setup and love it too!

 

[Jochheim]

The other possibility is that once your current machine is in the hands of the shipper, and Apple can see its status via the tracking number on the return label they sent you, they'll release the replacement to you.

It seems that this is how they handle it - and i am fine with it, but as i said, they have to step up their communication. Today an angry UPS guy was at the door and was awaiting a prepared MacBook but as i was not sure how it is handled i did not prepare the shipment ... so i got the „label“ and did it by myself and after several hours on the apple website the new MacBook is now being prepared for shipment. I did not want to spam this thread with this experience so here is another one regarding the MBP maybe worth mentioning:

Everyone that is interested in a Thunderbolt Dockingstation i can highly recommend the “HP Thunderbolt Dockingstation G2“. It is also mentioned in the Dockingstation Thread for the 16“ and it does everything i wanted from a Dockingstation for a fair price. It can charge the MacBook with full speed (max 100 W output), you can connect up to 2 4K displays (only tried 1*4K and 1*2K) and aside from 3 USB 3 ports (5Gbps) it also features 3 (!) USB C ports (one of them being another Thunderbolt 3 port) and all 3 of them are GEN2 compatible (got almost 10 Gbps with an external GEN2 SSD). I don’t know why HP is so bad at marketing this - you have to search for those specifications. The only downside i found is that you can not connect 2 displays via DisplayPort because MacOS does not support the specification (i think it was MST, which Windows 10 does support) - so you have to use one of the DisplayPort and the Thunderbolt 3 connection for 2 displays but then it is fine. For me the experience of having to connect only 1 cable that does it all is really great.