MacBook Pro. Professional or consumer laptop?

[mavericks7913]

Few people that I saw from Apple store debated whether MacBook Pro series are professional or consumer laptop base on its specs and price.

I never think that MacBook Pro series are consumer laptop but I realized the spec itself is more like consumer grade which is not even able to compete with workstation laptop.

If so, then why Apple used the word "Pro" for? I really feel that MacBook Pro series aren't professional laptop since they never meant to compete with workstation laptop with the server or ECC parts. I know a lot of people using MacBook Pro for professional uses but it is very confusing that MacBook Pro series seems to be either professional or consumer laptop. Those people who debated about this concluded that MacBook Pro series is "Consumer" laptops even Apple named with the word "Pro".

Any thoughts about this topic? Do MacBook Pro series worth to be called "Pro"?

 

[Thysanoptera]

Who cares how a company names a product? I mean with some exceptions, my company once named a product with a word that in German means some fairly specific and complicated sexual act. Had to change it, after all the marketing material was already done.

Since you were at Apple store - what computers were used by Apple employees to run diagnostics and all? It has been couple of months since I was there, but they were using Macbook airs back then, the old ones, with USB-A ports, dual core CPUs and low resolution TN screens. Low grade consumer machines in - without a doubt - professional setting.

What does it even mean - a "professional laptop"? A Marine squad deployed in desert will have a different definition than your CPA. A user decides what machine is best for his own use. And whether the manufacturer calls it 'professional' 'workstation', 'gaming laptop', 'business laptop' doesn't matter at the end. Unless the label is more important.

 

[leman]

It's a rather strange question, since a "professional laptop" is a subjective notion in the first place.

From the objective standpoint, MacBook Pros come equipped with a very accurate, high contrast displays optimised for digital movie production, hardware GPU multiplexers, fastest WiFi chips of any laptops, full symmetric Thunderbolt3 support (there is no other laptop that exposes this many PCI-E lanes to external connections), custom energy-optimised GPUs, advanced surge protection, best in-class battery life as well as an excellent performance to mobility balance. I don't know why these things would not be considered "pro", since some of them are typical traits of PC workstations.

If your question is instead "but why don't they use Xeon CPUs?" — the answer to that is fairly simple. Apple ships more high-end laptops than any other vendors. Dell and Lenovo are bigger laptop producers, but the main bulk of their machines are lower-end cheaper office and home user laptops with lower-end components. Apple does not have any lower-end options, they use only top of the mill, more expensive chips, and the availability fo those chips is limited. We don't know exact numbers, but I would not be surprised if Apple actually bought somewhere between 30% and 50% of Intel's higher-end CPUs (they definitely buy 100% of 28W chips since nobody else uses them). Putting it all together, Intel simply doesn't make enough Xeons to satisfy Apple's CPU demand.

 

[Howard2k]

Few people that I saw from Apple store debated whether MacBook Pro series are professional or consumer laptop base on its specs and price.

I never think that MacBook Pro series are consumer laptop but I realized the spec itself is more like consumer grade which is not even able to compete with workstation laptop.

If so, then why Apple used the word "Pro" for? I really feel that MacBook Pro series aren't professional laptop since they never meant to compete with workstation laptop with the server or ECC parts. I know a lot of people using MacBook Pro for professional uses but it is very confusing that MacBook Pro series seems to be either professional or consumer laptop. Those people who debated about this concluded that MacBook Pro series is "Consumer" laptops even Apple named with the word "Pro".

Any thoughts about this topic? Do MacBook Pro series worth to be called "Pro"?

Really? You can't think of any scenarios where someone might use a computer in a professional setting and not be bound by horsepower? Or whatever specification it is that you deem relevant.

 

[maflynn]

Any thoughts about this topic? Do MacBook Pro series worth to be called "Pro"?

Simple question, do people use the MBP for work? The answer to that question is yes, of course, so the answer to your query is yes the MBP is a pro machine because professionals use the laptop. Those professionals,can be managers, programmers, graphic designers, reporters, teachers, etc etc.

 

[pshufd]

My company offers MacBook Pros or Lenovos to employees for their work systems and we have thousands of engineers along with other kinds of employees. Engineers use them for development work, so I'd call that professional. I also use mine for trading. Right now, I'm running Think or Swim, Active Trader Pro and a few other things. Memory usage is 10.5 GB but the market hasn't opened yet and memory usage goes up with the trading day. Think or Swim is running at native resolution on the MacBook Pro display at 2,880x1,800 and is displaying about 50 real-time charts.

Could I use more horsepower? Sure. But this 2014 MacBook Pro gets the job done. I have my own 2015 MacBook Pro for work as well - I don't usually use the company MacBook Pro as mine is much-higher spec'd.

 

[H2SO4]

Simple question, do people use the MBP for work? The answer to that question is yes, of course, so the answer to your query is yes the MBP is a pro machine because professionals use the laptop. Those professionals,can be managers, programmers, graphic designers, reporters, teachers, etc etc.

I disagree here. I'll tell you why. (Anybody in the UK will understand this more clearly).
I buy tooling for the hands on side of my job. I need a new drill and have been looking at the
Milwaukee range.
Screwfix, (not a bad place actually), sells some of that brand but so does FFX, (please click the links).
Two drills may both be 18V but that's pretty much where the similarity ends. There are often very slight differences in the model number which set them apart and a deeper dig will note that the construction often differs too. Pro tools are often designed to be used at 100% for prolonged periods without damage or throttling.
Me as a tradesman buying a drill doesn't make it a pro tool after all a fisher price one may do the same job.

My 2015 15" is a lovely laptop. Really smooth and nice. Would I call it Pro?
Not sure.

The Tuffbook a colleague has bought for himself, now that I would call a Pro machine. (Will have to ask him if it throttles actually).

 

[Queen6]

Any device can be used in a professional role, what precludes the MacBook Pro is the unreliability of the Butterfly Keyboard...

Q-6

 

[pshufd]

My 2015 15" is a lovely laptop. Really smooth and nice. Would I call it Pro?

I would. What other laptops at the time had the features, specs and ports of the machine? I'm planning on picking up another one on Monday or Tuesday.

In the tennis world, there are racquets that are called Pro Stocks. These racquets start out with a very light hairpin (the racquet without grip, pallet, strings, headguard, paint). The reason that they are made very light is so that they can be heavily customized to whatever the pro wants. The usual customizations are lead tape, silicone, and custom grips. Sometimes they have a custom string pattern that isn't available at retail. These Pro Stocks are also often painted to look like different racquets for marketing reasons. So a Pro advertising racquet A might actually using racquet B.

There is a gray market for Pro Stocks and sometimes the prices are eye-popping. Pros get them for free from the racquet companies and, they're not supposed to, but sometimes they sell them in slightly shady places to those that think of them as the Holy Grail.

 

[maflynn]

I disagree here.

So what you're saying is the MacBook Pro, is not a professional laptop for managers, for programmers, for anyone in the business or graphics sectors?

Tbh, you lost me completely on talking about drills.

Instead of using drills, please explain why the MacBook Pro is not a pro level machine for programmers? You see, in other threads people have constantly mentioned how much better the MBP is for programmers then a windows machine simply because of the tools available in macOS. I would be very interested in see why you think thats not the case.

 

[H2SO4]

So what you're saying is the MacBook Pro, is not a professional laptop for managers, for programmers, for anyone in the business or graphics sectors?

Tbh, you lost me completely on talking about drills.

Instead of using drills, please explain why the MacBook Pro is not a pro level machine for programmers? You see, in other threads people have constantly mentioned how much better the MBP is for programmers then a windows machine simply because of the tools available in macOS. I would be very interested in see why you think thats not the case.

That’s software. As I said, vastly more often than not pro tools are made to work faster, and harder for longer. MacBooks typically throttle harder than a Ninja assassin.
If someone writes the correct software then the machine will likely perform better. An example still sticking with computers is an Nvidia GPU. Better for some tasks than an AMD.
Mines a nice machine, but Pro? No, I don’t think so.

A Mac Mini might do some tasks faster than a Mac Pro while used by a Genetic researcher in his work. Great, but it’s not a pro tool.
[doublepost=1555682042][/doublepost]

Any device can be used in a professional role, what precludes the MacBook Pro is the unreliability of the Butterfly Keyboard...

Q-6

This is my point. The role in which it’s being used or who is using it doesn’t make it a pro tool.
Might be a great tool yes. Pro, no.
That keyboard that can’t do the job reliably is a particular weak point.
[doublepost=1555682290][/doublepost]

I would. What other laptops at the time had the features, specs and ports of the machine? I'm planning on picking up another one on Monday or Tuesday.

In the tennis world, there are racquets that are called Pro Stocks. These racquets start out with a very light hairpin (the racquet without grip, pallet, strings, headguard, paint). The reason that they are made very light is so that they can be heavily customized to whatever the pro wants. The usual customizations are lead tape, silicone, and custom grips. Sometimes they have a custom string pattern that isn't available at retail. These Pro Stocks are also often painted to look like different racquets for marketing reasons. So a Pro advertising racquet A might actually using racquet B.

There is a gray market for Pro Stocks and sometimes the prices are eye-popping. Pros get them for free from the racquet companies and, they're not supposed to, but sometimes they sell them in slightly shady places to those that think of them as the Holy Grail.

One thing I would say to that is this. If your feature laden device starts to throttle after a few mins as it was primarily designed to look pretty rather than the go hard. Can you really believe those specs.
I mean do you think a 3Ghz processor should be really rated 3Ghz if it can only maintain that speed for 30 seconds? No.

They should do what they’re doing with broadband speeds and force you to say what the typical real world speed is. You can quite the max and that’s fine, but also quite what’s real.

 

[maflynn]

That’s software. As I said, vastly more often than not pro tools are made to work faster, and harder for longer. MacBooks typically throttle harder than a Ninja assassin.

You posted that you disagree that the MBP is not a machine for professionals. Please define why it is not. To keep things simple, since I had mentioned developers, please tell me that why the MBP is not a good tool for developers.

 

[H2SO4]

You posted that you disagree that the MBP is not a machine for professionals. Please define why it is not. To keep things simple, since I had mentioned developers, please tell me that why the MBP is not a good tool for developers.

The thread is titled, "MacBook Pro. Consumer or professional laptop". I believe I've explained my point many times.
Your role may be 'professional' but it doesn't mean your tools are.

There's a place down the road from me, I go there on a bi annual basis to do maintenance. Large percentage of Macs there, but they're used for the software writing side. I asked why they don't use those only.
Two things I was told;
1. The games are not sold only to people using OSX.
2. The Macbooks will not test on high settings for extended periods as they throttle far too early and have performance problems and also don't have the wide range of GPU support.

 

[maflynn]

The thread is titled, "MacBook Pro. Consumer or professional laptop". I've explained my point.
Your role may be 'professional' but it doesn't mean your tools are.

did you not post that you disagreed with my point? Developers who are professionals and they successfully use MBPs.

Yes or no, for developers is the MBP a profressinal grade laptop for their needs?

 

[LogicalApex]

I disagree here. I'll tell you why. (Anybody in the UK will understand this more clearly).
I buy tooling for the hands on side of my job. I need a new drill and have been looking at the
Milwaukee range.
Screwfix, (not a bad place actually), sells some of that brand but so does FFX, (please click the links).
Two drills may both be 18V but that's pretty much where the similarity ends. There are often very slight differences in the model number which set them apart and a deeper dig will note that the construction often differs too. Pro tools are often designed to be used at 100% for prolonged periods without damage or throttling.
Me as a tradesman buying a drill doesn't make it a pro tool after all a fisher price one may do the same job.

My 2015 15" is a lovely laptop. Really smooth and nice. Would I call it Pro?
Not sure.

The Tuffbook a colleague has bought for himself, now that I would call a Pro machine. (Will have to ask him if it throttles actually).

You can't cross industries and attempt to make a comparison as you're comparing apples to oranges. A tool like a drill is a very limited purpose tool where you can easily draw a line between the demands of a user using the tool far more often than another. For computing you can't make the same blanket generalizations as the difference between "Enterprise" and "Consumer" is very murky. The biggest differentiator between enterprise and non-enterprise technology is actually on the servicing end where enterprise devices are expected to be serviceable for longer and support readily available.

Backblaze uses consumer HDDs to run their cloud hosting business which requires the drives to be on 24/7/365 under load in racks of hundreds of drives and they perform well. Even though HDD makers sell "Enterprise" drives priced for this use with "enhancements" for the job...

A professional computer is one used by professionals. Which, honestly is any computer since the demands of a professional setting will be extremely varied (since computing itself is varied). You go to your doctor's office and they have a thin client machine that's super low spec and light on power, but runs their patient software just well enough, that is professional use. On the flip side, you sit down with a NASA researcher who use using Nvidia GPU compute to develop algorithms to render the first picture of a black hole and is running a max spec computer and still feels it is too limiting, that is also professional.

The MBP is a professional laptop, but that doesn't mean it is the right laptop for every professional use case...

 

[H2SO4]

You can't cross industries and attempt to make a comparison as you're comparing apples to oranges. A tool like a drill is a very limited purpose tool where you can easily draw a line between the demands of a user using the tool far more often than another. For computing you can't make the same blanket generalizations as the difference between "Enterprise" and "Consumer" is very murky. The biggest differentiator between enterprise and non-enterprise technology is actually on the servicing end where enterprise devices are expected to be serviceable for longer and support readily available.

Backblaze uses consumer HDDs to run their cloud hosting business which requires the drives to be on 24/7/365 under load in racks of hundreds of drives and they perform well. Even though HDD makers sell "Enterprise" drives priced for this use with "enhancements" for the job...

A professional computer is one used by professionals. Which, honestly is any computer since the demands of a professional setting will be extremely varied (since computing itself is varied). You go to your doctor's office and they have a thin client machine that's super low spec and light on power, but runs their patient software just well enough, that is professional use. On the flip side, you sit down with a NASA researcher who use using Nvidia GPU compute to develop algorithms to render the first picture of a black hole and is running a max spec computer and still feels it is too limiting, that is also professional.

The MBP is a professional laptop, but that doesn't mean it is the right laptop for every professional use case...

The difference may be murky, but nevertheless it exists, It matters not who is using it or what it's being used for. My take is that a Macbook Pro doesn't meet my definition of a pro tool. Period.
[doublepost=1555688251][/doublepost]

did you not post that you disagreed with my point? Developers who are professionals and they successfully use MBPs.

Yes or no, for developers is the MBP a profressinal grade laptop for their needs?

No.

 

[CLS727]

Another pointless thread.

Define professional...... someone that uses the device for making money.

Plenty of guys out there using 10 year old IBM ThinkPad's that are making millions of dollars. As long as they can run email, power point, word, and excel..... they're good.

If you're talking about someone that very specifically edits video for a living? (which is not that many people) They're probably using whatever machine their workplace provided them with.... and for most workplaces, that = the cheapest possible thing that will get the job done.

MacBook Pro's are pretty things that are way overpowered for 90% of the people that buy them... and maybe underpowered for 5% that should probably be on some sort of custom Windows machine anyway.

 

[maflynn]

No.

Thank you for your answer, that's all exactly I was asking for.

 

[pshufd]

You can't cross industries and attempt to make a comparison as you're comparing apples to oranges. A tool like a drill is a very limited purpose tool where you can easily draw a line between the demands of a user using the tool far more often than another. For computing you can't make the same blanket generalizations as the difference between "Enterprise" and "Consumer" is very murky. The biggest differentiator between enterprise and non-enterprise technology is actually on the servicing end where enterprise devices are expected to be serviceable for longer and support readily available.

Backblaze uses consumer HDDs to run their cloud hosting business which requires the drives to be on 24/7/365 under load in racks of hundreds of drives and they perform well. Even though HDD makers sell "Enterprise" drives priced for this use with "enhancements" for the job...

A professional computer is one used by professionals. Which, honestly is any computer since the demands of a professional setting will be extremely varied (since computing itself is varied). You go to your doctor's office and they have a thin client machine that's super low spec and light on power, but runs their patient software just well enough, that is professional use. On the flip side, you sit down with a NASA researcher who use using Nvidia GPU compute to develop algorithms to render the first picture of a black hole and is running a max spec computer and still feels it is too limiting, that is also professional.

The MBP is a professional laptop, but that doesn't mean it is the right laptop for every professional use case...

We use Macs in the Enterprise. If you choose a Mac, it's yours for five years. If you choose a Lenovo, it's yours for four years. So our measure on longevity is that Macs last longer or are serviceable for longer. We used to buy Dell business laptops like the Lattitude line as opposed to their consumer lines like Inspiron. I do not know whether Lenovo has the same distinction but I'd assume that we'd want to be able to service them outside the typical consumer warranty. In the enterprise, you'd want support and service for periods beyond what the consumer can get. We have that at five years. Microsoft offers extended support for their operating systems for enterprise customers. That's professional class.

So perhaps you could say that Apple's MacBook Pros are professional class, if you're an enterprise customer. I don't think that you can get AppleCare for five years as a typical consumer.

 

[Lee_Bo]

I bought my current MBP based on specs as it's being used to process and catalog photos. Is it considered a professional or consumer grade device? Don't really care. It does the job I want it to do.

 

[maflynn]

Don't really care. It does the job I want it to do.

Agreed, while many us (including myself) can get bogged down on who or what a professional is, the point remains many people buy these laptops for work and many of those people are very happy with their purchase. Isn't that what matter?

 

[mavericks7913]

Another pointless thread.

Define professional...... someone that uses the device for making money.

Plenty of guys out there using 10 year old IBM ThinkPad's that are making millions of dollars. As long as they can run email, power point, word, and excel..... they're good.

If you're talking about someone that very specifically edits video for a living? (which is not that many people) They're probably using whatever machine their workplace provided them with.... and for most workplaces, that = the cheapest possible thing that will get the job done.

MacBook Pro's are pretty things that are way overpowered for 90% of the people that buy them... and maybe underpowered for 5% that should probably be on some sort of custom Windows machine anyway.

But it's a fact that Apple cares less than before for professionals in terms of hardware. Butterfly keyboard issue, flexgate, T2 Security chip issue, Audio device issue, speaker issue, staingate, and more. I really cant say MacBook Pro is device that professional can rely on.

 

[Lee_Bo]

Agreed, while many us (including myself) can get bogged down on who or what a professional is, the point remains many people buy these laptops for work and many of those people are very happy with their purchase. Isn't that what matter?

DING! DING! DING!

 

[CLS727]

But it's a fact that Apple cares less than before for professionals in terms of hardware. Butterfly keyboard issue, flexgate, T2 Security chip issue, Audio device issue, speaker issue, staingate, and more. I really cant say MacBook Pro is device that professional can rely on.

Did you even read my post?

"that a professional can rely on" ... what does that even mean?

speaker issue? staingate? have you even met a professional? do you even understand what is actually important?

You are more than welcome to buy something else..... From your posts, you should be well suited with a Windows machine for your high school classes.

 

[maflynn]

But it's a fact that Apple cares less than before for professionals in terms of hardware. Butterfly keyboard issue, flexgate, T2 Security chip issue, Audio device issue, speaker issue, staingate, and more. I really cant say MacBook Pro is device that professional can rely on.

You're linking two different and very unrelated topics.

Does apple cater or market to the professional sector?
Is the laptop of high quality, defect free and/or the design is solid?

The issues with the keyboard for instance is not evidence for apple's indifference towards professionals. You can't say well my keyboard failed so that means apple hates professionals.