MacBook Pro Reviews: Fast Performance, Added Ports, and ProMotion Displays Check All the Boxes

[MedRed]

How does it look for AMD and Intel, who's main gig is designing chips, to get strong-armed (see what I did there) by Apple doing chips as a side hustle?

 

[ElectricPotato]

I really hated it at first, but I think it will mostly disappear with real-world use.

People are contorting themselves into acceptance. It can be "ignored". It's not "that bad". I heard similar for the butterfly keyboard and touch bar.

The notch aesthetics are undeniably bad and for all the talk of extra screen space, it is essentially a dead area in what most people consider the display. It changes software behavior and it looks goofy, even if you can eventually learn to ignore it.

If Apple had stuck with a slightly thicker bezel and no notch, the view of the new MBP would be almost universally positive. They are addicted to throwing some controversial oddity into every design.

 

[julesme]

Let's see what the true benchmarks are once people start receiving their Macbook Pros. I am really interested in real world use tests (like MaxTech tests on their YouTube videos) rather than just GeekBench benchmark scores.

Check out the second video from the MR video review posts. The reviewer has some 4K video rendering benchmarks.

 

[city_17]

The Verge so desperate for clicks they published a "we are working in it"/"here's what you already know" post. Lame. They say they've had it for a week and still need to test battery life and whatnot. Like, what have you been doing this past week?

Thought the same, thinnest content of all reviews I've seen so far.

 

[kenny7]

iJustine is the worst and most annoying reviewer!

So fake as well!!

 

[nevhoffman]

iJustine is the worst and most annoying reviewer!

then don't watch... simple.

 

[city_17]

Let me guess, NONE of these "reviews" were critical for fear of Apple cutting them off? Does anyone bother mentioning the screen blooming? Or are we going to have to wait until we get units in our hands and THEN it gets mentioned?

Dave2D mentions blooming and shows it's not a big issue, and much less than on the iPad. Not very in-depth, but a good indication.

 

[Shirasaki]

Let me guess, NONE of these "reviews" were critical for fear of Apple cutting them off? Does anyone bother mentioning the screen blooming? Or are we going to have to wait until we get units in our hands and THEN it gets mentioned?

They have their money down the line, and that’s part of their career now. It is understandable that they fear being too critical to apple or they lose their special stats and receive review units. Blame apple rather than just those reviewers.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Looks like more than one reviewer couldn’t see brightness above 500nits. Makes you question what is actually hdr on the mac.

Remember, only HDR content is going to trigger anything above 500nits. Most content is not HDR at this point, so I’m not sure this is anything out of the ordinary. If certain HDR content is not showing above 500 bits then Apple has a software issue they need to address ASAP.

 

[PhoneI]

That's awesome. Hopefully, the same reaction is received by the public.

So, these reviews ers didn't really talk about the notch?

every single review mentions the notch

 

[0ceans]

People are contorting themselves into acceptance. It can be "ignored". It's not "that bad". I heard similar for the butterfly keyboard and touch bar.

The notch aesthetics are undeniably bad and for all the talk of extra screen space, it is essentially a dead area in what most people consider the display. It changes software behavior and it looks goofy, even if you can eventually learn to ignore it.

If Apple had stuck with a slightly thicker bezel and no notch, the view of the new MBP would be almost universally positive. They are addicted to throwing some controversial oddity into every design.

I'd rather have a narrower, interrupted menu bar with the notch so I can get a full 16:10 available to me below the menu bar. If they had just made the top bezel uniformly thick around the camera notch, the menu bar would eat at display area.

 

[votdfak]

then don't watch... simple.

Who would, in sane mind, watch that crap?

 

[Shirasaki]

iJustine is the worst and most annoying reviewer!

She’s the culmination of what an Apple loyalist looks like, so no wonder.

 

[Black Magic]

*Tim Cook farts* "Oh my god! It smells amazing! This is SO cool!" -iJustine

She really is. Sadly, I think she is using her looks and gender to generate views. She is damn near modeling in every iPhone review I've seen. I stopped clicking on any of her videos.

 

[tharitm]

Weird there isnt any comparisons to the M1 MBP, either M1 Air or Intel. Or did I miss it?

 

[wowee]

Touch Bar was great. Pseudotech-mafia “journalists” killed it.

Touch Bar was garbage. A useless gimmick.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Dave2D said it’s like a NVIDIA 3060 that’s bad for that price and specs it’s not even a 3080 like they said

Depends on what you do with it. Some things like filltrate are up there with the better Nvidia cards. On things like compute power the M-series falls short (in comparison to Nvidia cards). So the question is, do you want to draw a bunch of primitives/textures or do you use the GPU for computational tasks.

 

[vir]

3:2 displays are tall.

 

[cardfan]

Remember, only HDR content is going to trigger anything above 500nits. Most content is not HDR at this point, so I’m not sure this is anything out of the ordinary. If certain HDR content is not showing above 500 bits then Apple has a software issue they need to address ASAP.

Perhaps. If these reviewers couldn’t find any hdr content to trigger brightness to go over 500nits then sounds like a problem.

It sounds like a good buy if keeping to 14” m1 pro. It’s definitely not for gaming but much of the blame for this is lack of games for m1. Most gaming benchmarks using Rosetta. If rosetta ever goes away it’s slim pickings for much of anything.

 

[Nicole1980]

It is funny how everyone is up in their arms about "port xy" and magsafe being back and I have been holding onto my retina MacBook Pro from 2012 for so long that it is literally just an upgrade for that MBP for me. I never experienced missing those ports.

And yes, the 16inch looks HUGE and heavy.

A whole 2mm thicker is "HUGE"? Well, I can only guess that means your arms are pretty THIN if you can't handle that very slight size/weight increase

P.S. There's plenty of smaller lighter options for apple laptops if the 16" model is too much for you to handle.

 

[Tagbert]

The keyboard sounds like butterfly keyboard. In person, how does it feel compared with the 2019 16" MBP and the butterfly keyboard?

The 2019 MBP was when they dropped the problematic butterfly keyboard and went back to the reliable scissor-switch keyboard. This should be essentially the same keyboard, though the backplate is black painted aluminum instead of bare aluminum.

 

[Mr. Awesome]

Touch Bar was garbage. A useless gimmick.

Yes, a useless gimmick that I frequently use to

• Group and align layers in Illustrator
• Scrub through tabs in Safari and images in Photos
• Quickly choose QuickType suggestions
• Select screenshot options

How very useless, indeed.

 

[Tagbert]

It’s all clickbait garbage. There’s nothing special about these laptops that they require extra time to review.

Sure, who cares about fast, powerful, and efficient laptops with super bright, high resolution screens. ?

 

[canadianreader]

Here's how macOS handles menu items on the 16"

 

[MaximizedAction]

Check all the boxes

Well, except that it can’t also run Windows only applications, because no legal way to get Windows on it.

But Windows slow and buggy lolol

I mean in a serious, professional way.

But Intel slow and power wasting

Yes. And it’s MS’ fault to most part. But then I wouldn’t claim “Checks all the boxes.” It’s still losing Windows using customers. Shame for such a fine laptop.