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My 16" review after 4 days ownership
- Thread starter trailmonkey
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I've been a moderate user of the Touch Bar, but underwhelmed - recently after several years, invested some proper time in customising bettertouchtool and the goldenchaos presets, and it's suddenly become extremely useful - it shows my next appointment, reminder and task continually, has a one touch link to 1password and AirPods connecting, a shortcut to my dock, window snapping, and every conceivable system setting. if you're not using it much, I can really recommend it.
Battery is good not great for my use. If you use it for everyday tasks it's good, but get too CPU intensive and the battery life takes an expected hit.
Good write up! I’d love to know if your thermals and battery improves after a week or so, as the machine is probably still indexing. If it’s still syncing, iCloud activity can really heat things up to.
I can’t decide which processor I should go with. I’ve seen reports off/on the last year about the cooling issues and throttling, and seeing the different clock speeds I just don’t know what will be best for me. I’ll be upgrading the ram to 32gb and the video card to 8gb. My primary application is vectorworks and just don’t know if the i9 is best for my workload.
I can’t decide which processor I should go with. I’ve seen reports off/on the last year about the cooling issues and throttling, and seeing the different clock speeds I just don’t know what will be best for me. I’ll be upgrading the ram to 32gb and the video card to 8gb. My primary application is vectorworks and just don’t know if the i9 is best for my workload.
You should always have your laptop plugged in when you are near power. So yesterday you basically wasted two of the 1000 charges your battery have, for nothing.
And MacBooks have long battery lives because they are so powerful nowadays that normal use only uses a few percent of the available power. The more demanding your tasks are, the lower the battery life. That's why we rate cars with "miles per gallon" and not "days per full tank".
And MacBooks have long battery lives because they are so powerful nowadays that normal use only uses a few percent of the available power. The more demanding your tasks are, the lower the battery life. That's why we rate cars with "miles per gallon" and not "days per full tank".
I agree with gnasher.
There's no reason to use and drain your battery with heavy tasks when you're sitting next to an outlet. A decade or more ago, there was a need to cycle through a battery every once in a while to keep it fresh and conditioned. They also recommended you take it off the charger from tiem to time. Now that's not as necessary if at all.
As for getting hot, the real question would always be environment and use cases. How many apps open? How many background tasks? How many apps and services? Avid has a service that runs ALL THE TIME and wants internet connections ALL THE TIME. Also, MS Office apps are secret power hogs, especially Word and PowerPoint.
How much data is being pulled down in the background? Are the fan ports blocked? I've had clients use their laptops on pillows and block vents. How warm is it where you are?
THe bigger issue with fans is if they kick on full blast at start up and never idle. Or, if you're taxing the machine and they never kick on at all. An i9 is going to generate heat, and this time Apple didn't throttle the chip much at all.
Oh! Welcome to the Apple camp!
There's no reason to use and drain your battery with heavy tasks when you're sitting next to an outlet. A decade or more ago, there was a need to cycle through a battery every once in a while to keep it fresh and conditioned. They also recommended you take it off the charger from tiem to time. Now that's not as necessary if at all.
As for getting hot, the real question would always be environment and use cases. How many apps open? How many background tasks? How many apps and services? Avid has a service that runs ALL THE TIME and wants internet connections ALL THE TIME. Also, MS Office apps are secret power hogs, especially Word and PowerPoint.
How much data is being pulled down in the background? Are the fan ports blocked? I've had clients use their laptops on pillows and block vents. How warm is it where you are?
THe bigger issue with fans is if they kick on full blast at start up and never idle. Or, if you're taxing the machine and they never kick on at all. An i9 is going to generate heat, and this time Apple didn't throttle the chip much at all.
Oh! Welcome to the Apple camp!
Hey, as you reported no ghosting, can you do a check on what panel you got please?
Open the Terminal and run this " ioreg -lw0 | grep "EDID" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6. "
You should get a panel number that looks like this: LP160WT1-SJA(number)
Cheers!
Open the Terminal and run this " ioreg -lw0 | grep "EDID" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6. "
You should get a panel number that looks like this: LP160WT1-SJA(number)
Cheers!
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When I had a MBP, I found that utility to be quite useful. Many of my use cases did not require a lot of horsepower and that utility was quite helpful.
Hi, I think there's a typo in your terminal command. I think this one should do what you want:
ioreg -lw0 | grep "EDID" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -n 6
FWIW on my mojave 2018 15" that modified command produced the following output:
Color LCD
LP154WT5-SJA1
DCN841500CTJ46RA5
At the risk of hijacking this thread, I'm about to place an order on a MBP 16 and my config will be similar to the OP's. I use my laptop around my house, and often on my lap, so I'm worried about the heat complaints. A couple of questions:
1) I pretty much assumed that I'd want to upgrade to one of the i9 8-core chips, but does the i7 run significantly cooler/quieter?
2) Does upgrading to the top-end 5500M w/8GB RAM offer a noticeable improvement for video editing, or is it mainly useful for 3D and gaming? I don't care about 3D or gaming, but I do want to play around more with video editing (though it will probably be 1080p, not 4K).
1) I pretty much assumed that I'd want to upgrade to one of the i9 8-core chips, but does the i7 run significantly cooler/quieter?
2) Does upgrading to the top-end 5500M w/8GB RAM offer a noticeable improvement for video editing, or is it mainly useful for 3D and gaming? I don't care about 3D or gaming, but I do want to play around more with video editing (though it will probably be 1080p, not 4K).
I just picked up the MX Master 3 ten minutes ago! I love it!
[automerge]1576861179[/automerge]
I upgraded my video card for that purpose alone. I'll be doing a lot of video editing and photoshop.
[automerge]1576861179[/automerge]
I upgraded my video card for that purpose alone. I'll be doing a lot of video editing and photoshop.
Not sure about the answer but can offer my experience as data point.
With FCP I see frequently my dGPU memory (8GB) maxed, same with Photos after 20-30 mins of editing.
In fact I'm surprised Radeon memory is marked around 60-70% nearly always dGPU is on for more than 30mins. Maybe it is similar to RAM where the system tries to maximise all what's available, but can repurpose quickly if needed.
In my use case I'm happy I decided to go with 8GB
Great review. If you want the Touch Bar to actually be useful download BetterTouchTool and then use this preset. Someone on this forum recommended it to me and I've loved it.