New 16-Inch MacBook Pro is Thicker and Heavier Than Previous Generation

[Mr.PT]

Thicker and heavier than the previous generation.


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I believe it’s the keyboard that got him freeze.

 

[Mr.PT]

I was expecting much worse, really. Apple have set the bar so low for cost-effectiveness expectations at this point that I'm not utterly disgusted at the pricing.

Same, but I suspect we’re “under the influence” of having previous generations ridiculous price/performance ratios, so now these seem quite acceptable…I mean considering the CPU/GPU and the screen alone, when compared to previous 16” generation, price is not that bad.

 

[DenisK]

OMG! It's half a millimeter thicker! Literally unuseable! 🙄

Anyway, good to see that Apple finally seems to have given up the idiotic pursuit of thinness at all costs.

You probably meant to say "half a centimeter," which would have been wrong as well, as 6mm is over a half

Thinnes, by far, is not an idiotic pursuit. Thickness is. The lighter stuff is - the easier it is to carry it around.

 

[Loge]

The machines with the M1 Max are now nearly 20% heavier than the MBP 15" from 2016 (4.8 lb vs 4.02).

 

[Mr.PT]

He's the CEO. The buck stops there.

Unless you're saying you've got actual insider info on how Apple is run?

Regardless, Steve Jobs's Apple rarely backpedaled ANYTHING. This guy pivots on a relative dime compared to the Steve/Jony team.

Credit here is earned.

I think Tim likes to make better things rather than new things. That’s OK. But I see iPhone and these designs and I can’t avoid thinking “ be careful on overmilking” the cow…

 

[Janichsan]

You probably meant to say "half a centimeter," which would have been wrong as well, as 6mm is over a half

1 cm = 10 mm, so 1.62 cm are 16.2 mm, and 1.68 cm are 16.8 mm.

So the difference is 0.6 mm.

I know, metric units can be hard...

 

[Playfoot]

After all the build up and waiting. For what? Disappointment.

Fill up the land fills with dongles, return to single use ports . . . Mag safe returns to eat up another port (note I was unhappy with the loss of MagSafe, but did come to see the advantages of either side charging with a non-proprietary cable). Destroy screen continuity with a notch.

Had hoped to retain the investment in carry cases, but likely increase in fatter is better will mean current sleeves too have to be put into land fill.

At least the touchy Touch Bar is gone. That is a plus, I guess.

 

[E.Lizardo]

There are many people, myself included, who were sick of Apple going thin for the sake of thin. Meanwhile the machine would throttle because it was too thin.

One thing I DON'T miss about Steve,the fetish for thin that really was a liability in some cases.

 

[E.Lizardo]

And when these Macs throttle or get really hot (which they surely will)…

Yeah just like the M1 Macs right?

 

[Playfoot]

I've always been bothered with the idea that people thought MagSafe was just better. It's not. This implementation is great because it's really a best of both worlds situation... but if I had to pick one, it was USB-C all day, every day:

• No more proprietary charger
• No more proprietary connector
• Allowed single plug for data and power
• Could use ports on either side for charging

MagSafe is nice if you're plugged in at an airport or in a conference room. I get it. If you're plugged in with kids running around, also great.

The question is, when and why are you actually plugged in for these scenarios anymore? In the age of 15+ hours of battery life, why on earth are you plugged in while not at a desk for hours on end. I still don't get the pining for MagSafe. Am I the only one who works at a desk where my cables aren't easily tripped on? I have kids and dogs and all that. That's why, when I use my laptop in those scenarios, I don't plug it in. I can get through an entire work day on a full charge.

When battery life in the real world was more like 4 hours, this was really, really nice. But seriously, why do people think this is such a big deal at this point? What is the real world scenario where you need to be constantly plugged in somewhere that tripping is a high risk? I'm sure there are legit scenarios for this, but they're niche now.

Heck, I'm more likely to be in a situation where I forgot a charger than in a tripping zone. USB-C lets me borrow pretty much every modern charger from anyone else at this point.

Well stated....Although, I must assume we are in the minority if the MagSafe has returned.

 

[ingambe]

It's a Pro computer, for Pro's who value performance, battery life, ports, etc.

If you need thin and light Apple has you covered with the Air.

That's funny because when Macbook's were behind in terms of performance and ports, everyone was cheering for the thinness and lightness of the Macbook's over the raw specs and now it's the opposite...
Design is important, it's a joy to work on a beautiful machine

 

[ingambe]

I bet there's still someone on the forum, somewhere, crying about USB-A ports.

Honestly, it makes more sense than an SD card slot

 

[orthorim]

I don't like the notch but when I look at my 16" MBP now (2019) - I see that it has a notch that covers the entire width of the screen....

 

[kb923689]

You probably meant to say "half a centimeter," which would have been wrong as well, as 6mm is over a half

Thinnes, by far, is not an idiotic pursuit. Thickness is. The lighter stuff is - the easier it is to carry it around.

This is a pro machine, not your TikTok browsing machine.

 

[Suxamethonium]

Yeah I can't complain about it being a little chunkier, particularly with the 14" making good use of the area provided in a relatively compact package for the screen. Kind of reminds me of the old TiBook G4's (so when people say it looks like a laptop from the early 2000's I have to agree... it does, in all the right ways!

Can't wait for my 14" to arrive next week.

 

[boak]

It’s basically the same thickness. Jony Ive is truly the master of disguise to make you believe that the previous gen was much thinner with the aggressive contouring.

See this too:

 

[lowkey]

Have you seen the latest full-size SD Exoress cards? They are now similar to SSDs in performance and cost hundreds of dollars. A good 500 GB card costs about $500. This is what this slot is for. You don’t have to buy a Macbiok Pro maxed out on the SSD. Get the base amount of SSD and then add more storage via the SD Express card.

why would you when its more expensive than upgrading the SSD at purchase?

 

[colourfastt]

They're phat and thicc!

In English please

 

[icerabbit]

why would you when its more expensive than upgrading the SSD at purchase?

Maybe because the SD card is still considered a standard recording storage unit, and goes into a variety of cameras … and they don’t use a myriad of larger SSD with different interfaces in the same way. Everything portable seems to use SD or micro SD if it is super compact.

 

[dannys1]

Yes, because the menu bar took up so much space. 🙄

Well about as much as half a touch bar that people were desperate to get rid of.

 

[dannys1]

It is, it's just f*** hideous. Apart from that, and the small complaint about using old tech HDMI 2.0 rather than modern 2.1 (it would be like them putting in Thunderbolt 3 instead of 4), it is a brilliant machine, and pretty much all we could realistically hope for. Unrealistically, I'd really really like user upgradeable SSD and RAM, and a single USB-A port would be nice, but I know those were never going to happen.

The notch is the least "hideous" bit - the industrial design is hideous, it's utilitarian and functional, but it's not Steve Jobs-esque let alone Jony Ive.

Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 are identical on Macs as they always implemented Thunderbolt properly anyway - TB4 is really a PC iteration because they never did the USB stuff properly. There isn't the bandwidth for a 2.1 HDMI port so it makes sense - also the only use anyone seems to have for HDMI is doing presentations at unis and schools - which begs the question why these people need this much power, but there we go. Design by committee indeed.

 

[dannys1]

I've been pointing this out elsewhere—because my initial revulsion was at the idea that the HDMI port came instead of Thunderbolt 4. I don't think that's the case though. I haven't looked at the tech specs deeply, but I think 3 ports might be limitation of the silicon. The HDMI port happens to be where we had a TB port before, but that's merely positioning.

The M1 support was a little funky already: only two ports and only one display (pus the USB 4/Thunderbolt 3 moniker).

Realistically, with a separate charging option, the number if people hindered by 3 TB4 Ports is probably pretty small. I've never once needed all four TB3 ports to be strictly TB3. (I guess they could have included a USB-C only port, kinda like on the iMacs but... good heavens... I really hate when devices mix Thunderbolt and USB-C or have some ports support charging.)

It is a bandwidth limitation you're right - except we could have had 4x TB3 ports like before, but instead they allocated that PCI-E bandwidth to a HDMI 2.0 port and a SD card reader, the whiners won. We lost a 40gbps port that could do anything including charge, for a port to plug into a projector and an SD card reader. But hey, everyone seems to love it.

 

[asiga]

I mean, it's really ugly - it's utilitarian, it looks like a 2009 MacBook Pro. But hey that's what everyone on this forum wanted from a Pro machine so I guess none of those people are complaining now.

How can an iPhone12-looking NBP look like a 2009 MBP? You're not being fair in the comparison. If the NBP was an MBP, then there wouldn't be any complaints (except from those who love thin, and who actually should be using their iPads rather than imposing that all Macs should be iPad-like gadgets).

 

[macdevign]

Kudos to Apple for listening and abandon thinness as competitive advantage. Making product thinner and thinner in each release mean going down to bottomless pit. There is only so much a product can go this thin before everything become fragile and vulnerable. We don't need the thinnest of all notebook, we just need thin-enough notebook that is robust and durable foremost. In fact, I view robustness and durability as the main competitive advantage consider that macbook is world-recognized product that is used anywhere, anyplace, could be hostile environemnt be it arctic, desert, ... and the last thing we want is a product that we need to pray that it will not break down the next time we open it (eg cracked screen, jammed keyboard ) or that the of essential ports (opps forget to bring along usb hub)

Apple are famous for creating products that have form and substance but previously Apple focus obsessively on form (thinness as marketing theme), but now I have faith in Apple that recent product releases come back to what Apple has in the past been well known for: substance, with slight thickness added for reliability.

I have hand-on with the new iphone , new ipad mini, I am shocked that they share similar design of the original iphone 4 , which certainly feel great and sturdy.

Congratulation, Apple.

 

[dysamoria]

An adapter card is hardly an improvement over a dongle. It's still an extra bit you have to carry around and potentially lose/forget.

Depending on the cost, and how many cards you need to swap, is it feasible to leave each micro in an adapter and just switch the whole thing out when swapping cards? That’s the tactic I would personally choose, but I don’t have devices that require the micro sized ones (the only one I have came from a seller of UltraSatan for Atari ST; he said the SD cards sourced cheaper in micro, and he includes an adapter by default).