If it's true that people are less interested in the 2017 models, it's likely for the following reasons. First, the pent up demand for a new MBP was largely spent on the 2016 MBP. Second, anyone with a newer MBP, especially owners of a 2016 model, aren't going to be interested in such an incremental update. Any benefits are far lower than the additional expenditure would be. Third, anyone let down by the 2016 model generally aren't going to suddenly be clamoring for a 2017 model, because there isn't much that separates them.
I'd agree with all of that, but with that said, I just upgraded from a 2013 13" retina pro (maxed at the time) to a 2017 15" 3.1/1TB/560/16GB.
I didn't really want to go to 15", but the lack of a speed bump in all of these years has pushed me to no other choice, the current 2017 13" mbpro would have the same ram, and cpu only 10% faster, at least with the 15" I end up with roughly double the performance because of the quad core, though if I had the 2013 15", even that upgrade path wouldn't exist.
Overall, I'm mixed on my opinion of it.
Negatives:
- Battery life is clearly worse if you are doing anything even slightly taxing of the CPU. I think the only way to get their 10 hour life is to have safari on a simple web page with no ads, or watch a h.264 video with screen brightness all the way down. If you have a bunch of tabs open in chrome, you are probably lucky to get 5 hours (I didn't time).
- The touch bar is a huge downgrade from the old physical keys, it is a somewhat interesting concept, but the implementation is terrible for several reasons -- there is no more 'touch typing' to raise or lower volume, brightness, Mission Control/expose, or even hit the escape key, and it is very easy to accidentally touch the buttons now.
- No magsafe. I like the option for charging with USBC also, but they should not have eliminated the magsafe port -- I remember in the past destroying two laptops because the cord got kicked, and I'm not excited about the possibility of it happening again.
- Some devices are really silly to use with USBC dongle, such as my Yubikey Neo which I use for securing my logins for work.
Positives:
- Being able to charge from any USB is nice. It isn't enough power to actually charge while you use it, but it will at least slow the draining down using any iPad charger -- so this is great for using a laptop while in a car, or just opportunistically plugging in at places that have usb chargers rather than taking out the big charging brick
- USBC is an improvement over USB-A, and you can replace the cords on many devices -- I replaced the cord on my CF reader and external hard drive
- I like the new keyboard, but I'm sure not everyone does.
- It is thinner and lighter than the old 15" and basically weighs only a slight amount more than my 2013 13", so the portability with the giant screen is nice.
- The speakers are great.
