The No Touch Bar 13 Macbook Version

[5iMacs]

I'm getting my non-touch-bar version tomorrow.

I didn't expect the non-touch-bar version to throttle, not with a 3.1GHz turbo, but the fact that the speaker configuration is obviously different from the touch bar version is starting to concern me...

 

[zone23]

I guess my point is that dongles and adapters seem to make things more complicated. Not easier. Plus it seems to be a money grab.

i get it if you have a MacBook Pro now you don't need anything or you have already bought it. Example you already have a HDMI cable but if you were doing it today you could probably just buy a USB-C to HDMI.

 

[AdonisSMU]

I'm getting my non-touch-bar version tomorrow.

I didn't expect the non-touch-bar version to throttle, not with a 3.1GHz turbo, but the fact that the speaker configuration is obviously different from the touch bar version is starting to concern me...

The speakers are fantastic. I listened to them at Best Buy yesterday.

 

[5iMacs]

Appreciate it, AdonisSMU, I'll give them a chance 😀

 

[bigpoppamac31]

i get it if you have a MacBook Pro now you don't need anything or you have already bought it. Example you already have a HDMI cable but if you were doing it today you could probably just buy a USB-C to HDMI.

I have the 2014 rMBP so I have an HDMI port. No adapter needed. 😉

 

[bcaslis]

I'm getting my non-touch-bar version tomorrow.

I didn't expect the non-touch-bar version to throttle, not with a 3.1GHz turbo, but the fact that the speaker configuration is obviously different from the touch bar version is starting to concern me...

Why? The MacBook 12" had the best speakers I've ever heard on a Mac. Until I got the non-touchbar MBP. I don't know if the touchbar is better but this one is best sounding Mac I've heard so far.

 

[5iMacs]

Why? The MacBook 12" had the best speakers I've ever heard on a Mac. Until I got the non-touchbar MBP. I don't know if the touchbar is better but this one is best sounding Mac I've heard so far.

That's great to hear, thanks! It was one of the major selling points for my son and the thought that it might not have the same subwoofers above the batteries (since it had the 2 full-range speakers on each side of the keyboard instead of the touch-bar-version's 1 in the pictures) made me wonder.

On the other hand, this 4-speaker arrangement resembles that of my iPad Pro which I think sounds very good so I'm optimistic.

 

[Tycho24]

I guess my point is that dongles and adapters seem to make things more complicated. Not easier. Plus it seems to be a money grab.

Lol, I will NEVER understand this bizarre & paranoia laden manner of thinking...
I mean, am I really missing something???! Did Tim break out a sheet showing the enormous amount of "dongle income" that the company made, during the last shareholder meeting? Wtf money is there to be made in selling dongles??? Lol. We know that the ENTIRE Mac line makes a little teeny wedge of the income pie for Apple, with the vast majority of the money makers being iDevices. It would stand to reason that only a teeny tiny wedge of that teeny tiny wedge of profits would be attributable to "dongle sales". Lol, they probably make more off Apple Music subscriptions & App sales in a day than they do off of dongle sales in a year.
You can be as mad as you want to over the direction of their mobile hardware. You could say: "I think they choose form over function", you could say: "for that price it should have new connectors AND old connectors", or even: "this doesn't represent my idea of a Pro machine". Any one of those opinions are sensical & valid.
However, it is absolutely LUDICROUS to posit that this company has made a single decision w/ regards to their Mac lineup, as a "money grab" (I can't even type that, keeping a straight face), from dongle sales.
Please.
I don't think you even vaguely fathom the enormity of cash Apple makes.
You, basically attempting to portray them as so desperate for cash that they are shaking couch cushions, in search of nickels, is silly.
To put it further is perspective: consider that it would take the sales of 150 dongles at $20 each to equal the $3000 price of a single high-end MacBook Pro. I know that they may have a higher markup.... but they also do NOT have a halo effect. Nobody is marching out to buy an AppleTV because they love a dongle. That is a one time sale. Apple likely wouldn't give up a MacBook sale for 1500 dongle sales, much less 150. They would much rather sell a MacBook... then they can make the ecosystem compelling, and get the user to purchase products that further lock them into it.
Dongles do NOT do that. They are a side-effect of technological advances (and Apple's lust for thin devices with less "legacy" ports)... a necessary evil.

TLDR;
There is NO conspiracy by Apple to rob you of your ports, solely to sell you dongles. That makes negative sense.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

Lol, I will NEVER understand this bizarre & paranoia laden manner of thinking...
I mean, am I really missing something???! Did Tim break out a sheet showing the enormous amount of "dongle income" that the company made, during the last shareholder meeting? Wtf money is there to be made in selling dongles??? Lol. We know that the ENTIRE Mac line makes a little teeny wedge of the income pie for Apple, with the vast majority of the money makers being iDevices. It would stand to reason that only a teeny tiny wedge of that teeny tiny wedge of profits would be attributable to "dongle sales". Lol, they probably make more off Apple Music subscriptions & App sales in a day than they do off of dongle sales in a year.
You can be as mad as you want to over the direction of their mobile hardware. You could say: "I think they choose form over function", you could say: "for that price it should have new connectors AND old connectors", or even: "this doesn't represent my idea of a Pro machine". Any one of those opinions are sensical & valid.
However, it is absolutely LUDICROUS to posit that this company has made a single decision w/ regards to their Mac lineup, as a "money grab" (I can't even type that, keeping a straight face), from dongle sales.
Please.
I don't think you even vaguely fathom the enormity of cash Apple makes.
You, basically attempting to portray them as so desperate for cash that they are shaking couch cushions, in search of nickels, is silly.
To put it further is perspective: consider that it would take the sales of 150 dongles at $20 each to equal the $3000 price of a single high-end MacBook Pro. I know that they may have a higher markup.... but they also do NOT have a halo effect. Nobody is marching out to buy an AppleTV because they love a dongle. That is a one time sale. Apple likely wouldn't give up a MacBook sale for 1500 dongle sales, much less 150. They would much rather sell a MacBook... then they can make the ecosystem compelling, and get the user to purchase products that further lock them into it.
Dongles do NOT do that. They are a side-effect of technological advances (and Apple's lust for thin devices with less "legacy" ports)... a necessary evil.

TLDR;
There is NO conspiracy by Apple to rob you of your ports, solely to sell you dongles. That makes negative sense.

Wow. You clearly worship Apple don't you? My comment was a general comment about adapters in general. Not just from Apple who barely makes any. Secondly Apple has all the money it has cause it overprices its products. Many companies do the same. Obviously a company needs to make a profit but Apple has got a boat load. They could sell their products for far less and with the same quality and still make lots of profit and give their consumers a much better deal. There's nothing wrong with change. But it shouldn't be so abrupt that we need adapters. Keep the old with the new during the transition so people have time to switch over.

 

[lobo1978]

I want the I/O of the classic models. Hence my dilemma. I have nothing which uses USB-C and no one should have to pay extra for adapters

It's a generation change and big step towards single-port for everything. Are you crying for DVD/CD, PS/2, RS252 and LPT port too? It's gone, now forget HDMI, USB-A etc.

It's transitional period that hurts

Thunderbolt3 (USB-C) explained: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/139323-thunderbolt-3-explained-the-one-port-to-rule-them-all

 

[fob]

 

[gooseta]

The rMB is definitely a better machine imo, no point in buying an underpowered rMBP, might as well go extremely thin and light. If you're getting the non touch rmbp you obviously don't need high levels of performance anyway.

 

[Hyloba]

It's a generation change and big step towards single-port for everything. Are you crying for DVD/CD, PS/2, RS252 and LPT port too? It's gone, now forget HDMI, USB-A etc.

It's transitional period that hurts

Thunderbolt3 (USB-C) explained: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/139323-thunderbolt-3-explained-the-one-port-to-rule-them-all

Problem is, whereas common items did not used to have ports, or only proprietary, they now do have.

All tv's have hdmi and usb-a ports now. I keep a tv for a long time, so I will be using an adapter for the coming 10 years. My car has a usb-a port, so if phones drop the usb-a part, I will still need adapters for a long time. Same for scientific equipment, they do not get replaced every couple of years.

Anyway what I'm saying is this seems like it will be a longer transition than those before. But I don't quite mind it, I've had a samsung laptop for the last 3.5 years which also needed dongles. Worst part is it needed proprietary dongles. Mini-ethernet to ethernet, which was luckily included but broke down after some months because build quality was crap. And mini-vga to vga which was not included. I never could find those adapters in my country, but then again I wouldn't buy them as the retail price in the US after all these years is still 40 and 50 dollars.

At least usb-c will be a standard and not proprietary.

 

[pbasmadj]

Purchased this computer in Space Gray then exchanged for Silver. Without question the best computer I have ever owned. By such a longshot it amazes me. Hardware and software. After having many, many, many, Macs over the years. It's just brilliant. The keyboard, design, battery, speakers, screen, everything. I looked into the benchmarks and while obviously slower than the other two entry models revealed, this computer with Skylake supposedly benchmarks better than the old 2015 Pro with 2.7ghz. There is more to it than just the ghz the processor is running at for performance as a computer is an architecture. As far as the machine's benchmarking, I will say with certainty it's not as black and white as just the ghz and it's definitely an impressive machine on the performance end of things.

 

[lobo1978]

hovers between 5 and 10.8. My battery health is 102%...never had that before.

For 5W it will run (theoretically) for almost 11hrs (10:54). For touch bar version to get 10 hrs (as tested by Apple) idle power consumption should be less than 5W - is it possible?

I'm simplifying here a lot taking idle as a baseline. The dynamics of system might be different but I can't model this with single point in space.

 

[biskazz]

this computer with skylake supposedly benchmarks better than the old 2015 Pro with 2.7ghz. As far as the machine's benchmarking, I will say with certainty it's not as black and white as just the ghz and it's definitely an impressive machine on the performance end of things.

It totally benchmarks similarly but thats not the entire story.
The CPU has two times lower TDP which means throttling way sooner. It's totally true that it's more energy efficient but that's what's concerning me.

Anyways, just pulled the trigger on last years 15" which I found for quite cheap.

 

[lobo1978]

Problem is, whereas common items did not used to have ports, or only proprietary, they now do have.

All tv's have hdmi and usb-a ports now. I keep a tv for a long time, so I will be using an adapter for the coming 10 years. My car has a usb-a port, so if phones drop the usb-a part, I will still need adapters for a long time. Same for scientific equipment, they do not get replaced every couple of years.

Anyway what I'm saying is this seems like it will be a longer transition than those before. But I don't quite mind it, I've had a samsung laptop for the last 3.5 years which also needed dongles. Worst part is it needed proprietary dongles. Mini-ethernet to ethernet, which was luckily included but broke down after some months because build quality was crap. And mini-vga to vga which was not included. I never could find those adapters in my country, but then again I wouldn't buy them as the retail price in the US after all these years is still 40 and 50 dollars.

At least usb-c will be a standard and not proprietary.

Wireless is future for consumer level needs, for professional usage and bandwidth you have tb3.

I'm streaming for at least 4 years now, I have BT audio in my car. (Almost) all cables are gone.

For my external drives I bought 2x 5$ cables USB-A -> USB-C, small dongle for 3.0 flash drive (Sandisk extreme 64gb).

There you go - you are in 21st century 😎

Ahhh - I still need vga dongle for legacy projectors in my Uni. But taking into account thickness of laptop and height of vga port - how will you fit it - vertically I think 😀

And don't forget that old standards are not so power efficient as tb3 - we want thinner and lighter laptops right? Battery tech is lagging behind... as far as I know only military have a proper battery technology but we have to wait until it is allowed in household products.

 

[Pyali]

Just ordered the 512GB SSD 13" non touch bar. After discovering its slightly faster/the same as the 13" 2015 MBP, it was a no brainer to save money and get the MBP without the touch bar 🙂

 

[fallentree]

That's great to hear, thanks! It was one of the major selling points for my son and the thought that it might not have the same subwoofers above the batteries (since it had the 2 full-range speakers on each side of the keyboard instead of the touch-bar-version's 1 in the pictures) made me wonder.

On the other hand, this 4-speaker arrangement resembles that of my iPad Pro which I think sounds very good so I'm optimistic.

You might have confused the cooling fans with the loudspeakers. The 13 inch w/o Touch Bar has one fan whereas the Touch Bar model has two fans, due to the higher TDP processor.

 

[Blackbird20031]

Has anyone tried basic gaming like CS:GO, D3 or WoW on this model? Would be interesting to see how it compares to the 2015 base 13".

 

[lobo1978]

Keep the old I/O and put in a couple of the new ports until the majority of peripheral manufacturers have TB or USB-C devices.

Hello, volume of current laptop is too small to accommodate so many legacy ports + don't expect apple will change this generation for next 4 years (at least) - it must future proof - you have to bet on future not go with the flow.


-- it is business it is not UNICEF - they need to earn money to keep value of company.

We expect to buy premium product for dell money but it is not how it works.

If you don't get it - it's a free world - buy yourself "transitional" laptop that will keep you productive- at the end of the day it is only tool for a job.

 

[zone23]

Just ordered the 512GB SSD 13" non touch bar. After discovering its slightly faster/the same as the 13" 2015 MBP, it was a no brainer to save money and get the MBP without the touch bar 🙂

Me too except I got the upgraded CPU and 16GB or RAM because I run Autodesk Revit in windows for work. So maxed out the entry machine.
[doublepost=1477911200][/doublepost]

I have the 2014 rMBP so I have an HDMI port. No adapter needed. 😉

Yep you and I have totally different uses. I have the thunderbolt to HDMI for my MacBook Air and have never used it I thought I would but don't. I have used airplay to my Apple TV a few times.

 

[torana355]

I will kind of argue the opposite. OS's are so optimized now that they can run perfectly fine on 2-4 GB machines. Unless you are doing hardcore task you will never push the limits of 8GB.

100% correct, running 4gb of ram on my 2011 MBA and it never maxes out as primarily a Web Surfing and You Tube Machine.

 

[user74246]

Has anyone tried basic gaming like CS:GO, D3 or WoW on this model? Would be interesting to see how it compares to the 2015 base 13".

ArsTechnica seems to be liking the Iris 540 quite a bit:

In our graphics benchmarks, the Iris 540 easily wiped the floor with the Haswell NUC and both Broadwell NUCs, and that’s despite the fact that the Core i7 Broadwell NUC has a higher 28W TDP compared to the Skylake NUC’s 15W. More impressively, it was faster than the old Haswell-era Iris Pro 5200, at least in areas where its dual-core CPU or lower TDP wasn’t a bottleneck

Full review here:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016...is-gpu-makes-the-skylake-nuc-a-major-upgrade/
[doublepost=1477912675][/doublepost]I did the calc for some of their benchmarks and the Iris 540 (base 13" MBP, late 2016) is around 50 - 60% faster than the Iris 6100 (all 13" MBP, early 2015).

 

[bigpoppamac31]

It's a generation change and big step towards single-port for everything. Are you crying for DVD/CD, PS/2, RS252 and LPT port too? It's gone, now forget HDMI, USB-A etc.

It's transitional period that hurts

Thunderbolt3 (USB-C) explained: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/139323-thunderbolt-3-explained-the-one-port-to-rule-them-all

I didn't have any problems with previous transitions like OS9 to OSX or PPC to Intel. Those were fine for me. Removing the optical drive in a laptop was fine for me as I don't need it on the road. Although I'm sure some did at the time. Removing it in a desktop made less sense. Why do we need a super thin iMac?? Removing HDMI doesn't make sense though. Are future TVs going to have TB/USB-C connections on them? Also why remove the power/magsafe connector and take up a TB/USB-C port to charge the laptop. That one didn't make sense to me.
[doublepost=1477913274][/doublepost]

Wireless is future for consumer level needs, for professional usage and bandwidth you have tb3.

I'm streaming for at least 4 years now, I have BT audio in my car. (Almost) all cables are gone.

For my external drives I bought 2x 5$ cables USB-A -> USB-C, small dongle for 3.0 flash drive (Sandisk extreme 64gb).

There you go - you are in 21st century 😎

Ahhh - I still need vga dongle for legacy projectors in my Uni. But taking into account thickness of laptop and height of vga port - how will you fit it - vertically I think 😀

And don't forget that old standards are not so power efficient as tb3 - we want thinner and lighter laptops right? Battery tech is lagging behind... as far as I know only military have a proper battery technology but we have to wait until it is allowed in household products.

I don't care about a paper thin laptop. The "classic" (pre-retina) MBP was thin enough. That extra space could be used for multiple SSDs, more ram, more powerful graphics, bigger battery, etc. A combo of all those things. And make them user upgradeable.