I've always liked it, looks classy, the standard metal Apple looks HP ishhhhh.
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Thunderbolt 3 Ports on Right Side of 13-Inch MacBook Pro Have Reduced PCI Express Bandwidth
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... on a Pro machine? Definitely! /s
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Seriously you two????
If it added performance, I could see your point. But you are quibbling about aesthetics.
It's not just the price though. They are on a mission to change the world with their stupid wireless headphones, their property ports, ridiculous watches, they are continually removing functionality, USB, SD card slots, MagSafe, I am a photographer - no camera on earth uses Thunderbolt. Things that work fine they like to break - it's like they hold an annual taskforce meeting to decide what is working so they can mess it up. They fill new machines with junk like an Emoji bar that I have no need, or wish for when a mouse and trackpad works perfectly well and is more efficient and simple. Next they will be removing those. The processor only gets a mild bump, it was like an after thought! the 16GB of RAM ceiling is woeful! I have nothing but problems with Apple products now. I bought a new keyboard last week and two keys have broken and fallen out. My Retina MBP has Image Retention, screen coating problems, my iPhones have all had issues, chipgate, bendgate, it's an endless list of constant problems to the point I have not upgraded my OS since Yosemite because every time I have done it stops things working. They are unreliable, over pried, pretty, junk now. They used to just work and were impeccable. My last decent machine from them was the 2010 Mac Pro. For 15 years I have been happily buying like it was the best thing ever. Add another 5 years to that where it has been a slow and steady decline to what it is today, a train wreck of a company run by well funded monkeys. 20 years as a customer and I'm turning away and that MS Surface Studio is looking VERY enticing to me.
I would be more than willing to shell out the $3,200 for a mid-level 15" MacBook Pro *if*....:
1) It had a high end CPU
2) Had at least an Nvidia 1070 or 1080 notebook GPU
3) 32GB DDR4 RAM
4) 1TB SSD that didn't cost almost $1,000 extra
5) Of all things...a proper power cord
But, the best you can hope for with an Apple notebook that costs in excess of $2,000, $3,000, or even $4,000 is mediocre hardware at best. The price points of the non-upgraded versions are irrelevant at the end of the day, no one will want to settle for that paltry disk space.
I love the MacOS interface, it's so much more aesthetically pleasing than Windows. But is the price premium truly worth it? Not with the advent of Windows 10. I can't justify spending over $3,200 on a laptop with just mediocre specs that will become completely obsolete in a couple years. Sure, I will give Apple good marks on the display quality, but what good is it when your $4,000 laptop has a budget GPU!?!?!?
Mark these words: Apple will abolish the headphone jack for a USB-C dongle in the next 1 or 2 refreshes, however many years down that will be. Then at the same time or not long after, they'll cut down the USB ports to just one, and add a barometer or some other worthless chip where our precious connectivity features used to be.
I have been an Apple loyalist since birth. But I also appreciate getting my money's worth, a machine that's capable of handling whatever I throw at it, and not feeling like what I do is significantly bottlenecked by my computer. Isn't that what you should get with a "Pro" level machine? Sadly, that's not the case with these MacBook Pro's. I think Apple stopped caring about it's "Pro" moniker long ago, they seem to just slap it on anything except their most basic models now.
1) It had a high end CPU
2) Had at least an Nvidia 1070 or 1080 notebook GPU
3) 32GB DDR4 RAM
4) 1TB SSD that didn't cost almost $1,000 extra
5) Of all things...a proper power cord
But, the best you can hope for with an Apple notebook that costs in excess of $2,000, $3,000, or even $4,000 is mediocre hardware at best. The price points of the non-upgraded versions are irrelevant at the end of the day, no one will want to settle for that paltry disk space.
I love the MacOS interface, it's so much more aesthetically pleasing than Windows. But is the price premium truly worth it? Not with the advent of Windows 10. I can't justify spending over $3,200 on a laptop with just mediocre specs that will become completely obsolete in a couple years. Sure, I will give Apple good marks on the display quality, but what good is it when your $4,000 laptop has a budget GPU!?!?!?
Mark these words: Apple will abolish the headphone jack for a USB-C dongle in the next 1 or 2 refreshes, however many years down that will be. Then at the same time or not long after, they'll cut down the USB ports to just one, and add a barometer or some other worthless chip where our precious connectivity features used to be.
I have been an Apple loyalist since birth. But I also appreciate getting my money's worth, a machine that's capable of handling whatever I throw at it, and not feeling like what I do is significantly bottlenecked by my computer. Isn't that what you should get with a "Pro" level machine? Sadly, that's not the case with these MacBook Pro's. I think Apple stopped caring about it's "Pro" moniker long ago, they seem to just slap it on anything except their most basic models now.
Power supplies that exceed 100W have the potential to damage the Macbook Pro, and accessories like the USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter or the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter can only provide up to 60W of power, which will offer slow or delayed charging in the 15-inch MacBook Pro. Apple recommends charging the 15-inch model with the power supply it ships with.
Of course they recommend this.
Aside from the lack of a 32GB Memory option, which is bad enough, here is where the thoughtlessness of Apple comes tour de force (and we saw it on the new Mac Pro without internal hard drive expansion space). Not including my MagSafe charging plug, nor my headphone jack, with my current 2014 MacBook Pro, I have 4 ports filled (both USB 3, and both TB2 ports); 1 Thunderbolt port plugged into my Elgato Thunderbolt 2 expansion hub.
If I have one of the Thunderbolt 3 ports (nearly perpetually) filled with the charging cord, that leaves me three open ports. So Apple is rooking people who use their computer plugged into the power cord the majority of the time.
If you're going to reduce the number of useful I/O ports on the Laptop to 4 (cutting the SD card slot and the HDMI port), at least add ONE dedicated charging port so all four ports are available for use with I/O devices instead of three.
If "the little things add up to create a great user experience", Apple's new direction continues to overlook "the little things that add up".
nagromme wrote:
"How many actually need that bandwidth on even ONE port much less 3 to 4?"
That's not the point.
The point is: for the exorbitant price of this new MacBook, with Apple first touting no less than *4* USB-c ports, one would expect (for that price) they would all be "equals" of one another.
It's interesting that they didn't point this fact out at the product intro on Thursday...
"How many actually need that bandwidth on even ONE port much less 3 to 4?"
That's not the point.
The point is: for the exorbitant price of this new MacBook, with Apple first touting no less than *4* USB-c ports, one would expect (for that price) they would all be "equals" of one another.
It's interesting that they didn't point this fact out at the product intro on Thursday...
Haha no more recommendations. Are you going to go back to windows? I'll be leaving windows for the first time in 4 years.
I loved the HDMI on it as well but I think I wouldn't mind using a cable for that (USB-C to HDMI). I think regardless of the other features, they were guaranteed to get rid of it in a redesign. My perfect (realistic) situation would be 5 TB3 ports, a headphone jack, and an SD card slot.
To satisfy your unique need not being able to deal with inconsistencies, Apple should have released the 13" model with just two TB 3 ports. Right?
No 32Gb ram option on the 15" is annoying alright but have they not got the most powerful processors available right now in the full spec 15"?
32GB of RAM is stupid for the vast majority of users with these Intel architectures.
RAM nowadays is very fast. CPU cache and L2/L3 cache are all large too and faster than ever. SSD I/O is also very very fast and the swap penalty isn't as severe as it used to be.
You won't see the performance improvement you think you'll see by going from 16GB to 32GB at these high bandwidths.
This isn't 1997 where going from 128MB stick to two 128MB sticks results in a very noticeable performance improvement.
RAM nowadays is very fast. CPU cache and L2/L3 cache are all large too and faster than ever. SSD I/O is also very very fast and the swap penalty isn't as severe as it used to be.
You won't see the performance improvement you think you'll see by going from 16GB to 32GB at these high bandwidths.
This isn't 1997 where going from 128MB stick to two 128MB sticks results in a very noticeable performance improvement.
The trouble with Apple is that their listening ears are not on. Under Steve Job's management, Apple listened to customer complaints. Today Apple lectures customers on what they want. Apple is not listening to customers.
Listen to customers, Apple. Listen to PRO customers, Apple.
Listen to customers, Apple. Listen to PRO customers, Apple.
Meh. Disagree.
Most people are too stupid to know what's good for them. Too much of this "listening" mantra in contemporary culture. It's not an inherently good thing.
Users need to be told that optical disks are going in the bin. Same for Ethernet ports. Same for HDMI/SD/DP/3.5mm/etc.
If we "listened" to users we'd have Frankenstein machines.
I think 1050 is more realistic at this form-factor. The Razer Blade has heat issues with the 1060 - and for a 1070/80, you need to be a gaming slab.
The tell will be if the Jan17 Dell XPS 15 has a 1050 or not. 99% chance it does... but if they squeeze in something bigger without heat problems, then Apple truly stuffed up.
I must admit, since purchasing my MacBook Pro early 2015, I have never had a need to use the SD Card or HDMI, but it was nice knowing both were there if I ever needed to. That said, the 2016 MacBook Pro is a painful transition just like the 2012 model was. We must also remember, this is the first generation of a new design. It took four revisions for the Retina MacBook Pro to become the release that everybody didn't feel a compromise with. I am sure by 2019, when I might be in the market for a new MacBook Pro, it will be more affordable, pack even more power and won't be a compromise.
A succinct, beautifully summarised and deeply distressing epitaph to what was once (and comparitively, quite recently) a market leaving company. Who could've predicted it would come to this. And so soon?
"Most people are too stupid to know what's good for them." -- What a bizarre statement. If you are suggesting Apple Corporation knows more than people, we can't continue this conversation, it will be pointless. People very well know what they want. Customers here, PRO customers know what they want. They are demanding something better than emojis on a touch bar to get their work done.
Most people are stupid. Yes.
If a person wants something specific, they might want to consider building their own PC. Or run around lobbying whoever will listen to these little whines to build one for them. When you buy Apple, you operate on their high-speed rails (and get all the benefits that come with that). If you don't want to run on Apple's rails, you are free to make that choice. Apple designers design intentions are not what you (or "the people") might think they are.
And most people who buy MBPs are not "professionals". The way most people who buy top of the range sports cars are not capable of racing. Even parking is a challenge for a high percentage of high end car drivers.
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