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Aftermath747

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 16, 2015
264
211
I’ve been eyeing a MacBook Pro for a while but couldn’t stomach either buying a gimped model at $1,299 or shelling out $1,799 for the full experience. Now I don’t have to compromise or break the bank. Great job by Apple!
 

lambertjohn

macrumors 68000
Jun 17, 2012
1,644
1,710
I just ordered a base model, 2019 13" Pro, so we'll see if they are gimped. Gets here Friday. Kinda curious to see how that 1.4ghz quad-core performs.
 
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Howard2k

macrumors 603
Mar 10, 2016
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How so? Does it not support Wifi 6 or something?

The nTB and the Air are both 2x2 802.11ac (supporting up to 867Mb/s of bandwidth). It certainly doesn’t suck, it’s still faster than many laptops out there, but the other Pros from 2015 onwards have been 3x3 (up to 1.3Gb/s).

All wifi 5 (802.11ac). None of the MacBooks support wifi 6 (802.11ax) yet. High speed 3x3 or 4x4 802.11ac routers are cheap these days, very cheap, so a high speed network at home is cheap and easy. 802.11ax routers not so much.

Only really matters if you’re moving a lot of data, obviously.
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What are you guys talking about? What was released? Apple nixed the old air and the 12 inch today (actually both my favorite Macbooks), but what's new?

nTB Pro got a replaced with a cheaper and lower power quad core. 2TB ports.
MacBook dropped altogether.
Air reduced in price.
 

Thysanoptera

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2018
907
865
Pittsburgh, PA
nTB Pro got a replaced with a cheaper and lower power quad core. 2TB ports.
MacBook dropped altogether.
Air reduced in price.
When I saw the title of the post I thought they released a Pro with normal keyboard and without touchbar (ok, the touchbar part was totally imaginary, but I really thought it is the new SKU without butterfly keyboard). Waiting until september continues then I guess, but I was really excited for a moment.
 

Howard2k

macrumors 603
Mar 10, 2016
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When I saw the title of the post I thought they released a Pro with normal keyboard and without touchbar (ok, the touchbar part was totally imaginary, but I really thought it is the new SKU without butterfly keyboard). Waiting until september continues then I guess, but I was really excited for a moment.


Yeah. I’m disappointed with the KB too.
 
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lambertjohn

macrumors 68000
Jun 17, 2012
1,644
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What are you guys talking about? What was released? Apple nixed the old air and the 12 inch today (actually both my favorite Macbooks), but what's new?
Go to Apple's website and you can see for yourself. New Air and new MacBook Pro 13.
 

Broadus

macrumors 65816
Oct 26, 2011
1,108
649
Upstate SC
So what about the rumor of the MBA being released later in the year with a scissors keyboard? Does it seem less likely with the updated Air?

I’m planning to buy a new 13” MBP within the next couple of weeks: 2.4GHz, 16GB memory, 1TB SSD. The reduction in price for increased storage is welcomed and long overdue.
 
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Aftermath747

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 16, 2015
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It may still be partially gimped, at least from a wifi perspective. We also haven't seen benchmarks. I don't think it's that great a deal.
The WiFi is still great for the majority, though I’ll concede it’d be nice if they added 3x3 given the proliferation of fiber networks. As for benchmarks, I don’t need them to know a quad-core, newer chip from Intel will outperform a dual-core, older chip from Intel. Dual core on a “Pro” machine never made much sense, and now they’ve made the divide between Air and Pro much clearer.
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When I saw the title of the post I thought they released a Pro with normal keyboard and without touchbar (ok, the touchbar part was totally imaginary, but I really thought it is the new SKU without butterfly keyboard). Waiting until september continues then I guess, but I was really excited for a moment.
Touch Bar is one of the reasons I wanted a higher end model, and I’m one of the seemingly rare who love the butterfly switches.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,152
18,911
The cheaper 13” is still more limited than its more feature-complete sibling, but it’s certainly a much better buy now. It’s not just an Air replacement it was originally presented as. And most importantly, we again have clear differentiation between prosumer and consumer lines. Now let us have either ice lake or Zen 2 and those will be terrific laptops.
 

Falhófnir

macrumors 603
Aug 19, 2017
6,139
6,990
It's still got the same differences by the look of it - 15W CPU instead of 28W; 2TB 3 instead of 4; the only thing they've added is the touchbar (and they've closed the core count gap which is more to do with the direction Intel's taken lately). I don't know to what extent the notebook formerly known as the nTB has ever been 'gimped' as such, it still goes toe to toe with it's competitors on the Windows side, it's just been neglected for a couple of years before now.
 

Howard2k

macrumors 603
Mar 10, 2016
5,182
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The WiFi is still great for the majority, though I’ll concede it’d be nice if they added 3x3 given the proliferation of fiber networks. As for benchmarks, I don’t need them to know a quad-core, newer chip from Intel will outperform a dual-core, older chip from Intel. Dual core on a “Pro” machine never made much sense, and now they’ve made the divide between Air and Pro much clearer.


I'm sure it will benchmark well and be far swifter than the older dual core. What I meant was that for the price different between the 1.4Ghz 256GB 8GB and the 2.4GHz 256GB 8GB, it's US$300. For that $300 you get two extra TB3 ports, faster graphics, faster base and peak clock speed, and suspected faster wifi.

It's a significant step up from the nTB, but at that price point I think the 2.4Ghz machine makes more sense. That's just me though, I do make heavy use of wifi so if I was just surfing the net or moving the occasional small file it might be a different story. If it was 3x3 I'd be considering it. If it was 3x3 with the new keyboard I'd be facing a pretty tough decision. :D
 
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dannyar

macrumors 6502a
Feb 2, 2007
653
402
I'll stick with my new predator Helios 300 with a GTX 1660 ti, 16gb ram, 256ssd, 144hz display, and latest core i7 processor for 1199. Beast of a gaming and editing machine, and only cost me $90 to add an additional 1tb NVME drive to the extra slot. 1.2tb of total NVME storage.
 

teknikal90

macrumors 68040
Jan 28, 2008
3,343
1,892
Vancouver, BC
I'll stick with my new predator Helios 300 with a GTX 1660 ti, 16gb ram, 256ssd, 144hz display, and latest core i7 processor for 1199. Beast of a gaming and editing machine, and only cost me $90 to add an additional 1tb NVME drive to the extra slot. 1.2tb of total NVME storage.
does it run logic?
I still use a 2013 macbook pro at times for ableton. It's reliable as heck. None of the windows machines I've used would stay THIS reliable for that long for pro live uses. Stupid things like driver failures, USB would drop out, Windows update ruining stupid silly things etc etc. The walled garden is great for live pro uses.
 
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redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
I’ve been eyeing a MacBook Pro for a while but couldn’t stomach either buying a gimped model at $1,299 or shelling out $1,799 for the full experience. Now I don’t have to compromise or break the bank. Great job by Apple!
128 GB still seems like a compromise to me, as I explained in another thread. Running out of storage is a major annoyance and easy to do with such a small amount available. The real no-compromise price is $1,499, and I thought exactly the same thing concerning the $1,499 13" rMBP model at the start of 2014. Apple messed it up by making the Touch Bar models cost a huge premium.
 
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dannyar

macrumors 6502a
Feb 2, 2007
653
402
Cool, what brings you to MacRumors?
Check my history. Ive been here over a decade and own many apple products. Me saying this particular model isn't worth it for what I can get elsewhere doesn't take away from what I'm saying.
 

Aftermath747

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 16, 2015
264
211
128 GB still seems like a compromise to me, as I explained in another thread. Running out of storage is a major annoyance and easy to do with such a small amount available. The real no-compromise price is $1,499, and I thought exactly the same thing concerning the $1,499 13" rMBP model at the start of 2014. Apple messed it up by making the Touch Bar models cost a huge premium.
Perhaps for some. Personally, I had 256 GB on my 12” MacBook and would’ve been fine with 128. iCloud Drive makes local storage somewhat redundant for me. I’m always okay with base storage on the iPhone and iPad as well these days because iCloud takes care of everything and it’s always at my fingertips.
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Check my history. Ive been here over a decade and own many apple products. Me saying this particular model isn't worth it for what I can get elsewhere doesn't take away from what I'm saying.
With that kind of history, you should know by now that Macs have never competed spec-for-spec with PC. If all you want to do is ogle at specs, then by all means buy a PC. Macs excel at providing a superior experience with software, allowing the specs to fade into the background and become largely irrelevant. They’ve missed the mark in accomplishing that with some decisions in the past, but they nailed it with this one.
 
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redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
Perhaps for some. Personally, I had 256 GB on my 12” MacBook and would’ve been fine with 128. iCloud Drive makes local storage somewhat redundant for me. I’m always okay with base storage on the iPhone and iPad as well these days because iCloud takes care of everything and it’s always at my fingertips.
You never used more than 128 GB of storage on your 12” MacBook? Not once?

Even if that’s true, we can’t assume a majority of MacBook Pro buyers have a paid iCloud Drive subscription. 128 GB is a big compromise for most buyers.
 
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