Waiting for 2021 MBP

[littlepud]

[Updated June 22, 2020]

Starting a new "waiting" thread since the 2020 13" MBP is out.

Although I'm on a 2019 base 16", I do miss the 13" form factor when carrying the machine around the house. The smaller 13" was better for taking from the desk to the couch, or from the couch to the bed.

I seriously thought about selling the 16" and going with the 10th-gen Ice Lake 13", but I'm now leaning on waiting for either Tiger Lake or ARM, possible in a revised 14" form factor. It's also unclear whether the Touch Bar is going to remain or whether Apple will admit defeat like they did with the butterfly keyboards.

What do you guys think? What are the "must have" features for a next-generation 13" MBP? I'm thinking:

• 14" Mini-LED display with thinner bezels in the same chassis as the current 2020 13"
• Tiger Lake U series chip (assuming MBP stays on Intel) with 4 cores and Gen 12 Xe-based graphics
• ARM-based Apple CPU/SoC
• Revised webcam (1080p), Face ID as a nice-to-have
• 4 Thunderbolt 3 / USB4 ports
• Removal of Touch Bar / return of function keys
• Wifi 6

As for folks who want a 16":

• Mini-LED display
• Tiger Lake H series chip (assuming MBP stays on Intel) with up to 10 cores and Gen 12 Xe-based graphics
• ARM-based Apple CPU/SoC
• AMD RDNA2 dGPU
• Revised webcam (1080p), Face ID as a nice-to-have
• 4 Thunderbolt 3 / USB4 ports
• Removal of Touch Bar / return of function keys
• Wifi 6

I suspect Apple might do a silent refresh of the 16" for 2020 with Comet Lake, but I could see them going straight to Tiger Lake Apple Silicon since Comet Lake (10th Gen H) is just a speed-bump of Coffee Lake Refresh (9th Gen H).

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
Thread is stuck and title has been renamed

 

[Damien]

• Yes, I want that 14" display badly. Might even have Micro-LED?
• Tiger Lake U looks to be a big performance increase as well. I was holding out for Ice Lake's CPU just because I want a laptop that can play turn-based/2D/simple games well enough (Civilisation 6) but one more generation might nail that.
• Webcam yes, I am actually holding off getting this release of Pros in case they announce Face ID is coming to the Mac at WWDC which would all but confirm a FaceID module in the next generation of Pros.
• Don't see them removing the Touch Bar

The other things I am hoping for is no move to ARM as I want to remain on X86 for Windows apps when I need them.

I would also be interested to see if they come out with a T3 Chip and would T3 chip would actually give us?

 

[littlepud]

I wouldn't mind a move to ARM, but I'm only "assuming" that they stay on Intel for the purposes of this discussion. There's a separate thread for ARM speculation.

That being said, I think that Intel vs ARM is less relevant in terms of architecture these days, with the pervasive availability of cloud computing. What use cases require local on-device Windows VMs versus putting those Windows apps on Azure or AWS?

 

[MacFather]

Deleted.

 

[littlepud]

What if we got an Intel Xe dGPU instead? I wouldn't put it past Apple getting a custom part for it.

 

[akuraktz]

I want Apple to fix ghosting in mini-led displays

 

[KPOM]

Don't know how trustworthy is this Twitter account...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1260198082341244930

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1261292153453436929

I’m guessing this means the 14” will be a bit thicker and/or heavier than the 13”. Perhaps Apple will keep both the 13” and 14” Pro alongside each other. I can see the 14” replacing the Ice Lake i5 as the new “upscale” smaller Pro.

 

[c0ppo]

Bigger touch bar? Talk about doubling down on gimmicks

 

[impulse462]

Bigger touch bar? Talk about doubling down on gimmicks

yeah that is horrifying

 

[LizKat]

yeah that is horrifying

Uh yeah, no. I am not a fan of the touch bar to start with. A bigger one would firm up my current drift towards figuring I could get by with a MacBook Air anyway.

(so let them bring it... I'll be sad to let my streak of MBPs come to an end but maybe it's time)

 

[littlepud]

Bigger touch bar? Talk about doubling down on gimmicks

What about a Haptic Touch Bar that's clickable with "touchable" buttons?

 

[LizKat]

What about a Haptic Touch Bar that's clickable with "touchable" buttons?

Hard pass. Touch ID button is about the extent of my interest in buttons on a laptop. Not sure why really, but the feeling is strong. I like my iPad Pro for what it is, and my laptops for what they are, but I don't like that Apple seems to keep nudging the MacOS towards iOS and the hardware of the MacBook Pro towards some of the virtual options of the iPads.

It's like watching a whole new tide of One Size Fits All roll in and feeling helpless to stop it.

But hey, I'm just a spectator and a potential consumer. Apple usually manages to know what their market is and how to maintain it. Time will tell. Meanwhile my mid-2012 MBP is getting pretty long in the tooth so I'm probably going to jump to an MBA pretty quick here and just be done with my prowl for a newer notebook. I'll have to catch an MBP some other time... if I ever go back to that fork in the road where I am right now.

 

[ascender]

Please, please please find a way to bring FaceID to the MacBook Pro.

A 14” screen would be nice too, but if it is going to be a full redesign, I’m interested to see what they do. Evolution, like the Porsche 911 has always done, or a revolution?

 

[entropi]

oh noes!!! I don't want a dGPU in my future 14" MBP...

 

[tcador]

Ugh, now I have two “waiting for...” threads to compulsively refresh every day, 2020 and 2021. I still hold some hope of a fall release of something new.

 

[Christopher Kim]

I'm still on my late-2016 13" MBP (Touchbar), as I was a first mover on the re-design. I haven't minded the butterfly kb (had to get it replaced once recently, which got me a new battery / logic-board). I was tempted by the 2020 13" MBP but decided it wasn't enough and I didn't "need" it. I think the 2021 13" MBP will be the next one for me:

- 13" (hopefully becomes the 14" with thinner bezels)
- Would prefer no dGPU (or at least a version of it w/out), as I don't do much gpu-intensive tasks, so rather the cooler (and hopefully) quieter machine with better battery life (all things equal)
- Prefer Intel vs ARM (don't want to buy first gen of this)
- Definitely hope for upgraded 1080p webcam
- Ok with touchbar, hopefully the 13/14" doesn't get a "bigger" one like that rumor on the 16" above (and agree I think touchbar is permanent now - think it's telling they don't offer no-tb MPBs anymore)
- If mini-LED display, great. And would love higher refresh rate screen (if they could do a promotion style 120hz when needed, less when not, would love it, admittedly don't know the tech and whether it's harder to implement in laptops)
- Good with the new 16gb/512gb base config (if they can bump it to 1tb for same entry price, of course great, but not expecting it in 2021)

 

[SenorVvangIstMoi]

Ok.. so here are my predictions..

1. Apple has got to upgrade their sh*tty webcams for their Macbook "Pro"s.. especially after in the midst of this work-at-home economy..
2. Admit defect and get rid of that useless/gimmicky touch bar OR expand it larger for a more innovative usage..
3. I hope that they can put a micro SD slot and a "legacy" USB port
4. Get rid of that "Macbook Pro" right in front of your face like what Dell did for their XPS 17's "infinity display".. c'mon the competititors are catching up.. be minimal..
5. Ditch Intel and go with AMD Ryzen chips or a possible ARM chips any day.. and Apple, you shall take my money at a maxed out of your top of the line MBP 16" notebook.

 

[oldtime]

If they're planning a larger TB, why not just listen to the many who hate it and realize that the extra real estate could instead better be used for a return of actual, physical keys. TB on top, where it can be easily ignored, return of top key row just below.

It's not rocket science.

 

[Chompineer]

The smaller 13" was better for taking from the desk to the couch, or from the couch to the bed.

This is the biggest “first world problem” I’ve ever seen, lmao.

 

[liriel_]

Is there literally no chance of Macbook Pro 14" this year?

 

[matram]

Unlikely. I think we will only smaller bumps until Apple release a new redesigned product line, possibly with ARM cpu.

 

[liriel_]

what a pity! I'm curious about the redesigned line and am very disappointed with Pro 13"

 

[scouser75]

I've been totally and utterly out of the Mac computer scene for many year.s I'm still running a 2009 Mac Pro, which I use for my editing!!! But I'll be looking to finally upgrade to a laptop this year (but will be keeping my trusty ol' Mac Pro too).

Ideally, I'd like to wait and see what the 2020 16" MBP will have - features, mini LED screen, processor etc. Also, whether it'll change in style / looks.

What do you guys in-the-know think about these sort of things? All rumours, I appreciate, but some rumours are, well, not so much rumours

 

[DHagan4755]

With the switch to ARM, the 14.1- and 16-inch MacBook Pros will have the same processing power (5nm A14x ARM processors). Aside from choosing storage size (and RAM), like the iPad Pro, imagine if your main decision came down to screen size! Just like the iPad Pros — whoa! Many people choose the bigger MBP because it's much faster than the smaller MBP. That could be moot. And that could also mean good things in terms of pricing (of course dedicated graphics will add cost if they add them, esp. the 16-inch). It's going to be very interesting to see how all this will play out...