Waiting for the 2017 MBP (Kaby Lake / Cannonlake / Coffee Lake??)

[xmonkey]

It looks like this. But I think this is a store unit that has been on for a few months at high brightness. We don't really know how it's going to look like on the touch bar. I've also seen a Nokia Lumia phone that was even worse than this in a store.

This is what Android users with OLED screens have to do to prevent burn-in http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/save-screen-prevent-burn-in-amoled-screens/.

That's a very extreme case and not a good example of burn-in from typical use. It's most likely a store demo unit that's running at high/max brightness with plenty of static images for hours each day. I used to have an OLED Android phone (original Moto X) for 2 years and I didn't have any burn-in issues like that. The Touchbar already runs at a pretty low brightness and it could be possible that Apple has built in automatic pixel-shifting to try and offset any potential burn-in issues.

However, it is likely that the colors could lose some of their saturation over several years as the OLED pixels age (my Moto X did do this but it was subtle). Given the narrow purpose the Touchbar serves I wouldn't say that's too big an issue for resale value. After all it's not like we're editing photos on the Touchbar.

 

[HerbertDerb]

What I am hoping for is that we will see the KL in the 15" and a price drop.... So i can actually afford one

 

[c0ppo]

I don't think that we will see a price drop on next version. I hope so, but don't think it will happen. I think that 3rd gen is probable for a price drop. And I plan on skipping the SL version as well, unless they do wonders with the battery life.

 

[HerbertDerb]

Hopefully we will see a price drop. I know that Apple haven't care in the past about Windows competitors but the price difference is bit ridiculous this time tbh.

 

[maflynn]

Hopefully we will see a price drop. I know that Apple haven't care in the past about Windows competitors but the price difference is bit ridiculous this time tbh.

I hope to see a small decrease, but with that said, Apple never compares itself with the competitors. They set a price they want. They understand that they'll never win a race to the bottom and have a premium product mentality with regards to the pricing.

 

[Liat]

I heard the OLED of the Touch bar could wear out (as any OLED does). Specifically the blue color might be affected. I don't have a link to that. Could that mean that in 4 years (after Apple care expires) the touchbar loses it's color?

You are probably right, but I didn’t mean it’s not good enough for me. My only problem with Touch Bar is that it’s there. I can hardly believe it can’t even be turned off. But it seems so.

 

[maflynn]

Could that mean that in 4 years (after Apple care expires) the touchbar loses it's color?

I'm not sure of the life span, but then other components could need replacing at the end of 4 years such as the battery.

Something so new and radical has no track record, so any speculation on the longevity is that, just speculation.

 

[OS X Dude]

I'll bite whenever the next revision hits, which I honestly think won't be too long (traditional Mac release cycle, perhaps). My 2011 15" has served me incredibly well, and the SSD and RAM upgrade added the extra 2.5 years I was looking for. Sometimes, I feel lucky still having MagSafe and all the ports!

It still runs Logic X and Studio One like a dream, but I'll be selling it for whatever I can get and then using staff pricing on the next model. Mainly excited about much-improved h.265 decoding on Kaby Lake and to have the Retina display I've been envious of for so long. My girlfriend has the 2015 13" and honestly it's the best laptop I've ever used. Just wish it had a quad-core i7...

 

[HerbertDerb]

Hopefully the bugs will be fixed, quality control stepped up and more adapters/accessories that include Type-c USB is available when the Kaby Lake MBP arrives.

Anyway, if Apple decides to upgrade 15" to KL, what is expected time-frame we could see it? (Any estimates?)

 

[havenyoung]

Hopefully the bugs will be fixed, quality control stepped up and more adapters/accessories that include Type-c USB is available when the Kaby Lake MBP arrives.

Anyway, if Apple decides to upgrade 15" to KL, what is expected time-frame we could see it? (Any estimates?)

15" is more difficult to predict I believe as it also relies on what graphics card Apple decides to put with KL. If they go with the rebranded Polaris 11 then it could be the same time as 13". If they want to wait for Vega 10 then they could update 13" first and then come back to 15" like they did before.

 

[RichardC300]

I was hoping my early 2011 15" MBP would last until the Kaby Lake refresh. GPU went out last night, so I picked up a skylake nTB. If you're waiting on Kaby Lake to get the nTB, just get the current one! Don't see Kaby Lake making much difference on this model.

 

[havenyoung]

I was hoping my early 2011 15" MBP would last until the Kaby Lake refresh. GPU went out last night, so I picked up a skylake nTB. If you're waiting on Kaby Lake to get the nTB, just get the current one! Don't see Kaby Lake making much difference on this model.

I almost pulled the trigger on the nTB to wait out the KL refresh. But my current 2012 cMBP with 8GB ram and 512 SSD upgraded is still working just fine. The battery only holds 70% of the charge but I don't feel like replacing the battery just to get another hour or two :/

 

[HerbertDerb]

I almost pulled the trigger on the nTB to wait out the KL refresh. But my current 2012 cMBP with 8GB ram and 512 SSD upgraded is still working just fine. The battery only holds 70% of the charge but I don't feel like replacing the battery just to get another hour or two :/

I did think this situation that buying nTB version and then upgrading it to the KL 15" version.

However.. the nTB version (in Finland at least) base-model costs 1750€. Bit too much if i'm only going to keep it for less than a year.

And really don't like the idea of selling my hard drives. Buying SSD for 2016 macbook is a complete hassle on its own and then sell it. And in TB versions its soldered in.

 

[WRONG]

15" is more difficult to predict I believe as it also relies on what graphics card Apple decides to put with KL. If they go with the rebranded Polaris 11 then it could be the same time as 13". If they want to wait for Vega 10 then they could update 13" first and then come back to 15" like they did before.

I doubt Apple will wait for another GPU, usually they last for some time.
More probably, the 2017 will be just a Kaby Lake upgrade, and maybe new battery and improved display.
But not some radically bigger improvement.

 

[ihatetoregister]

I heard the OLED of the Touch bar could wear out (as any OLED does). Specifically the blue color might be affected. I don't have a link to that. Could that mean that in 4 years (after Apple care expires) the touchbar loses it's color?

As much as I don't like this Touch Bar, I think this is part of the BS used by competition to discredit OLED panels from LG that transpires here by extension.
Jealous manufacturer (or maybe users) started to spread those myths.
OLED has a lifetime of *at least* 50 000 hours, and even if the blue one will use faster, we're not talking 5000 or 10000 or 20 000 hours and then it dies, but rather a 10-15% decrease in lifetime compared to the rest (if memory serves well).

So here you have it : You will need to use your laptop about 12 hours per day continuously during 3600 / 4000 days , in other words 10 to 11 years, to MAYBE start hitting the limits of the OLED display.
15 years of continuous use at 9 hours per day. Etc ...

No, there are plenty of wrong thing with this iteration but the choice of OLED certainly isn't one.

Source : I wouldn't have bought a demo OLED TV from a TV shop without knowing my **** about its lifetime. But also, google OLED myths.

 

[OS X Dude]

I was hoping my early 2011 15" MBP would last until the Kaby Lake refresh. GPU went out last night, so I picked up a skylake nTB. If you're waiting on Kaby Lake to get the nTB, just get the current one! Don't see Kaby Lake making much difference on this model.

Kaby Lake has much improved h265 and VP9 decoding, in terms of performance and battery life hit (Intel says there'll be no discernible affect on either, unlike with Skylake). This'll no doubt be its biggest improvement, and one that's quite beneficial to a large group who stream video. I'm in literally the same position as you, thankfully minus the GPU failure, so I'm hanging on for that one.

Of course, Kaby Lake still won't support DDR4 memory but I'm happy to forego that until the subsequent Mac upgrade.

 

[navaira]

I missed something – is nTB new Touch Bar or no Touch Bar? (personally I am still fond of Escape Edition)

 

[fokmik]

I hope with native tb3 with kaby lake there will be more room for batteries
I wonder how is the dgpu compared with last generation?

 

[HerbertDerb]

What i'm hoping is this:

We will see 2016 MBP update to Kaby Lake in summer or Q2/2017 (CES news that Intel showed KL processor that supports MBP would support that)

Reason for that is Cannon Lake is to expected to arrive H2 2017. IF Apple would release KL update in H2/2017, it would be old as soon as it arrived. (Some criticized Apple for releasing Skylake MBP when Kaby Lake was available)

And then Q2-Q4/2018 we would see MBP 2018.

The 2017 version would fix the following from 2016 version:
- Bugs related to TB
- Bigger battery
- IGZO Screen for 2017(?)
- HOPEFULLY a **********ing drop in price

 

[havenyoung]

What i'm hoping is this:

We will see 2016 MBP update to Kaby Lake in summer or Q2/2017 (CES news that Intel showed KL processor that supports MBP would support that)

Reason for that is Cannon Lake is to expected to arrive H2 2017. IF Apple would release KL update in H2/2017, it would be old as soon as it arrived. (Some criticized Apple for releasing Skylake MBP when Kaby Lake was available)

And then Q2-Q4/2018 we would see MBP 2018.

The 2017 version would fix the following from 2016 version:
- Bugs related to TB
- Bigger battery
- IGZO Screen for 2017(?)
- HOPEFULLY a mother****ing drop in price

The release time of Cannon Lake will not affect the adopt of Kaby Lake. According to the roadmap, Cannon Lake in H2 2017 is only for low power U and Y series which are not the ones suitable for MBP. The 28W and 45W successors to Kaby Lake is named Coffee Lake that will be released in 2018 (still 14nm but with 4/6 cores). So Kaby Lake update for MBP could happen anytime in 2017 without being "outdated".
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-cannon-lake-late-2017-coffee/

 

[RichardC300]

Kaby Lake has much improved h265 and VP9 decoding, in terms of performance and battery life hit (Intel says there'll be no discernible affect on either, unlike with Skylake). This'll no doubt be its biggest improvement, and one that's quite beneficial to a large group who stream video. I'm in literally the same position as you, thankfully minus the GPU failure, so I'm hanging on for that one.

Of course, Kaby Lake still won't support DDR4 memory but I'm happy to forego that until the subsequent Mac upgrade.

I am with you there. Kaby Lake only has the improved decoding capabilities over Skylake, and I really wish I could have waited. My 2011 MBP served a long and productive life, just wish it could've lasted a little longer.

That did get me thinking, though. 4K exceeds the native resolution of the 13" (and even the 15"), so is there still a benefit to watching 4K videos? I'm just a student with a 1080p external monitor, so 4K doesn't seem to be in my future.

 

[HerbertDerb]

The release time of Cannon Lake will not affect the adopt of Kaby Lake. According to the roadmap, Cannon Lake in H2 2017 is only for low power U and Y series which are not the ones suitable for MBP. The 28W and 45W successors to Kaby Lake is named Coffee Lake that will be released in 2018 (still 14nm but with 4/6 cores). So Kaby Lake update for MBP could happen anytime in 2017 without being "outdated".
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-cannon-lake-late-2017-coffee/

Well, ****... They should still update it in H1/2017 cause i want the bloody KL one

 

[kiranmk2]

I could see the KL update coming at WWDC in June as a quite update on the Mac - probably as a simple line such as "today we're updating the MacBook Pro with the latest 7th generation Intel chips," No need to go into more details and it will probably be the same price (unless sales fall off the edge of a cliff following the pent up demand seen in November/December). If Coffee Lake does finally bring quad core chips to the 13" then again I don't think the price will fall then either.

 

[maflynn]

could see the KL update coming at WWDC

2013 was the last time Apple had a hardware announcement at WWDC. There seems to be a trend lately that Apple has focused WWDC on developers and not a media event to showcase new hardware. I'm not saying they won't do a hardware roll out in 2017, but so far there seems to be a trend of sticking with software only.

 

[GubbyMan]

Can't wait to see the disappointment of this thread when nothing is announced at the end of WWDC.