You know what....we should probably stop giving them ideas
For the record Apple - I for one would not pay that much and you would lose me to a competitor for sure!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Waiting for the 2018 MBP
- Thread starter benface
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You know what....we should probably stop giving them ideas
For the record Apple - I for one would not pay that much and you would lose me to a competitor for sure!
When you configue iMacs to 32gb you have to pay $600 more. However, when you compare 16gb imac to a 32gb one - the price difference is $400. You can guess that in 2018 DDR4 will get a little bit cheapper, however apple will price their devices higher so I guess that the price difference between 16gb 15" and 32gb 15" could be about $500. That's just my guess.
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac?product=MNE92LL/A&step=config
I've got a Mid 2012 (non-retina) that's starting to show its age as well. Still holds its own performance-wise pretty damn well with 16GB of upgraded RAM and a 1TB SSD. Gonna feel it out for a few months and probably end up upgrading to the new Kaby Lake machines. Feels kind of crazy to have skipped an entire
I too have a 2012 MBP Retina and will hold off to at least 2018... might even go to 2019. I replaced my battery back in 2016 so I'm good to go for another couples years. For my uses, the only thing I want is really good battery life. Its not a requirement but I get around 4-6 hours on average depending on what I do. I'd like to double that and I think that's possible with the new machines. Everything else I can do on this 2012 machine just fine.
At some point I will likely start to edit 4K video of family events. I'd like to see the processors become more efficient with that.
I'm also hoping that Apple upgrades the MacBook Pro displays to 120hz with their promotion technology.
I don't see that happening anytime soon... maybe in 2019?
Alienware isn't really a fair comparison - their machines aren't what they were, since they've gone towards a mass market in Dell's hands. Alienware stuff used to be extremely high-performance, not always the most stable (and in the case of laptops, often stretching the definition of portable) - about the same price as Apple, but giving up stability and portability for added performance (especially GPU performance). More recent Alienware machines are often essentially Dells.
The best comparison to the MBP 15 is probably HP's or Lenovo's lighter 15" workstation models - fast, well-built thin and light professional notebooks.
I couldn't get Lenovo's configurator to give me anything but cheap 1920x1080 screens (they seem to be out of the decent display options), but I DID get HP's site to price a Zbook Studio that is quite close to the MacBook Pro 15" base model - and it's almost $100 more expensive ($2891), although it includes a 3 year warranty.
Processor - Same (7820 HQ). HP's $350 processor upgrade is a Xeon that has the same base clock than Apple's $200 upgrade to a 7920 HQ, with 100 MHz more turbo.
RAM - Same (16 GB - HP uses DDR4) - note that 32 GB is an available ($350) upgrade on the HP
Storage - essentially the same (512 GB PCIe SSD - HP's Z Turbo drives are at least very close to Apple speeds - sometimes literally the same chips). Either can be upgraded to 1 TB for a reasonable cost, while Apple offers 2 TB for a king's ransom and HP offers DUAL 1 TB SSD's (just as expensive). It MIGHT be possible, although not officially, to get the HP as high as 4 TB if you could find 2 TB SSD cards that fit!
Display - similar (HP is 4K, but probably doesn't quite have Apple's gamut - for $50 more, you can get an HP DreamColor display that is probably closer in gamut)
Discrete Graphics - comparable (Nvidia Quadro M1200 - looking at Notebookcheck's benchmarks, it's slightly slower than the Radeon Pro 560 and a tiny bit faster than the 555). HP does NOT offer faster graphics on this model, although they do on heavier mobile workstations.
Size and weight - Apple is slightly slimmer and 0.5-1 lb lighter (HP claims 4.5 lb, but they always weigh the lowest end model, and this one has quite a few upgrades). HP's power cord is also almost certainly heavier, so the travel weight will differ by close to a pound.
Ports - significant advantage to HP (in my mind). Only 2 Thunderbolt 3, but gain 3 USB 3.0, HDMI, SD reader and even Ethernet (!!!) The power cord does NOT take up a Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 port.
Touch pad, keyboard, touch bar - Slight advantage to Apple. The keyboards are comparable (both among the better non-mechanical notebook keyboards), while Apple offers a better touch pad and a touch bar in return for HP's lesser touch pad plus "eraser head" pointer.
The ZBook 15 Studio is almost exactly the PowerBook many of us are dreaming of (with the possible exception of really fast graphics) - it's in the weight range we want, it takes 32 GB of RAM, has both modern and legacy ports, and it has a screen that is AT LEAST the equal of Apple's.
If the choice were hardware only, I'd take the HP over the MacBook Pro - both are beautifully built, and HP's choices meet my needs better than Apple's. The problem is that Apple won't either build a machine like the HP OR license High Sierra to HP. Picking the HP means accepting Windows and losing system-level color management, some amount of stability (Windows is getting better, but it's no Mac) and Apple's ecosystem integration
The best comparison to the MBP 15 is probably HP's or Lenovo's lighter 15" workstation models - fast, well-built thin and light professional notebooks.
I couldn't get Lenovo's configurator to give me anything but cheap 1920x1080 screens (they seem to be out of the decent display options), but I DID get HP's site to price a Zbook Studio that is quite close to the MacBook Pro 15" base model - and it's almost $100 more expensive ($2891), although it includes a 3 year warranty.
Processor - Same (7820 HQ). HP's $350 processor upgrade is a Xeon that has the same base clock than Apple's $200 upgrade to a 7920 HQ, with 100 MHz more turbo.
RAM - Same (16 GB - HP uses DDR4) - note that 32 GB is an available ($350) upgrade on the HP
Storage - essentially the same (512 GB PCIe SSD - HP's Z Turbo drives are at least very close to Apple speeds - sometimes literally the same chips). Either can be upgraded to 1 TB for a reasonable cost, while Apple offers 2 TB for a king's ransom and HP offers DUAL 1 TB SSD's (just as expensive). It MIGHT be possible, although not officially, to get the HP as high as 4 TB if you could find 2 TB SSD cards that fit!
Display - similar (HP is 4K, but probably doesn't quite have Apple's gamut - for $50 more, you can get an HP DreamColor display that is probably closer in gamut)
Discrete Graphics - comparable (Nvidia Quadro M1200 - looking at Notebookcheck's benchmarks, it's slightly slower than the Radeon Pro 560 and a tiny bit faster than the 555). HP does NOT offer faster graphics on this model, although they do on heavier mobile workstations.
Size and weight - Apple is slightly slimmer and 0.5-1 lb lighter (HP claims 4.5 lb, but they always weigh the lowest end model, and this one has quite a few upgrades). HP's power cord is also almost certainly heavier, so the travel weight will differ by close to a pound.
Ports - significant advantage to HP (in my mind). Only 2 Thunderbolt 3, but gain 3 USB 3.0, HDMI, SD reader and even Ethernet (!!!) The power cord does NOT take up a Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 port.
Touch pad, keyboard, touch bar - Slight advantage to Apple. The keyboards are comparable (both among the better non-mechanical notebook keyboards), while Apple offers a better touch pad and a touch bar in return for HP's lesser touch pad plus "eraser head" pointer.
The ZBook 15 Studio is almost exactly the PowerBook many of us are dreaming of (with the possible exception of really fast graphics) - it's in the weight range we want, it takes 32 GB of RAM, has both modern and legacy ports, and it has a screen that is AT LEAST the equal of Apple's.
If the choice were hardware only, I'd take the HP over the MacBook Pro - both are beautifully built, and HP's choices meet my needs better than Apple's. The problem is that Apple won't either build a machine like the HP OR license High Sierra to HP. Picking the HP means accepting Windows and losing system-level color management, some amount of stability (Windows is getting better, but it's no Mac) and Apple's ecosystem integration
Last edited:
I went through all these scenarios and still stick with Apple. Ports are not a big deal for me so all up the MBP still wins out. On direct comparisons they are solid machines together with running Mac OS and Win 10 if you like. Best of both worlds, and definitely tip the balance every time for me. To go higher specs on a PC laptop they start to get quite large, and effect the portability notion a little. [32gb would be nice though..]
I don't know if anyone said this already but a lot people were complaining that there were not any improved displays like not having HDR like the iPad Pro does. I read somewhere though that Apple did upgrade the 15" display to 10 bit but they couldn't call it HDR because there are different requirements based on the device. The iPad Pro and 2017 15" MacBook Pro both have the same displays except for resolution and 120Hz refresh rate on iPad. The HDR requirements on a portable device like tablets or phones are just having 10 bit color, 90% the P3 color gamut and 550 nits of brightness which the iPad Pro meets. But on a larger device like a laptop or desktop display, the requirements are 10 bit color, 90% P3 color gamut, and 1000 nits of brightness meaning the only requirement that Apple did not meet was the brightness. Everything else meets or exceeds the requirements.
Damn... I just CTO'ed one. Came out at $3.5k. Nice machine though, definitely. Would be an interesting alternative to, say, a Dell XPS 15. I need at least 32GB Ram (more is always welcome) and a 4k display would be appreciated too. Not for the added resolution mainly. But to gain 1920x1080/1200 @2x retina resolution without scaling!!! Current MacBook Pros offer this, but only as a non-native downscaling option which I don't really like.
Anyhow... who am I kidding. I was looking into Windows machines last year with the 2016 MBP. At the end of the day though... it's macOS or bust. Having the option to run Windows in a VM is great. But not having native macOS is a deal breaker for me... and so the wait continues.
I just really hope that Kuo's rumors turn out to be true... we'll see.
Just google it!
Like I did... took me all of 1min.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/hdr-for-tvs-explained/
"In April of 2016, the UHD Alliance — an industry group made up of companies like Samsung, LG, Sony, Panasonic, Dolby, and many others — announced the Ultra HD Premium certification for UHD Blu-ray players. This benchmark sets some baseline goals for HDR, like the ability to display up to 1,000 nits of brightness and feature a minimum of 10-bit color depth."
One thing is that the screen is capable of those specs and other that the software is ready to show HDR content on the display.
Where does it say that the MBP has a 10-bit screen though? It looks like it doesn't according to this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-the-new-macbook-pro-display-10-bit-colour.2010172/
1000 nits for LCD and 500 nits for OLED screens (because LG insisted
) are requirements for the Premium UHD standard, not HDR. In reality, most HDR TVs can't yet hit 1000 nits. My Sony X800D gives a nice HDR picture with noticeable gains, bit barely has 500 nits.Apple never cared about other people's standards. Still, perhaps they are waiting to hit at least 600 nits on MBPs - then again, new iMacs already are 600.
I'm guessing it's more of a content thing. Netflix doesn't even offer 4K on Macs currently (maybe that changes soon) let alone HDR content for their few shows that have it. They did say they are considering HDR for mobile devices, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we hear more about this on the next Apple event.
Maybe if iTunes gets HDR movies, they debut on iOS and after a year, Macs get to play them in HDR too. Who knows?
[doublepost=1498123680][/doublepost]
As I said, it's just a standard and Apple doesn't have to follow it if they don't want to. Apple would never put a Premium UHD logo on their devices anyway.
Also, keep in mind this is a TV thing. These sets that do hit 1000 nits achieve this with local dimming and most of them only get this peak brightness at 1-10% screen area. Mac and PC screens don't use local dimming and are different in many ways, so none of these things apply to them.
If Apple can get HDR content to Macs and if that content looks great (and it would, most likely, even on current Macs), Apple would have no problems with calling all these screens HDR. But I think their main focus here will be on iOS, mostly due to the fact that most content providers want very strict content protection and are not really interested in providing PC content that much, at least for now. Mobile is a big area where they are very interested, though.
Last edited:
I would love to see Apple be one of the first to include Graphene based batteries in their laptops, iPads/ phones.
Imagine full 24hrs, and I mean full 24hrs or longer battery life even on heavy CPU tasks on MBP's and only few minutes to recharge 100%.
New Fisker Emotion car is going to include Graphene so why can't Apple do it as they're always one of the first to include new tech.
Oh and when you have such a nice large trackpad on MBP's it would be so nice if the Apple Pencil would work with it.
That, 120hz screens and of course 32gb Ram option.
Imagine full 24hrs, and I mean full 24hrs or longer battery life even on heavy CPU tasks on MBP's and only few minutes to recharge 100%.
New Fisker Emotion car is going to include Graphene so why can't Apple do it as they're always one of the first to include new tech.
Oh and when you have such a nice large trackpad on MBP's it would be so nice if the Apple Pencil would work with it.
That, 120hz screens and of course 32gb Ram option.
Last edited:
For 32 GB of RAM and maybe a price cut.
Fair enough
I wonder if there will be a price drop.
Indirect price cut by offering a non-TB and non-dGPU 15" (thus back to sane 2015 prices) is the price cut we need.Fair enough
LPDDR4 and some kind of Haptic Feedback or 3D Touch on the Touch Bar could be pretty much worth the wait.
The price cut I agree but I think they should price cut the Touch Bar not introduce a new model. The Touch Bar is very useful in a lot of apps.
Those are a lot of very good points, but I have to ask what is the battery life on the Zbook? DDR4 is still very energy hungry, and on a portable device that needs to be taken into consideration.
For the 32gb of ram argument, I have to ask everyone here how they use so much ram? I usually go over 13gb with many Adobe Suite files open, and Finer, Safari, Mail, and two Terminal windows, but never have I even crossed the 14gb mark.
Other than doing 32 GB of RAM the same way HP, Dell and Lenovo workstation notebooks do (by sacrificing some battery life and using DDR4), the really interesting upgrades don't exist yet. If I were Apple, I WOULD sacrifice the bit of battery life and offer the extra RAM on the 15" (only). I'd also leave a couple of legacy ports around (1 or 2 standard USB, the SD reader and perhaps HDMI) in addition to the USB 3.1 ports...
Any really faster mobile processor is at least a year away - neither Intel nor AMD is going to come up with something meaningfully faster without using 6 cores (or even more). The early reviews actually indicate that Kaby Lake was a surprisingly meaningful incremental upgrade (10%+ instead of the expected 5%). We have an excellent chance of seeing 6 cores the first MBP refresh after Intel releases a 6 core notebook chip - Apple has a very good record of using Intel's top mobile chip in the MBP.
A significantly better mobile GPU is also a year or more away. Apple (and all three PC workstation vendors) stick resolutely to mid-power GPUs in this class of machine. HP, Lenovo and Dell offer low-end Quadros, but Apple's Radeons are actually slightly faster. We'll never see a thin and light workstation (and the MacBook Pro is a workstation in specs and build) use a high-power GPU.
Most high-power mobile GPUs wind up in thick, heavy, poorly built gaming notebooks (some of which also gain more cores by using desktop processors). Apple would never build a machine like that (and most of us wouldn't want one - they also have lousy reliability records, and aren't all that much more portable than a 21" iMac...).
There are a few gaming notebooks (notably Razer) that ARE better designed and use significantly faster, higher-power GPUs at the cost of a lot of battery life. The thin and light Razer Blade uses a GeForce 1060 that is quite a bit better than Apple's Radeons, but it pays in battery life.
The third place you see the better GPUs is in 17" workstations. Even the heavier 15" models don't offer big GPUs (some of them offer one model up that is at most 50% faster than Apple's choice), but the 17" workstations DO.
We'll see a mobile Vega one day, but not before there's a mobile Vega with similar electrical requirements to the 460/560... It'll be a pretty good speed upgrade, but not a huge one - that's reserved for the bigger Vega chips that go in gaming machines and 17" workstations.
The real way forward on GPU power is High Sierra's external GPU support.
The graphene battery is a pipe dream for now- I'm an electric car enthusiast, and those are in the same category as hydrogen fuel cells - nobody's going to get meaningful quantities of them out there for several years (and Apple quantities are a few years behind quantities others consider meaningful). Apple's not going to put a special battery in a notebook until they can get enough for the iPhone! Fisker's delivery dates and preliminary specs are fluid enough to make Tesla look rock-solid. The new Fisker will either ship years late, or with conventional batteries (or, most likely, both).
Any really faster mobile processor is at least a year away - neither Intel nor AMD is going to come up with something meaningfully faster without using 6 cores (or even more). The early reviews actually indicate that Kaby Lake was a surprisingly meaningful incremental upgrade (10%+ instead of the expected 5%). We have an excellent chance of seeing 6 cores the first MBP refresh after Intel releases a 6 core notebook chip - Apple has a very good record of using Intel's top mobile chip in the MBP.
A significantly better mobile GPU is also a year or more away. Apple (and all three PC workstation vendors) stick resolutely to mid-power GPUs in this class of machine. HP, Lenovo and Dell offer low-end Quadros, but Apple's Radeons are actually slightly faster. We'll never see a thin and light workstation (and the MacBook Pro is a workstation in specs and build) use a high-power GPU.
Most high-power mobile GPUs wind up in thick, heavy, poorly built gaming notebooks (some of which also gain more cores by using desktop processors). Apple would never build a machine like that (and most of us wouldn't want one - they also have lousy reliability records, and aren't all that much more portable than a 21" iMac...).
There are a few gaming notebooks (notably Razer) that ARE better designed and use significantly faster, higher-power GPUs at the cost of a lot of battery life. The thin and light Razer Blade uses a GeForce 1060 that is quite a bit better than Apple's Radeons, but it pays in battery life.
The third place you see the better GPUs is in 17" workstations. Even the heavier 15" models don't offer big GPUs (some of them offer one model up that is at most 50% faster than Apple's choice), but the 17" workstations DO.
We'll see a mobile Vega one day, but not before there's a mobile Vega with similar electrical requirements to the 460/560... It'll be a pretty good speed upgrade, but not a huge one - that's reserved for the bigger Vega chips that go in gaming machines and 17" workstations.
The real way forward on GPU power is High Sierra's external GPU support.
The graphene battery is a pipe dream for now- I'm an electric car enthusiast, and those are in the same category as hydrogen fuel cells - nobody's going to get meaningful quantities of them out there for several years (and Apple quantities are a few years behind quantities others consider meaningful). Apple's not going to put a special battery in a notebook until they can get enough for the iPhone! Fisker's delivery dates and preliminary specs are fluid enough to make Tesla look rock-solid. The new Fisker will either ship years late, or with conventional batteries (or, most likely, both).