Funny - I was just looking around for affordable high quality monitors. I don't need anything huge - even a 22" that was good quality would make me happy alongside a 13"
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Waiting for the 2018 MBP
- Thread starter benface
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Funny - I was just looking around for affordable high quality monitors. I don't need anything huge - even a 22" that was good quality would make me happy alongside a 13"
That’s all it needs, really. Reliable keyboard is the key here.
Agreed. There is still a huge question mark over whether we'll see 32GB or not, but I think optional touch bar and improved keyboard are a certain. Apple even said last year they were working on a non-touch 15" version at the mini Mac media Q&A they did if I recall correctly.
The keyboard is the only thing putting my off right. Having played with a couple in stores, I'm happy with the feel/travel of it. But the reliabilty issues are really off-putting. It's poor that with a £2400 machine you essentially HAVE to buy the extra cover. My current MacBook has lasted me almost 8 years, it seems today, you're lucky if it lasts 8 weeks without a key going faulty on the keyboard!
I need to upgrade this year though. So it's make or break time depending on what Apple do this year to resolve the durability issues. I'd hate to switch back to Windows but it's looking like a real possibility with ever increasing prices and ever reducing quality.
The keyboard is the only thing putting my off right. Having played with a couple in stores, I'm happy with the feel/travel of it. But the reliabilty issues are really off-putting. It's poor that with a £2400 machine you essentially HAVE to buy the extra cover. My current MacBook has lasted me almost 8 years, it seems today, you're lucky if it lasts 8 weeks without a key going faulty on the keyboard!
I need to upgrade this year though. So it's make or break time depending on what Apple do this year to resolve the durability issues. I'd hate to switch back to Windows but it's looking like a real possibility with ever increasing prices and ever reducing quality.
Recent geekbunch entries suggest that mobile Coffee Lake CPUs are being released rather soon. These entries appear to be tests of actual production laptops.
First time hearing this (and very excited to hear it). When was this Q&A thing so we can look it up?
It wouldn‘t even need to be OLED screens. There were rumors about Apple experimenting with keyboards that had E-Ink displays on every keycap, which would most likely be much cheaper to produce and less heavy on battery usage. I doubt it‘s coming this year but who knows, might be part of the next big redesign.
Yup - these sound amazing:
https://www.techspot.com/news/73504-mobile-coffee-lake-cpu-scores-appears-geekbench.html
I need a new MacBook for Grad school which starts in mid-July. I plan on waiting until the end of June to get it, so I am hoping that a refresh with a more reliable keyboard is out in June. Would make me a lot more comfortable spending all that money!
Are you listening apple? 13" with a reliable keyboard, optional touchbar and top specs. Those are my only hard requirements.
I think you're right about that. Not that I'm really expecting a MacBook with two screens instead of a real keyboard any time soon, but I do believe this is the direction they're heading in. There may come a day when I decide that an Apple laptop is no longer for me.
Funny enough, I find the keys in the magic keyboard excellent. Consistent feel and sound, they work no matter how much dirt there is on the keyboard and they are pretty silent. How much more thickness could they add?
Sure, the Q&A was April last year - it was when Apple acknowledged they're messed up the Mac Pro. However it seems I recalled the MacBook Pro info incorrectly. It wasn't mentioned here, but was rumored a few days after. Rumours of additional non-touch bar MacBook Pro's were referenced here, here and here.
Having now read these again, it is worth noting though, most of these suggested it would be 2017 when it would arrive, and the only additional MacBook Pro then was the cheaper entry 13" model launched at WWDC. Which was a pretty insulting release to be fair, "we've made it more affordable... by slashing the specs".
A non-touch 15" may just be taking longer to engineer as they did already have a non-touch 13" on the shelves, so we could see something this year if there was any further truth to those rumours or it could just never happen. Personally, I'd prefer a more durable keyboard over a non-touch bar version anyways.
Its because that Q&A was interpreted in every possible way except what Apple people actually have said. And what they said was literally "we have misjudged the TDP of next-gen GPUs so we can't really continue with the cylinder MP". How people came to conclusion that they want to drop USB-C or the TouchBar or the thin keyboard from there is beyond me.
I think they will make the TouchBar an option or just drop it. Why? Because it has not propagated into desktops or into the Magic Keyboards and, generally, being as unbiased as I can being seeing as I hate the concept, the reception has been lukewarm. I don't think it has become the killer must have feature that they expected it to be and probably adds a lot of production cost.
My main concern is that they won't be able to fix the keyboards / body style in time for this iteration.
Things I want in a new macbook in order of priority:
1. New quad core (13") / six core (15") cpus + quiet enough to not have fans running all the time
2. Fixed keyboard
3. AV1 hardware decoding - won't see this until 2019 at least, maybe 2020?
4. 802.11ax - maybe a draft version possible this year?
Touchbar I hate and should go away but if I have to be stuck with it I guess I won't have any other choice. #1 and #2 are dealbreakers for me, #3 and #4 are nice to haves.
Things I want in a new macbook in order of priority:
1. New quad core (13") / six core (15") cpus + quiet enough to not have fans running all the time
2. Fixed keyboard
3. AV1 hardware decoding - won't see this until 2019 at least, maybe 2020?
4. 802.11ax - maybe a draft version possible this year?
Touchbar I hate and should go away but if I have to be stuck with it I guess I won't have any other choice. #1 and #2 are dealbreakers for me, #3 and #4 are nice to haves.
I would say they are more likely to drop it altogether than make it optional - developers won’t develop for it if it remains (indeed becomes even more) niche, Apple needs to put all their weight behind it or just accept it was a dead end and row back.
I can see the argument that if they had made it optional then people who might have benefitted from it might not have got one, but I think it was not as good an idea as they had hoped. I think it would have been far less controversial if they hadn't positioned the lineup in a way that forces the customer to sacrifice four TB3 ports and a 28W CPU if they don't want to lose their escape key.
Why do you think they can’t fix keyboard this time..they improved it in 2017 iteration and they can do it on top of current iteration..
They have had loads of time to be working on it and more money that god - why would they not have it fixed for next release ?!!
NOOOOOOOOM Night Shamlyam-esque plot twist: Price increase!!
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Geekbench scores for one variant of it just leaked...https://www.techspot.com/news/73504-mobile-coffee-lake-cpu-scores-appears-geekbench.html
We need faster processors! I want to upgrade my late 2016 MBP. I'll wait until it comes out and hopefully some new refreshes will come on top. Overall I have been pleased. I did have my USB C ports not to secure hold a plug and got it serviced. Ever since the USB C ports have held up.
Wow these are some impressive scores. Some people have been saying that increasing the cores would mean decreasing the clock speed of the individual cores, so I‘m very pleased to see that even single-core performance seems to be a noticeable step-up compared to the 7th gen. And these multicore scores... impressive. Makes me very glad that I‘ve held off with a purchase thus far.NOOOOOOOO
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Geekbench scores for one variant of it just leaked...https://www.techspot.com/news/73504-mobile-coffee-lake-cpu-scores-appears-geekbench.html
Can anyone who‘s more knowledgeable than me confirm that these are the chips we‘re likely to see in the new 15“ MBPs? Their TDP and all looks right to me from what people have been posting before but I‘m no expert.
Wow these are some impressive scores. Some people have been saying that increasing the cores would mean decreasing the clock speed of the individual cores, so I‘m very pleased to see that even single-core performance seems to be a noticeable step-up compared to the 7th gen.And these multicore scores... impressive. Makes me very glad that I‘ve held off with a purchase thus far.
Yep, I was also worried that the clocks would be lowered. Doesn't seem to be the case. Then again, we don't know what position in the lineup these "8750H" will take (since Intel has completely changed the naming again). The scores (especially single-core) are not that different from the current flagship 7920HQ, so if that Coffee Lake is a higher-end model, the gain is rather moderate. Also, keep in mind that its Geekbench... so the only thing one measures here is a burst workflow under rather ideal conditions. The real-world performance could be different.
I expect good gains though simply because the energy usage of individual cores seems to be optimised and multi-boost is higher. You don't really get full single-core boost on modern CPUs anyways, since its extremely rare for the system to run on a single core (there is always something happening in the background). Its like Haswell vs. Skylake: in Geekbench its the same, but in real-world numeric computation Skylake is significantly faster.
Seems like it. But again, since Intel has changed their nomenclature, we can't really say for sure. We could even see the Xeon chips though since it seems that Coffe Lake mobile range includes some new mobile Xeons.
I swear they must have a department for designing the most obscure product names possible
Thanks for the insight! Here‘s hoping we see these chips soon in the MBPs, hopefully not later than June. I‘ve already made peace with a March/April release getting more and more unlikely, don‘t think I could hold off for much longer than June though.