Waiting for the 2018 MBP

[mdbradigan]

I do agree that in the recent time many have almost caught up with Apple in their game of building fast, high quality portable laptops.

This. Definitely. You could always get a higher specced machine in the windows world, and the tradeoff was usually quality of craftsmanship, longevity, screen resolution, speakers, keyboard, trackpad, battery life, portability, and OS. For a lot of people, myself included, that's too many tradeoffs, and we've happily been living in the Apple ecosystem. I'm not overly concerned about ports, personally - is a minor quibble at best.

However, with regards to specs - the competition has caught up (and kudos to Apple for forcing them to, no doubt), and now I'm left with ... trackpad, speakers, OS in the "pro" column. That's not enough. Apple needs to step up their game, or their competition is going to take their high-end market away from them. Lose enough of the "halo" market, and you lose the content creators, etc. that drive the massively more powerful and lucrative consumer market.

 

[c0ppo]

I betcha if you tried that on a 32 GB gaming laptop, you’d get about 2-3 hrs.

2-3h vs 4.5h ? And yes, I get around 3h with Lenovo P51. But it has 64GB ram, and way more powerful hardware then any MBP you could possibly buy


And all things considering, doesn't make any difference. That is what power outlets are for

You could always get a higher specced machine in the windows world, and the tradeoff was usually quality of craftsmanship, longevity, screen resolution, speakers, keyboard, trackpad, battery life, portability, and OS.

Well, I bolded a few things here. Longevity on new MBP? With those keyboards (another bolded part)? I wouldn't place any bet on any new MBP lasting longer then some Dell/Lenovo/etc. without needing repairs. And I mostly mean the keyboard part.

Screen resolution? Most of windows flagship laptops now offer 4K, which is higher resolution then on MBP. Speakers on MBP are great, but so are on most of their competitors. As is battery life.

All other things I can agree on. Only reason I want MBP is because of MacOS. Everything hardware related is simply better on windows side. Especially keyboards and screens.

I still haven't seen Matebook X in person, but that screen with it's ratio is a godsend for developers like myself.

 

[Poki]

It seems that all the waiting made me mad. I just ordered a whole bunch of USB-C accessories, even though I don't own any device with a USB-C port yet. Dongles, a card reader, a lightning cable for use with Astropad on an iPad Pro, even a mobile gaming mouse for the occasional round of Starcraft 2. I somehow think seeing all these boxes of accessories stacked in plain sight might make waiting a few more weeks more tolerable. Hopefully Apple doesn't remove all USB-C ports from the next model ...

 

[mdbradigan]

2-3h vs 4.5h ? And yes, I get around 3h with Lenovo P51. But it has 64GB ram, and way more powerful hardware then any MBP you could possibly buy


And all things considering, doesn't make any difference. That is what power outlets are for



Well, I bolded a few things here. Longevity on new MBP? With those keyboards (another bolded part)? I wouldn't place any bet on any new MBP lasting longer then some Dell/Lenovo/etc. without needing repairs. And I mostly mean the keyboard part.

Screen resolution? Most of windows flagship laptops now offer 4K, which is higher resolution then on MBP. Speakers on MBP are great, but so are on most of their competitors. As is battery life.

All other things I can agree on. Only reason I want MBP is because of MacOS. Everything hardware related is simply better on windows side. Especially keyboards and screens.

I still haven't seen Matebook X in person, but that screen with it's ratio is a godsend for developers like myself.

Apologies if I was unclear - my point was - these things USED to be in the pro column of the decision matrix for MBP. And now they simply are not. The only pros I see are speakers, OS, trackpads... and that's not enough. Screen, keyboard, fit and finish, overall quality and longevity - these are areas where Apple used to be a segment leader... and now they are objectively equal or (sadly) worse.

 

[afir93]

It seems that all the waiting made me mad. I just ordered a whole bunch of USB-C accessories, even though I don't own any device with a USB-C port yet. Dongles, a card reader, a lightning cable for use with Astropad on an iPad Pro, even a mobile gaming mouse for the occasional round of Starcraft 2. I somehow think seeing all these boxes of accessories stacked in plain sight might make waiting a few more weeks more tolerable. Hopefully Apple doesn't remove all USB-C ports from the next model ...

Lol for me this would have the opposite effect, having all those accessories for a future MacBook Pro lying around but no actual MacBook Pro yet would just make me more impatient. But if it helps you then great.

 

[Falhófnir]

I betcha if you tried that on a 32 GB gaming laptop, you’d get about 2-3 hrs.

I don’t understand why that matters? Any high powered laptop under heavy load is going to deplete it’s battery so quickly you don’t want to be using it unplugged anyway. If you can eke 4h out of it that’s probably of little more use than 2h in any realistic scenario.

 

[c0ppo]

Apologies if I was unclear - my point was - these things USED to be in the pro column of the decision matrix for MBP. And now they simply are not. The only pros I see are speakers, OS, trackpads... and that's not enough. Screen, keyboard, fit and finish, overall quality and longevity - these are areas where Apple used to be a segment leader... and now they are objectively equal or (sadly) worse.

I agree completely. Except for one thing. Fit and finish are subjective things, and I find new MBP to be great in that department.

If windows laptops had trackpads as good as those on MBP, well, that would be the additional incentive to move from Apple completely. But they don't. Not even windows precision ones are near MBP trackpads

 

[hajime]

How likely will MBP 15" 2018 be available for purchase earlier this June?

 

[schalliol]

Given that Intel's relevant chipset is officially announced and that other laptops with these CPUs are rolling out within the next 1-2 months, it's very unlikely that WWDC passes without an announcement.

I really hope they make an update soon. It was 307 days ago that they did the speed bump for the MBP, yet 221 days after they announced the TouchBar, they did the speed bump.

I think the MBP design probably too new for a major re-design, but I could see some tweaks to the design and guts. If they just did a bump with very minor tweaks, they might just press-release it. They'll sometimes do a special event (like the one on 3/28 with the iPad) and then just do a press release a bit later on something they don't want to steal the thunder from not too much later. Apple might also pay a premium to get first dibs on the new Intel products, but if Intel is getting dealt out, they may want to cut a special deal elsewhere.. All that said, I think Apple releases the products when they have sufficient availability they can predict.

 

[Poki]

Actually, for what we know, the new MBPs might be announced tomorrow together with the red iPhone. Or on April 16th, when Dell and Gigabyte start to deliver all their new models. Or on WWDC. Or in October. All the parts are already there, it‘s now only up to Apple to decide when they want to update it.

And I feel like this will be sooner rather than later. With the competition rocking quad-core 13“ notebooks since last September and already shipping six-core notebooks, there‘s clearly a little bit more pressure this time than in the past years.
[doublepost=1523225959][/doublepost]Just noticed Apple still declares the 12“ MacBook and the iMac as „new“ in the store, while they dropped this label from the MacBook Pro a week or so ago. These machines were introduced at the same day! Am I the only one who thinks this is strange?

 

[schalliol]

Poki, if they truly dropped the New label a week ago, that would be a tell, but I can't imagine why Apple would do that. Usually Apple calls them new until the new ones come out, given the MacBook Pro name hasn't changed since the first Intel MBP and people want to be sure to buy the latest version.

 

[Poki]

Poki, if they truly dropped the New label a week ago, that would be a tell, but I can't imagine why Apple would do that. Usually Apple calls them new until the new ones come out, given the MacBook Pro name hasn't changed since the first Intel MBP and people want to be sure to buy the latest version.

They did, it was even discussed in this very thread. Just click the „buy“ button on the MBP product page, the label is no longer there, while it is for the iMac and MacBook.

 

[hajime]

It seems that all the waiting made me mad. I just ordered a whole bunch of USB-C accessories, even though I don't own any device with a USB-C port yet. Dongles, a card reader, a lightning cable for use with Astropad on an iPad Pro, even a mobile gaming mouse for the occasional round of Starcraft 2. I somehow think seeing all these boxes of accessories stacked in plain sight might make waiting a few more weeks more tolerable. Hopefully Apple doesn't remove all USB-C ports from the next model ...

If they can make thinner laptops, they will.

 

[Poki]

If they can make thinner laptops, they will.

They can make it a lot thinner than it currently is and still fit USB-C in. Heck, the Dell XPS 13 is thinner than the 12“ MacBook and still offers USB-C.

 

[Ener Ji]

If you like both, couldn't you technically achieve having both (kinda) by remapping the ^ button (the one right below the escape key) to have the same effect as the escape key?

^ is typable by two key combinations anyway (the key below the escape button aswell as option + shift + 6, at least in my country layout), so you would not lose out on any letters on the keyboard, and it's a symbol that most people don't need to type that often anyway. On the other hand, having the (physical) escape key be the most upper-left button below the TB would require next-to-no relearning/adaption from how you're used to press the escape key.

Yes, that is an option I would consider. I do currently use that key as it is the default shortcut for the Evernote clipper, but I'm sure that could be remapped as well.

I don't think we're likely to see an improved webcam yet, the top lid is extremely thin as it is. Seems most laptops in this segment top out at 720p (XPS 13), although I see the Spectre x360 comes with a 1080p camera so I guess it's possible they'll at least upgrade the resolution.

You're right that the thinness is an issue and perhaps the iMac Pro camera isn't a drop-in replacement as a result, but I imagine there have been advances in camera quality at that thinness in the past 6+ years and I hope this is the year that one of those improved cameras is included.

 

[clangers23]

Watching this video now...
Makes we want to cry with how much more feature complete this machine is vs current MBP's..

Performance of the Aero is on another level to anything Apple will offer. However after viewing a few reviews the same criticisms keep popping up, noisy, hot and average sluggish trackpad. Bear in mind an average trackpad on Windows will be awful.

 

[schalliol]

Yes, that is an option I would consider. I do currently use that key as it is the default shortcut for the Evernote clipper, but I'm sure that could be remapped as well

I use this to get Enter as a key instead of right option on my MBP: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

Great developer. I helped a bit with the software (only a very little bit).

 

[turbineseaplane]

Performance of the Aero is on another level to anything Apple will offer. However after viewing a few reviews the same criticisms keep popping up, noisy, hot and average sluggish trackpad. Bear in mind an average trackpad on Windows will be awful.

Life is tradeoffs - I expect those sorts of complaints about noise and heat on something so performance focused.

I'd take that over the current MBP where the "keyboard feels awful, breaks a lot and requires replacement of half the computer for $500-700" personally.

Regarding tradeoffs though, I just wish Apple would offer us some choice across the notebook line to emphasize different tradeoffs as per the needs of a given consumer.

 

[bykaraanne]

It seems that all the waiting made me mad. I just ordered a whole bunch of USB-C accessories, even though I don't own any device with a USB-C port yet. Dongles, a card reader, a lightning cable for use with Astropad on an iPad Pro, even a mobile gaming mouse for the occasional round of Starcraft 2. I somehow think seeing all these boxes of accessories stacked in plain sight might make waiting a few more weeks more tolerable. Hopefully Apple doesn't remove all USB-C ports from the next model ...

Hahahaha!! I came here just to say this too. I did that, too. I found the Apple Magic Mouse 2 at half off, and then bought a USB-C port hub. And no laptop.

MBP 2018, hurry up already!!! I almost don’t care what it is at this stage, I just want to be able to buy one. I know that once I plunge and buy the 2017 one the 2018 one will launch. Lol.

 

[TheSkywalker77]

Touch Bar improvements? What kind of improvements are you talking about?

Also a more "affordable" model would be nice. Like without a Touch Bar and downgraded specs. Similar to what they're doing with the new iPad.

 

[EugW]

Hahahaha!! I came here just to say this too. I did that, too. I found the Apple Magic Mouse 2 at half off, and then bought a USB-C port hub. And no laptop.

MBP 2018, hurry up already!!! I almost don’t care what it is at this stage, I just want to be able to buy one. I know that once I plunge and buy the 2017 one the 2018 one will launch. Lol.

In the meantime you can use a USB-C device with a USB-C to USB-A adapter for older machines. Those adapters are something like US$6.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Touch Bar improvements? What kind of improvements are you talking about?

To me the biggest improvement they could make would be to make it optional in all models.

 

[snortpig]

I'd take that over the current MBP where the "keyboard feels awful, breaks a lot and requires replacement of half the computer for $500-700" personally.

Ok Apple, this is my final offer. Fix the keyboard and give me quad core in the 13" and I will live with everything else.

 

[TheSkywalker77]

To me the biggest improvement they could make would be to make it optional in all models.

Ah, so like how Cellular is an option on iPads? Just an extra thing to add in the configuration while buying it.

 

[EugW]

I think one improvement to the Touch Bar that a lot of people would accept would be to keep the physical esc button but to have the Touch Bar for everything else in the function key row.