Waiting for the 2018 MBP

[Loge]

Question is whether apple might do a relatively quick update when LPDDR4 is available for these chips and how much of a difference that would make to battery life. If they have increased battery power 20% to compensate then we would see close to a 2 hour increase in battery life roughly.

I wouldn't hold your breath. It's unlikely to be a relatively quick update or Apple would just have waited it out.

 

[Hitrate]

Is High Sierra or Mojave better at purging and managing memory? I’m on Sierra but still need to restart to have clean system with low ram usage, before starting a project or else even sudo purge doesn’t even clean it out enough, if I’ve had say Firefox and other programs running, even after shutting down all apps... if these things are not such a worry on newer hardware and/or OS it might mean I don’t need 32Gb and can live with 16...right now I keep my usage around 8gb when running Ableton Live due to cpu constraints, though the computer becomes slower than when from a fresh restart when it’s consuming 5-8gb our of 16, in the background for no current reason..So I’d say I upgrade and it’s the same scenario with the new hardware/software, I dunno if 32gb is worth it if I still need to do manual ram management and make sure nothing is being used without current running need..

Ps I’m running at a low buffer audio setting so maybe that’s plays into the equation also..and the aim is to have as low buffer as possible and be able to run many tracks samples and effects and virtual instruments with low latency with software monitoring.

 

[Erasmus]

Question is whether apple might do a relatively quick update when LPDDR4 is available for these chips and how much of a difference that would make to battery life. If they have increased battery power 20% to compensate then we would see close to a 2 hour increase in battery life roughly.

I don't think this is possible. Coffee Lake does not support LPDDR4, so we'd have to wait at least until the next generation of processors (9th Gen, or Cannon Lake, unless delayed further).

I'm sure when this does happen, they will prefer to shave an extra 20g from the battery and reduce the frame thickness by another 0.5mm rather than increase expected battery life.

 

[2018Ram]

Really disappointed with the new Macbook Pros! You have to pay at least $2000 to get a MBP with 16GB of RAM, and this is really crazy! I wish they would wait and update in October, for a much better upgrade than this.

 

[maflynn]

Heck, the base 15 w the hex is $2399
Tempting now

Throw in AppleCare a dongle and taxes and boom, 3,000 dollars. I can justify 2,400, but nearly 600 dollars on top of that is a bitter pill to swallow.

 

[Daveiggy]

I know theres an apple tax that we (that buy apple) seem to accept but theyre really taking the micky with these prices. I was hoping to get 32gb ram but the cost is daylight robbery. £360 for an extra 16gb ram (that on ebuyer would cost £150) is insane. Theyre effectively saying the 32gb model has £720 worth of ram on board, yea right.

 

[Falhófnir]

Throw in AppleCare a dongle and taxes and boom, 3,000 dollars. I can justify 2,400, but nearly 600 dollars on top of that is a bitter pill to swallow.

View attachment 770386

Bigger issue for me is that you only get 256GB of storage for that 2,400 model - that’s pretty well the 16gb iPhone 6s of the Mac universe, it’s far less comfortable an amount than you should be getting for that sort of money.

 

[The Mercurian]

Throw in AppleCare a dongle and taxes and boom, 3,000 dollars. I can justify 2,400, but nearly 600 dollars on top of that is a bitter pill to swallow.

View attachment 770386

FYI I wouldn't bother with that dongle - I'd get a USB-C hub that plugs in the side. Of course that is more $$. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Satechi-Alum...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B07B8215BY
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Bigger issue for me is that you only get 256GB of storage for that 2,400 model - that’s pretty well the 16gb iPhone 6s of the Mac universe, it’s far less comfortable an amount than you should be getting for that sort of money.

The 1TB drive on my 2014 MBP has 87GB free. But the 1TB upgrade is ridiculously expensive on the new ones.

 

[maflynn]

Bigger issue for me is that you only get 256GB of storage for that 2,400 model - that’s pretty well the 16gb iPhone 6s of the Mac universe, it’s far less comfortable an amount than you should be getting for that sort of money.

Yep, many other makers offer 512GB and unlike most other computer makers you cannot upgrade the storage yourself.

FYI I wouldn't bother with that dongle -

For 20 bucks, I thought it was one of those items that you need on day one, the hub could come later, but having a dongle available is a plus as you walk out the store, so to speak.

 

[The Mercurian]

Yep, many other makers offer 512GB and unlike most other computer makers you cannot upgrade the storage yourself.


For 20 bucks, I thought it was one of those items that you need on day one, the hub could come later, but having a dongle available is a plus as you walk out the store, so to speak.

Well my thinking is if you are going to get a hub eventually might as well get it day one and save that $20. I got one for my 12" MB and actually it is great. But mine is on a cord so I find it annoying how it dangles out the side. On the fli side its easier to use with another machine

 

[iMacmatician]

Nobody expected that. Not even Gurman had made any sort of mention of that. It's quite a U-turn from their previous policy, though a welcome one for many I would imagine.

At the start of 2017, Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that there would be a 15" laptop with 32 GB of "desktop-class RAM" in late 2017.

 

[keithop]

i9 is quite different actually. It has 12 megs of l3 cache which is nothing to sneeze at, and I believe it does not have a ctdp down option, so it might be hotter and hungrier on average.

I really fancy an i9, see it I can make it last a bit longer before replacement, but that's scary if it's hotter I dont want a noisier machine with the fans running longer :/ may have to wait for some people to get theirs

 

[CodeJoy]

Is High Sierra or Mojave better at purging and managing memory? I’m on Sierra but still need to restart to have clean system with low ram usage, before starting a project or else even sudo purge doesn’t even clean it out enough, if I’ve had say Firefox and other programs running, even after shutting down all apps... if these things are not such a worry on newer hardware and/or OS it might mean I don’t need 32Gb and can live with 16...right now I keep my usage around 8gb when running Ableton Live due to cpu constraints, though the computer becomes slower than when from a fresh restart when it’s consuming 5-8gb our of 16, in the background for no current reason..So I’d say I upgrade and it’s the same scenario with the new hardware/software, I dunno if 32gb is worth it if I still need to do manual ram management and make sure nothing is being used without current running need..

Ps I’m running at a low buffer audio setting so maybe that’s plays into the equation also..and the aim is to have as low buffer as possible and be able to run many tracks samples and effects and virtual instruments with low latency with software monitoring.

This could very well be related to Ableton Live specifically. I don't know that app, but a quick google reveals that memory issues are pretty common with it. It may well be that 32G improves the situation, but would be worth checking before you take the dive. Is it not enough to just restart that app?

Safari might be more efficient than other browsers, though I haven't looked into it in detail.

I don't think it's the OS. Both Sierra and High Sierra can run somewhat comfortably on 4G, and I suspect the same would be true for Mojave.

Ram usage as reported by the system is probably not a great indicator of anything though. (same with CPU usage actually) What really matters is how the system and the apps perform, and that's it.

 

[Loge]

At the start of 2017, Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that there would be a 15" laptop with 32 GB of "desktop-class RAM" in late 2017.

He also described it as the most significantly redesigned product of the year. It could have been related to the iMac Pro, in any case almost certainly not related to this announcement.

 

[notrack]

Probably somewhere between 30% and 100% for demanding tasks depending on what you have and what work you do.

I too have the late 2013 15'' i7 (2.3 GHz / 16GB). It's the 4th Gen i7 IIRC. Six core i7 or i9 sounds tempting.

How much gain would you estimate for advanced image image editing? For example applying "live" adjustments in Affinity Photo can get laggy and quite hot on larger images like 1 GB.

Also very large spreadsheets in Numbers can take 30 seconds or more to re-calculate.

 

[CodeJoy]

He also described it as the most significantly redesigned product of the year. It could have been related to the iMac Pro, in any case almost certainly not related to this announcement.

We haven't seen the other redesigned products yet. This could still be it 🙂

 

[Hakiroto]

I really fancy an i9, see it I can make it last a bit longer before replacement, but that's scary if it's hotter I dont want a noisier machine with the fans running longer :/ may have to wait for some people to get theirs

Hmm, yeah. I'm interested to see how this plays out. I recall looking at the latest 5K iMacs and seeing people saying not to get the best i7 as it ran too hot and kept the fans pretty loud (that's subjective, I guess).

Well, as much as part of me is ready to get pull the trigger on the 15" i9, I think I'll be getting the 2.7 GHz i7 13". I'd love to want a 15" MacBook but after having a 13" for the past few years (with a 27" 4K monitor that it's mostly attached to), I think I'll stick with the better portability. With it finally being quad-core I feel like I'm getting the best of both worlds.

 

[CodeJoy]

I too have the late 2013 15'' i7 (2.3 GHz / 16GB). It's the 4th Gen i7 IIRC. Six core i7 or i9 sounds tempting.

How much gain would you estimate for advanced image image editing? For example applying "live" adjustments in Affinity Photo can get laggy and quite hot on larger images like 1 GB.

Also very large spreadsheets in Numbers can take 30 seconds or more to re-calculate.

You're probably going to see at least ~30% improvement in any app. Beyond that it's down to how well they do multithreading (or GPU accel). I don't know the specifics for Numbers, but I do know that Affinity Photo uses multithreading so you might well expect a more significant improvement there. Maybe in Numbers too, I just don't know.

If the spreadsheets still take too long for you, then you may need to rethink how you do that altogether. I've run into spreadsheet limits in the past too, and they're not necessarily easily solvable with more hardware.

Six cores is about the fastest you're going to get on a laptop for a while though, so you do have a good case for upgrading.

 

[Falhófnir]

Yep, many other makers offer 512GB and unlike most other computer makers you cannot upgrade the storage yourself.


For 20 bucks, I thought it was one of those items that you need on day one, the hub could come later, but having a dongle available is a plus as you walk out the store, so to speak.

I’ve noticed some manufacturers (notably HP) have started using 360GB SSDs too, I feel like if Apple don’t want to go the full 512GB, for the price they are asking for these machines this would be a less objectionable amount.

 

[maflynn]

his would be a less objectionable amount.

I'm pretty sure we'd see a raft of complaints if they went to 360GB instead of the 512GB. 😉

 

[CodeJoy]

I'm pretty sure we'd see a raft of complaints if they went to 360GB instead of the 512GB. 😉

I'm sure we'd see complaints if they made 2TB standard too 🙂

 

[Falhófnir]

I'm pretty sure we'd see a raft of complaints if they went to 360GB instead of the 512GB. 😉

Definitely - though I’d probably just be grumbling quietly at the price whilst ordering 😀

 

[richinaus]

I'm pretty sure we'd see a raft of complaints if they went to 360GB instead of the 512GB. 😉

I am amazed at some of the comments on this update. As far as I can see it is a great update that ticks most peoples boxes.
If some of those think it is overpriced, then simply you are not Apples customer.

Some people will never be happy due to their unrealistic expectations. The pricing and specs are all in line with what could be realistically expected, so really no point complaining.
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Definitely - though I’d probably just be grumbling quietly at the price whilst ordering 😀

Despite what I said, I would be too 🙂

 

[Hitrate]

Wow already lots of great used deals, ppl excited for this refresh it seems 🙂

 

[Dave245]

I am amazed at some of the comments on this update. As far as I can see it is a great update that ticks most peoples boxes.
If some of those think it is overpriced, then simply you are not Apples customer.

Some people will never be happy due to their unrealistic expectations. The pricing and specs are all in line with what could be realistically expected, so really no point complaining.
[doublepost=1531482100][/doublepost]

Despite what I said, I would be too 🙂

I agree, i realised a while back that it doesn't matter what Apple do some people will still complain, people wanted 32GB Ram they now have it, people wanted more SSD storage they now have it, but some are STILL not happy instead they complain about the price. I think what some people forget is that these are Pro machine's they are not general consumer laptops, we are talking people who video edit, photography, coders, scientists, movie makers, hell even writers such as myself who also dabble in video editing (more of a hobby and to help a couple of friends out from time to time), they are not machines that the general consumer needs to buy in order to sit in Starbucks.

As far as i can see the 2018 MacBook Pro update is a great one, Quad Core for the 13" and 6 Core for the 15" along side the T2 chip, True Tone displays and better keyboards which are more quieter (and probably more reliable).

Apple are obviously listening to people and yet some are STILL not HAPPY 🙄