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Waiting for the 2018 MBP

leman said:
There is not just one 45W CPU. With the XPS you can only have the base 7700HQ. The MBP can be configured with up to 7920HQ.



Wouldn't help much. Passive power consumption increase cannot be easily mitigated by slight battery bumps.



Maybe for your use case. The MBP was always designed as a versatile laptop though, which battery life being top priority. That is the beauty of it — it offers enough power for most applications, if you need it, but it will also last you an entire work day if you need to do some light-duty work on the go. Already the Powerbooks were designed as thin-and-light mobile laptops, not your typical workstations.
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The MacBook Pro was NEVER focusing on battery life first. That only really started as of recently. Even though that's also not true... otherwise we'd still have a 99WHr battery. My machine runs just fine with standard DDR3... which consumes A LOT more power than regular DDR4.

And yes... ofc are there MORE than just ONE 45W Quad Core i7. Then take the Precision 5520. It's the exact same design as the XPS15. Here you can configure it with either an
  • Intel Core i7-7820HQ (Quad Core, 2,90 GHz, 3,90 GHz Turbo, 8 MB 45W)
    or an
  • Intel Xeon E3-1505M v6 (4 Core Xeon, 3,00 GHz, 4,00 GHz Turbo, 8 MB 45W)

    So don't tell me Apple can't do it... plus. It's the TDP that matters. WHICH of the 45W CPUs any vendor puts it... is up to themselves (see MacBook Pros sticking with Haswell for like 3 years).
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Loge said:
Perhaps they could, you know, offer a choice. They responded to professional needs with the iMac Pro, how about something along the same lines for the MBP (not sure what they'd call it).
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Yes! That is all I... and many other people are asking for!
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richinaus said:
As far as the last 6 - 8 years I don’t think you could class the MacBookpro as a professional workstation. Have a look at the HP and Dell workstation laptops for those levels of specs. Totally different computers really.
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That is exactly the problem. The PowerBooks and MacBook Pros were intended as such. But turned into consumer products. Essentially they made the MacBook PRO a regular MacBook... slapping the moniker "Pro" on it. And keeping the price... mind you. Seeing what they did with the iMac Pro... there is still hope though.

The problem really is... I NEED a workstation class machine. Something like the iMac Pro would be ideal. Sadly I am NOT bound to my desk but have to sit here and there both in my office and in other people's offices. So an iMac is not an option. And neither is Windows. It's macOS or bust. Which is why I am still on my 2011 17" MacBook Pro. CPU is still okay... I simply need more RAM. Which is not available in any form.
 
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TheralSadurns said:
The MacBook Pro was NEVER focusing on battery life first. That only really started as of recently.
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Apple always marketed MacBook Pro as a versatile thin and light mobile computer with great battery life. Its battery was ALWAYS above the average in its class.

Although I agree that saying that MBP is focusing on battery life is inaccurate. More correct: MBP aims to deliver you the best hardware possible in a thin and light platform with a full-day battery life. And this is the reason why we are not getting powerful GPUs or 32GB DDR4 RAM in those laptops — that would compromise their core design as a portable, versatile machine.

TheralSadurns said:
And yes... ofc are there MORE than just ONE 45W Quad Core i7. Then take the Precision 5520. It's the exact same design as the XPS15. Here you can configure it with either an
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We were talking about MBP and XPS though. Precision vs. MBP is a different story. For instance, Precision comes with the Quadro M1200 which is slower than both the Pro 560 in the MBP and the 1050 in the XPS.

TheralSadurns said:
That is exactly the problem. The PowerBooks and MacBook Pros were intended as such. But turned into consumer products.
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We must really talk about very different laptop though. The basic design of the MBP hasn't changed a bit since the days it was called "Powerbook". Its a thin and light laptop with the fastest available CPUs, mid-range GPUs (as long as they are not too hot), top-in-class battery life, incredible displays and best-in-class contemporary connectivity. The MBP never had a fast GPU or any other typical workstation feature. At the same time, it was always lighter and thinner than the competition while having better battery.

Sure, it might have been a prototype for workstation laptops before there were workstation laptops, but workstation laptops nowadays are essentially desktop replacements and the MBP was never designed as such. Its a mobile computer, not a portable one, notice the difference? Its designed to be useable in a high-mobility scenario and not as a semi-stationary work station.

P.S. Here is a link to the first Map announcement: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2006/01/10Apple-Introduces-MacBook-Pro/ Note how much emphasis is there on thin and mobile
 
leman said:
Apple always marketed MacBook Pro as a versatile thin and light mobile computer with great battery life. Its battery was ALWAYS above the average in its class.

Although I agree that saying that MBP is focusing on battery life is inaccurate. More correct: MBP aims to deliver you the best hardware possible in a thin and light platform with a full-day battery life. And this is the reason why we are not getting powerful GPUs or 32GB DDR4 RAM in those laptops — that would compromise their core design as a portable, versatile machine.



We were talking about MBP and XPS though. Precision vs. MBP is a different story. For instance, Precision comes with the Quadro M1200 which is slower than both the Pro 560 in the MBP and the 1050 in the XPS.



We must really talk about very different laptop though. The basic design of the MBP hasn't changed a bit since the days it was called "Powerbook". Its a thin and light laptop with the fastest available CPUs, mid-range GPUs (as long as they are not too hot), top-in-class battery life, incredible displays and best-in-class contemporary connectivity. The MBP never had a fast GPU or any other typical workstation feature. At the same time, it was always lighter and thinner than the competition while having better battery.

Sure, it might have been a prototype for workstation laptops before there were workstation laptops, but workstation laptops nowadays are essentially desktop replacements and the MBP was never designed as such. Its a mobile computer, not a portable one, notice the difference? Its designed to be useable in a high-mobility scenario and not as a semi-stationary work station.

P.S. Here is a link to the first Map announcement: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2006/01/10Apple-Introduces-MacBook-Pro/ Note how much emphasis is there on thin and mobile
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I see things basically the exact opposite. But. There's no need to argue. We won't be able to reconcile our differences.

One thing, I hope at least, we can all agree on... is that it'd be great if Apple offered CHOICE.
Like with the iMac and iMac Pro. Keep the MBP as it is. If this is what most people crave I'm cool with that! Simply add another tier ON TOP of it. And I'd gladly pay Apple $/€ 5k for this!

We good?
 
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leman said:
Dell XPS also can't be configured with higher-end CPUs and what exactly is its battery runtime with 32GB RAM? 4-5 hours?
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I can stretch my 7700HQ, GTX 1070, 32Gb Ram, SSD and a HDD to 4-1/2 hours and that's with no iGPU so I'm fairly confident that the XPS can run a "touch" longer. When I have to use this notebook on battery the very least of my concerns is the RAM.

n.b. I have no interest in the 15" XPS, although always quoting the worst case scenario for the competition, just to make the MBP look better I find a little sad. Personally I'd really rather Apple just did a better job of it in the first place...

Just typical Apple BS, they want to produce a premier consumer laptop, but want the masses to feel warm & fuzzy in the knowledge it's endorsed by professional's. MBP would be a decent notebook if the keyboard was reliable, equally it's now firmly a consumer product, with the primary consideration being to impress and be thinner.

Apple delivers similar to the iMac Pro in the portable space and it may start to be taken seriously, maybe...

Q-6
 
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Queen6 said:
I can stretch my 7700HQ, GTX 1070, 32Gb Ram, SSD and a HDD to 4-1/2 hours and that's with no iGPU so I'm fairly confident that the XPS can run a "touch" longer.
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Does your mystery laptop :) have a HiDPI wide-gamut display or an older FullHD one?
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TheralSadurns said:
I see things basically the exact opposite. But. There's no need to argue. We won't be able to reconcile our differences.
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At a danger of appearing as a stubborn ass (as in zoological term), I don't really see how this is a matter of interpretation. Technical characteristics of MBP and competitors are a matter of public record. In the face of computers such as Dell Precision or HP EliteBook/ZBook — with the later using quad core Core 2 Extreme CPUS and up to Quadro 3700M GPUs as early as 2008 — it think its odd (to say the least) to refer to the MBP as some sort of original workstation computer...
 
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leman said:
Dell XPS also can't be configured with higher-end CPUs and what exactly is its battery runtime with 32GB RAM? 4-5 hours?
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I'm fed up of this false argument on battery life. Battery life depends on what you are doing. I want 32GB so I can run it flat across all cores out for 12-24hrs on some complex stats. I don't give a rats ass about the battery life because at that workload NONE of them have battery for more than about 70 mins. MY 2014 MBP will give me 6-7 hrs battery if i'm only surfing the web. Doing actual work - 70 mins tops. No-one who needs 32GB for heavy duty work gives a crap about battery life at low usage being 12 hrs long because its meaningless in a high workload setting.

Edit: And NO, I do not need/want a desktop before anyone says it. I find them an awful pain to use on an airplane :D
 
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The Mercurian said:
I'm fed up of this false argument on battery life. Battery life depends on what you are doing.
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Of course it does. Then again, forcing all users to live with worse battery life because you have specific computational needs is also a bit weird. And yet again, I am not justifying Apple. I simply want to offer a rational explanation of why they don't use DDR4. And its not in any way a "false" argument — the data on power consumption is in public domain and can be easily verified by anyone. You seem to misunderstand my post for something like "laptops with DDR4 are pointless". I would never say nothing like that of course. What I am saying is "Apple doesn't use it because its technical characteristics does not make it suitable for the product they wanted to make". Of course, there is nothing preventing them from offering an additional line DDR4 laptops, at the expense of size at battery life. Except that they don't seem to be interested in it. But who knows.
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Loge said:
Base model: 512MB RAM expandable up to 2GB.

Today's 15" MBP: 16GB RAM expandable up to 16GB.
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Yes, today you get your RAM pretty much maxed out. You wouldn't be able to have more RAM on those machines even if it were user-upgradeable (since there is literally no space on the mainboard). Of course, its all moot anyway, since the RAM Apple uses can't be user-upgradeable in the first place, since it doesn't come as DIMMs.
 
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leman said:
Yes, today you get your RAM pretty much maxed out. You wouldn't be able to have more RAM on those machines even if it were user-upgradeable (since there is literally no space on the mainboard). Of course, its all moot anyway, since the RAM Apple uses can't be user-upgradeable in the first place, since it doesn't come as DIMMs.
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Fair point, but at least then you did have the choice on purchase to configure with more RAM; now it is one size fits all.
 
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Loge said:
Fair point, but at least then you did have the choice on purchase to configure with more RAM; now it is one size fits all.
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Would you prefer that they'd offer you 8GB as a base and charged more to have 16GB? ;)
 
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leman said:
Then again, forcing all users to live with worse battery life because you have specific computational needs is also a bit weird.
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This is also a straw man argument. I never said everyone must have 32GB. THose who need it know why they need it and may make the choice to accepted some reduction in battery life. Just as current Dell XPS customers do. Those who don't need it are under no obligation to buy 32GB and can get 16GB and superior battery life. Just as current Dell XPS customers do.
 
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The Mercurian said:
Just as current Dell XPS customers do. Those who don't need it are under no obligation to buy 32GB and can get 16GB and superior battery life. Just as current Dell XPS customers do.
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Except that Dell XPS 15" doesn't have "superior" battery life. DDR4 with that power-hungry display makes it consume substantially more power at idle compared to the MBP. As the result the Dell has less battery life in mixed usage even though its battery is 30% larger and it weights over 250g more... thats the kind of difference we are talking about.
 
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The Mercurian said:
This is also a straw man argument. I never said everyone must have 32GB. THose who need it know why they need it and may make the choice to accepted some reduction in battery life. Just as current Dell XPS customers do. Those who don't need it are under no obligation to buy 32GB and can get 16GB and superior battery life. Just as current Dell XPS customers do.
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Same nonsense over and over yet you can guarantee if Apple offered the more powerful MBP many including the detractors would be all over it, even if they didn't actually have legitimate use for one. Totally agree the battery life is absolutely related to the usage. Even if Apple had not reduced the capacity heavy usage will decimate any battery, equally power points are generally ubiquitous...

Problem is some can only grasp their own individual usage and assume that others only expect Apple to produce a singular product, when in actuality that's exactly what they are doing. Ultimately Apple given the trend will continue to produce thinner, ever more compromised notebooks to wow the masses...

Q-6
 
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leman said:
Except that Dell XPS 15" doesn't have "superior" battery life. DDR4 with that power-hungry display makes it consume substantially more power at idle compared to the MBP. As the result the Dell has less battery life in mixed usage even though its battery is 30% larger and it weights over 250g more... thats the kind of difference we are talking about.
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Yet another straw man argument. I did not say the Dell XPS had a superior battery life compared to the MBP. I was talking about 16GB vs 32GB regardless of machine.
 
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The Mercurian said:
Yet another straw man argument. I did not say the Dell XPS had a superior battery life compared to the MBP. I was talking about 16GB vs 32GB regardless of machine.
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I am not sure that you understand what "straw man argument" is. The MBP doesn't use DDR4, so it can't have 32GB of RAM to begin with. So if you are suggesting moving the MBP to DDR4 comparison to Dell becomes very much relevant, since you can see what kind of battery hit can be expected with such a move.
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MBX said:
What happened to those damn terraced batteries. Needs to finally make it into the new MBP's
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How would that even work? MBP doesn't use tapered design, so there is absolutely no point in having a terraced battery..

monad said:
Just to be clear, 10nm is not happening in 2018, right?
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Cannonlake should launch soonish (tm). But it will be probably restricted to MacBook and lower-end MacBook Pro (if they don't discontinue that one).
 
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leman said:
How would that even work? MBP doesn't use tapered design, so there is absolutely no point in having a terraced battery..
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Because the new MBP's have unused space around the batteries where they could fit in more via terraced design.

Either way a bigger/ better battery life is much welcomed.
 
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leman said:
Dell XPS also can't be configured with higher-end CPUs and what exactly is its battery runtime with 32GB RAM? 4-5 hours?
Click to expand...

I get about 6.5 hours with my Lenovo when net surfing,watching videos etc. The Dell XPS should be better.
 
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monad said:
Just to be clear, 10nm is not happening in 2018, right?
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Well, maybe we can be a bit more optimistic... The first Cannonlake and Ice Lake chips are beginning to be spotted through the internet.

Ice Lake U series features an iGPU with 48 EUs, just like the most powerful Kaby Lake iGPU, but with double the frequency, from 300MHz (Kaby Lake on current MBP) to 600MHz on this new Ice Lake iGPUs.

About Cannonlake, they haven't identified the iGPU, but most probably it wil be a low TDP i3 dual core processor, with huge power savings and would make it suitable for a new entry model 13" MacBook. It has been spotted on an unreleased Lenovo laptop, so... I bet this year we'll see, at least, some Cannonlake equiped MacBooks in the second half of the year, hopefully with Spectre and Meltdown solved at hardware level.

For more info CLICK HERE.
 
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