Went from a 2016 15" MBP (Touch Bar) to a 2019 16" MBP. This is a wattage hungry beast of a thing!

[CalMin]

Picked up the $1999 base spec through Amazon this week. Here's an obligatory post and first observations.

• It's noticeably heavier and chunkier.
• Screen is not appreciably bigger.
• Keyboard feels like the squidgy joy that is the external Magic Keyboard.
• Office tasks feel the same, I suspect that 1080P video in Final Cut will feel the same as well. The 2016 was still a really fast machine.
• My USB-C Lenovo dock that worked perfectly with my 2016 is glitchy AF. Going to have to spend $$ on a new solution.*
• My piece of junk little travel HDMI connector thing (pictured) also won't pass through enough power. Ugh. More expense.**
• My spare Lenovo 65W PSU that I keep in the kitchen was fine for the 2016. My 2019 acts like it isn't even connected and it drains the battery under even moderate loads. It might still be indexing etc.

Overall it's an underwhelming upgrade, but I knew that. My 2016 was fine other than a cramped SSD, but I'll be damned if I am keeping that keyboard out of warranty after my four years of keyboard repair program coverage is up in October.

I basically upgraded for keyboard longevity which sucks because the 2016 was supposed to last me until Apple Silicon (which I know I will want as soon as it comes out). It also didn't cost me much - I flipped my repaired 2016 for top dollar because used buyers seem obsessed with low battery cycles and mine had just 4 cycles after Apple put in a new battery when they fixed the butterfly keyboard.

*Was going to go with a CalDigit, but it seems like overkill. I simply need to hook up monitor and power supply that can deliver enough wattage to this hungry beast of a laptop. Any other solutions out there?

** Any other recommended piece of junk travel HDMI connector thingy's out there?

 

[Capeto]

• My USB-C Lenovo dock that worked perfectly with my 2016 is glitchy AF. Going to have to spend $$ on a new solution.

Have you updated to 10.15.6? That's supposed to fix the USB-C woes that the newer models have.

 

[CalMin]

Have you updated to 10.15.6? That's supposed to fix the USB-C woes that the newer models have.

Thanks. Yes - updated but I think the issue is with the dock itself. It wouldn't work at all at first, so I updated the firmware and now it mostly works, but when I dock/undock it won't reconnect to my Mac until I power cycle the dock. It works fine with a USB-C PC (and it was fine with my 15" Macbook) so there's some sort of incompatibility issue with the 16". USB-C is a bit of a mess.