What I like about the 2018 MBP

[maflynn]

I think we all are a bit tired of the negativity with regard to the MBP, whether we're talking the 2016, 2017 keyboards, or the concern of the keyboard in the 18 model. Then there's throttling with the 18 model, which no one is happy about.

Yet, with that said, i'm very happy with the MBP
The keyboard, I've largely gotten used to the keyboard. I can't say its my favorite, but it works, and between the silicon baffles , or apple's repair program. I'm not worried about failure.

The throttling issue for me has been mitigated, with the Volta app and there's some good info on cooling the MBP here: Cooling Solution for the 2018 MBP

What I like about the new MBP.

• its thin, yes we condemn apple all the time for thinness but man alive this is a nice machine.
• Its light, I definitely feel the difference between my old laptop and also the Razer that I returned.
• Its fast, faster then my iMac and much faster then my old laptop
• Screen - that screen is gorgeous, no doubt about it. If I had my druthers, I'd prefr a matte screen, but the screen is bright, vivid and gorgeous.
• Storage, fast what more can I say about it, Apple continues to knock it out of the park with the fastest SSDs on the market.
• MacOS - here's the big one. Since i'm using an iMac, and iOS, using a MacBook Pro simplifies my life to a great extent, both from the integrated ecosystem's perspective but also the niceties of what Apple provides. Quick look, one of my favorite features. The ease of outputting to a PDF. I know much of what I need can be duplicated in windows but not out of the box, and as easily.

I use windows all the time, I support windows servers and workstations, and so I have a solid grasp of windows and how to get the most out of it. I do appreciate I have a finer level of control and customization but with that said, I wanted a laptop that just works and while that comment is much maligned, I do think it fits with the MBP.

No computer is perfect, including the MBP, and the comments about the throttling is evidence of that, but life isn't perfect. You adapt and overcome and in this case we mac users have options to overcome the current set of issues.

 

[Ryanhdd]

I agree. I just updated from my 2011 MBP still using it today. It works like day one. Find a PC laptop that can do that.. You won't find it.

 

[maflynn]

Find a PC laptop that can do that.. You won't find it.

I bought a Razer and in many respects it was an excellent machine, but what I had to do was play with the performance settings, quite often to keep tweaking it to manage the temps. Even with throttling on the MBP, I fired up the volta app and its fine now. There is something to the "It just works" mantra

 

[kodos]

I rather like my 2018 MacBook Pro. I am typing on it now. Have a 5K display hooked up to it. Gorgeous, and works great for what I need it to do. I am loving it so far (except for the keyboard).

It does throttle and spin up fans far more than my Alienware desktop (but c'mon, that is a hexacore desktop with a huge thermal envelope!). I think it is rather acceptable, though I have the base i7 (as a caveat). I have no experience with the i9.

However, @maflynn, it is rather odd to claim that "it just works" when you have to fire up "the volta app"... . Also Win10 does have native Print to PDF capabilities, just FYI. The continual lack of something like "Quick Look" IS annoying though.

But otherwise, I agree with your assessment of the MacBook Pro compared to most Windows systems you can get today. Particularly if you are entrenched in the Apple ecosystem. For the most part it all "just works"!

@Ryanhdd -- I do have some six or seven year old PCs that still work just fine, btw. Particularly, my Thinkpads.

 

[maflynn]

However, @maflynn, it is rather odd to claim that "it just works" when you have to fire up "the volta app"... . Also Win10 does have native Print to PDF capabilities, just FYI. The continual lack of something like "Quick Look" IS annoying though.

Yeah, it may be a incongruous, but I was largely referencing macOS as just works, but yeah, that could have been confused with the MBP. With that said, I do think overall the MBP does still fit it just works. True I need the volta app, but I was doing more tweaking with windows for temps. The fan noise on the Razer I had was annoying and I had to adjust the performance settings in the control panel, but then also mess with the better battery/better performance slider in the notification area. Sd thing is a bug in the power settings kept resetting my settings, and googling it, I was not alone it seems (yeah bugs happen even in macOS, but it was annoying)

Also Win10 does have native Print to PDF capabilities, just

I thought it was on a per app basis and not native to the OS? I can export a spreadsheet out to PDF in Excel, but I can't export out my text editor contents. I don't have a win10 machine at work, so I can only comment on windows 7 right now. I could be wrong with native PDF support in windows 10.

 

[kodos]

Yeah, it may be a incongruous, but I was largely referencing macOS as just works, but yeah, that could have been confused with the MBP. With that said, I do think overall the MBP does still fit it just works. True I need the volta app, but I was doing more tweaking with windows for temps. The fan noise on the Razer I had was annoying and I had to adjust the performance settings in the control panel, but then also mess with the better battery/better performance slider in the notification area. Sd thing is a bug in the power settings kept resetting my settings, and googling it, I was not alone it seems (yeah bugs happen even in macOS, but it was annoying)


I thought it was on a per app basis and not native to the OS? I can export a spreadsheet out to PDF in Excel, but I can't export out my text editor contents. I don't have a win10 machine at work, so I can only comment on windows 7 right now. I could be wrong with native PDF support in windows 10.

Ahh, I see what you meant -- and yes, I agree for the "most part" macOS just works. As for Print to PDF, it is native in Windows 10. It shows up as a printer. Prior versions of Windows needed a PDF driver as you state.

 

[Newtons Apple]

I agree with the others and am very happy with my new MBPro 15. The screen is killer and every time I see it, it makes me glad I got the 15". After three days on the new keyboard, I am liking it very much!

 

[azpekt]

I agree. I just updated from my 2011 MBP still using it today. It works like day one. Find a PC laptop that can do that.. You won't find it.

ThinkPad says hello

 

[maflynn]

It shows up as a printer. Prior versions of Windows needed a PDF driver as you state.

That's what I use for my windows 7 machine at work, though MS Office can export out to PDF.

 

[keysofanxiety]

ThinkPad says hello

ThinkPads were decent and are now junk since Lenovo completely took them over and IBM stopped backing them.

I've still got an old ThinkPad somwhere which works perfectly. It looks like the 760 but it had a screen brightness slider on the bezel. Shipped with Win 95 IIRC though could have been Win 98. One of those flickers on the side which opened to a modem port. Do you know which model I might be talking about?

 

[czerney]

maflynn when you say faster than your imac what's the specs on that? I'm running a Late 2015 27" iMac i7/512SSD/32Gb/395X and have been curious.

 

[tcador]

I switched to mac in '07 for personal use and in 2013 for work, after using windows exclusively for work. For personal use it was nice but from a work perspective it was incredible. Prior I was relying on VMs or connecting to linux remotely to do all development work and while you get used to it you don't really appreciate the convenience of using a mac until you make the switch. And I had tried various flavors of linux over the years and never could settle in on one like I could with OSX.

Anyways I just received 2018 base model 15" with 32GB memory / 512GB and so far i'm very pleased with it. The keyboard is a noticeable improvement from my 2017 mac (work computer) and while I didn't initially plan on 32GB memory it's been great so far. Running handfuls of VMs and containers should be much easier now, we'll soon find out.

 

[Salty Pirate]

Not everyone does video work or needs to run their Macbook Pro balls out.

I have the new 2018 2.6 GHz 15 and came from the 2016 2.7 GHz model. It is noticeably faster. I love how fast it launches programs or renders web pages. If the Lee video never came out, I would not have had an issue to question this machine, that is for sure.

The keyboard FEELS better to type on and Apples seems to have fixed my biggest annoyance with the 2016, the trackpad would pick up spurious input when typing and the cursor would jump around the page.

The SSD absolutely rocks.

My machine is amazingly fast and quiet for what I do, quick bursts of max cpu and then idle. That is what I want and why I bought this model.

I hope all the crying from a very vocal minority does not institute a firmware fix from Apple that slows down turbo boost but improves sustained performance.

 

[maflynn]

I hope all the crying from a very vocal minority does not institute a firmware fix from Apple that slows down turbo boost but improves sustained performance.

The 2.2GHz base model that I bought is more then enough for my needs. I upgraded the storage to 512GB - I'm on the fence if that was needed, but given that the storage is soldered onto the logic board, there's no going back.

Not everyone does video work or needs to run their Macbook Pro balls out.

I have to disagree on this one, because the the i9 is throttling so much, in many tasks the 2017 MBP is out performing it. I understand in many tasks the i9 is the fastest MBP out there but we have a good body of evidence to support that the MBP is heavily throttling. I personally don't like see my temps hit the 100c level for the mundane tasks that I use it for. I have a work around for now, but I would like to see apple update the firmware to adjust the TDP to something that is more within specs of the CPU and enclosure.

 

[upandown]

I'm loving my maxed out 2018 13. It's extremely snappy. I personally love the keyboard. The speakers blow me away for being a laptop. My favorite is the screen which I calibrated and it just looks amazing. This year we were lucky with getting one of the better black levels to which I'm very content, aside from not being OLED. And the overall form factor is great. When I pick up my 2012 13 it feels like a pig. So not all on this forum are miserable!

 

[azpekt]

ThinkPads were decent and are now junk since Lenovo completely took them over and IBM stopped backing them.

I've still got an old ThinkPad somwhere which works perfectly. It looks like the 760 but it had a screen brightness slider on the bezel. Shipped with Win 95 IIRC though could have been Win 98. One of those flickers on the side which opened to a modem port. Do you know which model I might be talking about?

No idea about your model man.
This is subjective, but i had numerous issues with rmbp 2015, and have zero issues with x1 carbon 6 gen. Keyboard alone justifies the switch. Windows is rubbish though.

 

[uecker87]

I agree with most of what is in this post...

With that said, I have my MBP all boxed up to return it. Now - I don't know if I will go through with it, but I am having a hard time justifying the price... and here is why.

I tried out a Dell XPS 9560 (last years model) with a 7700HQ/16/512/4K that I picked up on Dell Outlet for $1,149. Yes - over $1,000 less than my MBP even with the student discount. The machine was fast, fluid, and my oh my that screen. That screen is just ridiculous. When put side by side with the 2018 MBP it isn't even close. Now don't get me wrong - it doesn't get quite as bright, but the color accuracy is out of this worldly.

But (and why is there ALWAYS a but), I noticed a single "bright" pixel in the center of my XPS screen. Without that bright pixel, I would've returned the MBP last night and be on my marry, happy way with my XPS 15. Anyway - I try Dell support which is not a fun experience. No way to exchange it. I either have to mail it to them for a repair (a week or two turnaround), or return it in full and purchase a new one (the sale is now over - price up another $200ish). Quite annoying for a computer I just received on Saturday. Ultimately, the Dell experience has soured me on their Outlet machines and I will be straight up returning the XPS15.

Now with all of that said, the MBP is still boxed up at this moment. I'm not quite sure what to do. I like it, but I don't think it is the best computer I have ever bought. I still hold my 2013 13" MBP in that regard. It is at the end of the life though, so I need a replacement at some point. Probably either going to keep the MBP or buy a new 9570 Dell XPS from Costco with 8750H/16/512/4K for $1,799. Costco's great return policy in case I get any lemons should hold a lot of weight there. I can get a FOUR year warranty just by using my Costco credit card, and I get the same processor (that I can actually undervolt it and do what I want to it - along with repasting if needed since it is easier to access the heatsink), more storage, better keyboard, and that fantastic 4K screen (oh and that Dell got even better battery life with the 4K screen than my MBP - I had them side by side doing the same things - mainly streaming the same video).

But then there is OSX... And the trackpad... And Apple's customer service... And the fact that I already have a pretty good laptop sitting at home. I have a few more days to decide. I am not a power user by any stretch. I really wish there was a quad core 15" nTB MBP with Iris graphics (maybe same processors found in the new 13" models) and a couple thunderbolt 3 ports for a little bit less money. That would be my dream machine.

 

[maflynn]

But then there is OSX... And the trackpad... And Apple's customer service..

I know what you mean, in using the Razer laptop that I bought, I found I was missing a lot with the macOS experience. YMMV and windows is not a bad platform, but for my needs I prefer macOS. I'm not dealing with much if any with palm rejection problems, but I had with the Razer, and Apple's customer support is the best in the industry...

 

[fokmik]

@maflynn I just came here to say, congratulations , i suppose you will keep this MBP for 2-3 years at least

 

[SteveJUAE]

Congrats,

Enjoy

 

[zshane1125]

@maflynn, you still undervolted ur CPU even tho it was 2.2ghz i7? How big of a difference did it make?

 

[maflynn]

@maflynn, you still undervolted ur CPU even tho it was 2.2ghz i7? How big of a difference did it make?

No the volta app doesn't do that, and I opted not to undervolt. Limiting the wattage is sufficient for me.

 

[zshane1125]

No the volta app doesn't do that, and I opted not to undervolt. Limiting the wattage is sufficient for me.

May I ask what's your setting for the wattage? Also what difference have you seen? higher benchmarks? lower temperature? More battery life?

Thanks

 

[mikethebigo]

I like this post and I like you.

 

[maflynn]

May I ask what's your setting for the wattage? Also what difference have you seen? higher benchmarks? lower temperature? More battery life?

Thanks

My benchmarks are decidedly lower cinebench but that's because I'm a bit more aggressive with the power limiting then maybe other. I've been running at 30 to 34 watts, but here's an example of 40 watts and Cinebench is a 903 with the max temps hit at 93c. W/O Volta, I was seeing 920 but the temps shot right up to 100c