Which is the best 2017 13" MacBook Pro to buy?

[BenB17]

I am trying to decide which 2017 MacBook Pro to buy. I am unsure whether the Touch Bar is very beneficial or more of a gimmick - any tips/experience?

I would like to keep the machine for a while and ensure that it won't slow down too much in the future so am unsure whether to spend for the 16GB of RAM? I think 256GB SSD is fine considering the ease of use and low cost of high-capacity HDDs. Not sure whether to go for the Non Touch Bar 256GB 2.3GHz, or upgrade that to the i7 2.5GHz or just go for the 3.1GHz i5 with Touch Bar.

I would use it for mostly Chrome, Spotify and Microsoft Office (mainly Word), as well as occasional 4K video editing using FCPX and photo editing using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Also would be nice to have a few, low-intensity games and maybe run Windows through Bootcamp.

Any suggestions on what I should buy would be really appreciated!

 

[bcbickers]

The Touch Bar is not a complete gimmick, more like it has limited usability right now. IMHO the main reason to buy a Touch Bar equipped MBP is for the two extra USB-C ports on the right-hand side of the machine and for the TouchID sensor. The Touch Bar does have a few nice shortcuts in certain apps, and you can customize it to your heart's content using BetterTouchTool.

As for the processor, the i7 is only a dual-core on the 13" MacBook Pros, so performance is just a slight boost from the 3.1 GHz i5 and not worth $300 IMO. Also the RAM and SDD are soldered on to the motherboard and therefore not upgradable. So buy as much RAM and the largest drive you can afford because you are stuck with them. I would favor RAM over storage. Like you said, external storage devices are cheap these days.

 

[BenB17]

The Touch Bar is not a complete gimmick, more like it has limited usability right now. IMHO the main reason to buy a Touch Bar equipped MBP is for the two extra USB-C ports on the right-hand side of the machine and for the TouchID sensor. The Touch Bar does have a few nice shortcuts in certain apps, and you can customize it to your heart's content using BetterTouchTool.

As for the processor, the i7 is only a dual-core on the 13" MacBook Pros, so performance is just a slight boost from the 3.1 GHz i5 and not worth $300 IMO. Also the RAM and SDD are soldered on to the motherboard and therefore not upgradable. So buy as much RAM and the largest drive you can afford because you are stuck with them. I would favor RAM over storage. Like you said, external storage devices are cheap these days.

For what I need the RAM for, will 8GB be sufficient now and even 5 years in the future or is 16GB better?

 

[Acronyc]

What is your budget? If you don't have a specific price ceiling, I'd go ahead and get a maxed out 13" with touch bar. As bcbickers mentioned, one of the biggest reason to get the touch bar 13" is the additional Thunderbolt/USB C ports but also a more robust cooling system (the touch bar version has two fans and more vents, while the non touch bar has one fan and not as many vents) in case you will be stressing the system a lot.

If you are more budget minded, the base 13" non touch bar seems like a pretty good deal, though the storage is low but not impossible to live with thanks to cheap external storage (I used a 11" MBA with a 128GB SSD as my main computer for over two years). If there's one upgrade to get, I'd recommend going with 16GB of RAM as this cannot be added on later and may be useful down the road. If it were me, I'd rather have the non touch bar base with 16GB of RAM at $1,499 instead of the 256GB version with 8GB of RAM for the same price.

Just a note, for myself I got the non touch bar with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. I don't need the extra ports, don't stress my machine with any video encoding, and didn't feel like paying for a touch bar when I use an external keyboard most of the time.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Sounds like 8gb will be fine for you for years, you"ll need at least 256gb ssd if you want a bootcamp partition and a few games on there thats minimum to be honest, the Touch Bar version will be better for gaming and 4k editing. however you are now getting towards £2000 for your mac and a refurb 15 inch with quad core dgpu and 16gb of ram is close to that.

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...-Intel-Core-i7-with-Retina-display-Space-Grey

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...-Intel-Core-i7-with-Retina-display-Space-Grey

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...-Intel-Core-i7-with-Retina-display-Space-Gray

of course you can get some good deals on refurb 13 inch machines as well.

Refurbished-133-inch-MacBook-Pro-31GHz-dual-core-Intel-Core-i5-with-Retina-display-Space-Gray

 

[Nathan576]

Personally, for me the best was the base non TB (128/8GB) for $1300, just got it a few days ago . I'm not paying apple $200 for an extra 128GB, my big files are stored on my desktop and I can get an external hard drive if I need to, but all my apps are installed and everything is set up and I still have 80GB free. I don't download music, movies or tv anymore and my pictures are backed up to my desktop, google photo and iCloud.

 

[BenB17]

What is your budget? If you don't have a specific price ceiling, I'd go ahead and get a maxed out 13" with touch bar. As bcbickers mentioned, one of the biggest reason to get the touch bar 13" is the additional Thunderbolt/USB C ports but also a more robust cooling system (the touch bar version has two fans and more vents, while the non touch bar has one fan and not as many vents) in case you will be stressing the system a lot.

If you are more budget minded, the base 13" non touch bar seems like a pretty good deal, though the storage is low but not impossible to live with thanks to cheap external storage (I used a 11" MBA with a 128GB SSD as my main computer for over two years). If there's one upgrade to get, I'd recommend going with 16GB of RAM as this cannot be added on later and may be useful down the road. If it were me, I'd rather have the non touch bar base with 16GB of RAM at $1,499 instead of the 256GB version with 8GB of RAM for the same price.

Just a note, for myself I got the non touch bar with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. I don't need the extra ports, don't stress my machine with any video encoding, and didn't feel like paying for a touch bar when I use an external keyboard most of the time.

I think 256GB SSD would be helpful for me to keep work files on and then larger/extra files I can use an external HDD, so I think I'll need the 256GB. Still not sure about Touch Bar & RAM? Is the Touch Bar model a better computer & processor for my needs so that even 5 years down the line it will still be sufficient, or could I get that with the Non-Touch Bar as well even. Same question regarding the RAM. Thanks!
[doublepost=1517568544][/doublepost]

Sounds like 8gb will be fine for you for years, you"ll need at least 256gb ssd if you want a bootcamp partition and a few games on there thats minimum to be honest, the Touch Bar version will be better for gaming and 4k editing. however you are now getting towards £2000 for your mac and a refurb 15 inch with quad core dgpu and 16gb of ram is close to that.

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...-Intel-Core-i7-with-Retina-display-Space-Grey

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...-Intel-Core-i7-with-Retina-display-Space-Grey

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...-Intel-Core-i7-with-Retina-display-Space-Gray

of course you can get some good deals on refurb 13 inch machines as well.

Refurbished-133-inch-MacBook-Pro-31GHz-dual-core-Intel-Core-i5-with-Retina-display-Space-Gray

Ok thank you, but for my needs do you think the Base model with 256GB SSD will be fine? Background rendering with FCPX can make the very occasional video editing I may do fine anyway can't it? Do you think 16GB RAM may be useful for 5 years in the future when its older and more on it or 8GB should still hold up? (Would 16GB RAM improve gaming performance or not?)
[doublepost=1517568651][/doublepost]

Personally, for me the best was the base non TB (128/8GB) for $1300, just got it a few days ago . I'm not paying apple $200 for an extra 128GB, my big files are stored on my desktop and I can get an external hard drive if I need to, but all my apps are installed and everything is set up and I still have 80GB free. I don't download music, movies or tv anymore and my pictures are backed up to my desktop, google photo and iCloud.

For my needs would 16GB RAM be beneficial, especially for future proofing?

 

[BenB17]

One other question - would the Base Model (with 256GB SSD) with 16GB RAM be a better computer than the Base Touch Bar model? (benchmarks wise etc)

 

[Nathan576]

One other question - would the Base Model (with 256GB SSD) with 16GB RAM be a better computer than the Base Touch Bar model? (benchmarks wise etc)

No, benchmarks would be the same. 16GB of ram is not needed, keep in mind that the ram in the 2017 MacBooks is 2133MHz, that's just as fast as most ddr4 ram. Because of the increased ram speed, the 8GB of 2133MHz ram is about equal to having 12GB of the old 1600 MHz ram that they used to put in MacBooks a few years ago.

 

[BenB17]

No, benchmarks would be the same. 16GB of ram is not needed, keep in mind that the ram in the 2017 MacBooks is 2133MHz, that's just as fast as most ddr4 ram. Because of the increased ram speed, the 8GB of 2133MHz ram is about equal to having 12GB of the old 1600 MHz ram that they used to put in MacBooks a few years ago.

But would the 16GB OF RAM future proof my computer better?

 

[Nathan576]

But would the 16GB OF RAM future proof my computer better?

Not really, no. You can still get away with 4GB of ram today on MacOS, 8GB is plenty considering it's faster ram as I said before.

 

[MichaelDT]

Not really, no. You can still get away with 4GB of ram today on MacOS, 8GB is plenty considering it's faster ram as I said before.

This is terrible advice. More is always better when it comes to computing resources in terms of future proofing full stop.
8GB is certainly not a wise choice if you’re going to use FCPX for 4k video editing and macOS certainly does perform better with more memory. Ideally you want your memory uncompressed and none swapped to disk so you want more. Why? well compression is reasonably fast but can run in polynomial time if your data is reasonably complex, meaning it is much slower than no compression and gets slower the more you have to compress. Get the most memory and drive you can afford, you could probably skimp on the cpu though.
[doublepost=1517615347][/doublepost]

No, benchmarks would be the same. 16GB of ram is not needed, keep in mind that the ram in the 2017 MacBooks is 2133MHz, that's just as fast as most ddr4 ram. Because of the increased ram speed, the 8GB of 2133MHz ram is about equal to having 12GB of the old 1600 MHz ram that they used to put in MacBooks a few years ago.

Speed does not equal space is any century. This is like saying because a race car is faster than a SUV it has more cargo capacity.

 

[Nathan576]

This is terrible advice. More is always better when it comes to computing resources in terms of future proofing full stop.
8GB is certainly not a wise choice if you’re going to use FCPX for 4k video editing and macOS certainly does perform better with more memory. Ideally you want your memory uncompressed and none swapped to disk so you want more. Why? well compression is reasonably fast but can run in polynomial time if your data is reasonably complex, meaning it is much slower than no compression and gets slower the more you have to compress. Get the most memory and drive you can afford, you could probably skimp on the cpu though.

It is certainly not a $200 increase in performance, it's a ripoff. You can do casual 4k video editing off an iPhone, lets be real here. 8Gb is enough.

 

[MichaelDT]

It is certainly not a $200 increase in performance, it's a ripoff. You can do casual 4k video editing off an iPhone, lets be real here. 8Gb is enough.

Sure it’s expensive for some, but not so much compared to buying a new computer in a year because you keep running into the memory wall and cannot upgrade.

 

[Nathan576]

Sure it’s expensive for some, but not so much compared to buying a new computer in a year because you keep running into the memory wall and cannot upgrade.

In a year? Now you're being absurd.

 

[BenB17]

This is terrible advice. More is always better when it comes to computing resources in terms of future proofing full stop.
8GB is certainly not a wise choice if you’re going to use FCPX for 4k video editing and macOS certainly does perform better with more memory. Ideally you want your memory uncompressed and none swapped to disk so you want more. Why? well compression is reasonably fast but can run in polynomial time if your data is reasonably complex, meaning it is much slower than no compression and gets slower the more you have to compress. Get the most memory and drive you can afford, you could probably skimp on the cpu though.
[doublepost=1517615347][/doublepost]
Speed does not equal space is any century. This is like saying because a race car is faster than a SUV it has more cargo capacity.

I don’t really understand the difference between the two CPUs (2.3GHz i5 on nTB vs. 3.1GHz i5 on TB.) Can someone please explain and provide some real-world examples of the difference as well please!
[doublepost=1517641870][/doublepost]

It is certainly not a $200 increase in performance, it's a ripoff. You can do casual 4k video editing off an iPhone, lets be real here. 8Gb is enough.

I don’t really understand the difference between the two CPUs (2.3GHz i5 on nTB vs. 3.1GHz i5 on TB.) Can someone please explain and provide some real-world examples of the difference as well please!

 

[Silver2k]

Go for the base 13" TB model which is the one I have. Absolutely love it, handles most of what I throw at it!

 

[BenB17]

Go for the base 13" TB model which is the one I have. Absolutely love it, handles most of what I throw at it!

What do you use it for?

 

[Silver2k]

What do you use it for?

I use it for Photoshop, Illustrator (some after effects), 4K editing on Final Cut Pro.

I'm the sort of person to have 20 chrome tabs open, Spotify running, Airmail, a Photoshop document open and more... and it handles it all really well.

In my time I've had a 2010 17" fully spec'd MBP, 2013 13" MacBook Air Baseline, 2015 13" Baseline MBP, 2016 15" TB Fully spec'd machine which I sold for the 2017 13" 256gb TB MBP and don't regret it for a second.

Having owned all those machines, I've learnt a few things. You don't need one of those super expensive 15" machines with discreet graphics to do most things... as High Sierra and MacOS is so optimised for everything besides gaming. And btw - portability wins over everything.

Anyways I am going off on a tangent all I'll say is that I am VERY impressed with this machine, I've had a GREAT experience so far on my 2017 13" TB base machine... it's SO damn portable, solid and powerful. Remember, the TB 13" has:

- A faster/better CPU & GPU
- Two Fans for superior cooling and more vents underneath. Keeps the machine pretty cool.
- The touch-bar which is nice

I've heard A LOT of bad stuff about the baseline MBP without the Touch Bar. It struggles to run demanding tasks, fans are always on full blast, the machine gets painfully hot and adhesive issues on the screen because it runs hot. And I've had none of those issues on my TB 13". I am glad I went with it.

 

[BenB17]

I use it for Photoshop, Illustrator (some after effects), 4K editing on Final Cut Pro.

I'm the sort of person to have 20 chrome tabs open, Spotify running, Airmail, a Photoshop document open and more... and it handles it all really well.

In my time I've had a 2010 17" fully spec'd MBP, 2013 13" MacBook Air Baseline, 2015 13" Baseline MBP, 2016 15" TB Fully spec'd machine which I sold for the 2017 13" 256gb TB MBP and don't regret it for a second.

Having owned all those machines, I've learnt a few things. You don't need one of those super expensive 15" machines with discreet graphics to do most things... as High Sierra and MacOS is so optimised for everything besides gaming. And btw - portability wins over everything.

Anyways I am going off on a tangent all I'll say is that I am VERY impressed with this machine, I've had a GREAT experience so far on my 2017 13" TB base machine... it's SO damn portable, solid and powerful. Remember, the TB 13" has:

- A faster/better CPU & GPU
- Two Fans for superior cooling and more vents underneath. Keeps the machine pretty cool.
- The touch-bar which is nice

I've heard A LOT of bad stuff about the baseline MBP without the Touch Bar. It struggles to run demanding tasks, fans are always on full blast, the machine gets painfully hot and adhesive issues on the screen because it runs hot. And I've had none of those issues on my TB 13". I am glad I went with it.

Perfect thank you that’s really helpful. Would you recommend possibly going for 16GB RAM to future proof the machine for like 5 years in the future? (Also are there any dropped frames in playback on FCPX with 4K video or lag when you have so many apps open?)

 

[ZapNZs]

I'm inclined to say the touchbar model with 16GB RAM but let me first ask...

• How much do you dislike fan noise?
• Do you want to use external displays? (if so, how many and what resolution?)
• Is battery life or performance of higher priority?

 

[BenB17]

I'm inclined to say the touchbar model with 16GB RAM but let me first ask...

• How much do you dislike fan noise?
• Do you want to use external displays? (if so, how many and what resolution?)
• Is battery life or performance of higher priority?

Don’t mind fan noise but les would be preferable.

No plans at the moment to use external displays.

Performance of higher priority. (But still want good battery obviously)

 

[raqball]

I've heard A LOT of bad stuff about the baseline MBP without the Touch Bar. It struggles to run demanding tasks, fans are always on full blast, the machine gets painfully hot and adhesive issues on the screen because it runs hot. And I've had none of those issues on my TB 13". I am glad I went with it.

Nope...

The CPU upgrade on the TB version is minor, very minor and most users would not even notice the difference. Those who do might save a few seconds or minutes depending on what they are doing on the machine.

I've had the 2015 nTB, the 2016 nTB and the 2017 nTB and experienced no such issues with the machine struggling. I also edit 4K video from a GoPro but admittedly they are smallish sized videos. None of mine ever became overly hot and the fans do not kick in as loudly as you make them out to doing.

 

[ZapNZs]

Don’t mind fan noise but les would be preferable.

No plans at the moment to use external displays.

Performance of higher priority. (But still want good battery obviously)

Because of your moderate preference for less fan noise, and your interest in running lower intensity games, editing 4k, and potentially Windows usage (in the event you decided you ever wanted to run VMs as opposed to Bootcamp for non-gaming purposes to give you simultaneous access to both OS' for development purposes), I think the touchbar makes sense, as does the 16 GB RAM update. With that said, the base nTB with 8GB of RAM is capable of doing these tasks too...if money is extremely constrained, you probably will not be disappointed - but the touchbar version will do some of these tasks better and more silently.

 

[raqball]

If you are in the US you can get a great deal right now on a nTB. i5 / 16GB RAM / 256GB SSD for $1449 with no sales tax and free shipping.

https://www.adorama.com/acmpxt2la1.html?CategoryID=120039

There is a widely available $50 discount code off that $1499 price which brings it down to $1449.

That price might push you over the edge on your decision. If you can't find the $50 off code then message me and I'll give it to you. I don't want to post it here as I don't know if it's allowed.