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Apple 13" MacBook Pro review: the best computer you shouldn’t buy

57 points by noir-york 10y ago

jpkeisala 10y ago
I waited new MacBook Pro for 2 years. Once it came out I was ready to buy it but then I hesitated on the checkout flow and paused. I waited another 4 weeks reading reviews and slowly moved out of the Mac world where I have been since 2006. Today I received Dell’s XPS 13 so I am back to Windows now. It will be interesting to see if Apple is able to lure me back in to their world in 2017 but right now I am very excited with my new XPS.
- matthewking 10y ago
  Curious what stack you use for development? how do you find working on Windows?
  - ciokan 10y ago
    I really tried myself but switched my XPS on linux after 1 hour. I placed all my hopes on that Ubuntu on Windows thing but it's full of limitations and you can't get through with a working development environment. It's locked on ubuntu 14 from what I recall and you can't really install/compile do your thing freely due to some limitations. If working with nodejs and light stuff I presume it can be okay'ish.
    - hashhar 10y ago
      As far as I know the only major things not working right now are databases (sockets are not implemented) and network device enumeration (although I don't know if any program uses it). Although your bash can access databases running on the Windows side. It's good enough for NodeJS, Python, Ruby on Rails, C++ and dotnet core dev. What did you face problems with?
      - ciokan 10y ago
        Docker really struggles
    - traviswatkins 10y ago
      If you switch to the preview releases of Windows they've upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 and you can easily execute Windows applications from the Ubuntu shell. The stock terminal is also a lot better (24-bit color!) but I'm using wsltty instead which, aside from not having the ability to use my preferred keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-Shift-C/V for copy/paste) works great. I have kotlin projects open in IntelliJ in Windows and can also run gradle in my Ubuntu environment to work with them.
      - vorg 10y ago
        Hope you're using Kotlin (rather than Apache Groovy) to write your Gradle scripts, since you're using it to build Kotlin code.
  - hashhar 10y ago
    Well, the argument that Windows sucks for development environment is true only if you use programs like rbenv, nvm or other stuff that is built on GitHub. Even then most of them work on Windows. I've moved from Linux to Windows (battery life issues, video tearing and lots of maintainance for my extremely custom setup) around 7 months ago and mostly use Python, DotNET Core, NodeJS and MySQL and Postgres. I also run and deploy my Ghost blog from Windows. The only things I initially missed was bash, which is now available. Even 256 colour support for the terminal is here in Insider releases. I use VSCode as an IDE (with the vim plugin). Yes there are some issues if you want to run Ruby or Perl (package (gem or perl packages) management) but otherwise its good.
- traviswatkins 10y ago
  I was in the same boat, waiting for this update to finally upgrade my 2011 MacBook Pro. After seeing this new machine and trying it out in a store I ordered a Thinkpad t460s. I considered running Ubuntu on it but I wasn't a fan of the way the touchpad was working there and decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I'm now running Windows 10 insider preview so I can use Ubuntu 16.04 on Windows to get my terminal on and still run my IDEs and such on Windows.
electic 10y ago
I have to say, looking back, this is the first year, in close to 8 years, where I have not bought anything made by Apple. I decided this year to not buy the iPhone 7. I usually upgrade every year and buy the phone outright. But with the headphone jack issue and artificially low throughput on the modem, I decided not to. I also usually get every new refresh of the Macbook Pro. This year, I decided not to do that either because of the bad specs. I hope Apple can refresh the Macbook Pro with Pro specs so it is a viable purchase again.
- dbbk 10y ago
  You buy a brand new MacBook Pro every time it's updated? Isn't that a bit excessive. The performance gains between each update would be almost negligible.
  - bryanlarsen 10y ago
    By "updated" I assume he means a new generation, which has happened about 4 times almost 11 years. Updating your computer every 3 years doesn't seem unreasonable if you use it for professional purposes: original: Jan 2006, unibody: Oct 2008, retina: Jun 2012, touch bar: Oct 2016. Kind of puts things into perspective: the jump from original to unibody was pretty significant, and the jump to retina was also a massive change.
    - dbbk 10y ago
      That would be reasonable, I interpreted his comment as every update (every 9ish months)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - greggman 10y ago
    Is it? You can sell your old one so it probably works out to a fairly small premium to always get the latest than to say upgrade every 3-4 years and for that premium you always have a new machine
davidf18 10y ago
The reviewer complains about battery life but is using Chrome which is a known battery hog. I use Safari instead of Chrome for precisely this reason. Regarding battery life, there are comments in macrumors forums from real users. He also complains about dongles. I use my laptop with iPhone (sometimes) and with USB drives. Hardly an issue. I'm a current 15" rMBP 2015 owner. I tried the different models in the store. For those "on the go" the 13" is a nice "Air" replacement. I'm not certain I'd go with the touch bar version. It is reasonable to keep up-to-date with Mac hardware if you use computers a lot. If things go wrong, it is far easier to take the laptop to the Genius Bar than options for other laptops. EDIT: Comments on macforums claims 10+ hours. http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mbp-13-tb-with-2-50-battery-life.2016587/ http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mbp-13-tb-with-2-50-batt...
- nezza-_- 10y ago
  > It is reasonable to keep up-to-date with Mac hardware if you use computers a lot. If things go wrong, it is far easier to take the laptop to the Genius Bar than options for other laptops. To be honest, the best service I so far was with my Lenovo machines.. Next-(work-)day technician on site, whether I'm at a customer or at home. Now with my MacBook Pro with Apple Care they have to send it in to replace the screen.. (According to the Apple Store personell here at least)
  - hvidgaard 10y ago
    Only if you have the right warrenty. But when you do, they take care of you. I had a defective touchpad, but it was usable with a mouse. The technician arrived at my work, and while I was in a meeting, he switched it. Done. My coworker had his screen replaced the same way. The cost of not having a machine for even just a week, means it makes more business sense to simply buy a new machine, so this next-day onsite warrenty, is worth every penny unless you have a lot of machines and can realistically buy more machines as spares and come out ahead.
    - davidf18 10y ago
      I had Thinkpads until 2011. For hardware repairs I couldn't do myself there was an authorized dealer not far from work who would order the replacement parts (e.g., motherboard) and I'd bring it in for quick repair. With Apple for a major repair, I dropped it off at my nearby Apple Store on a Monday and had it mid-day on Wednesday.
JimmyAustin 10y ago
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Apple will never back down on USB-C. Not now, not ever. In a perfect universe, any plug will fit into any port, you wouldn't need to worry about adapters, and you wouldn't need to worry about interoperability. That's the future that Apple is counting on, and they think that they can bring it about by making every customer who buys the single most popular laptop on the planet a forced user.
- 11mariom 10y ago
  I understand why there is no ethernet port. But… hdmi does not looks too big to have one on side. And the case is - when you are using Apple products you always must have some specific accessories - like adapters (for dvi in retinas, for usb-a for new mbp). Even the iPhone charging port is different - which is interesting as in Europe this should be usb port… I would like a bit bigger laptop with hdmi and usb-a without need to taking another bag with adapters… (bigger laptop without adapters would take less space than mbp + adapters)
- protomyth 10y ago
  I would be fine with the USB-C if it wasn't for the Lightning port and the drive to headphones on a proprietary connector or wireless. USB-C is a great standard and useful, it's the interaction with the Lightning port that making things difficult. On a side note, does Apple have a use case for Lighting / wireless headphones and ATMs with headphones jacks for the visually impaired?
- lmm 10y ago
  > In a perfect universe, any plug will fit into any port, you wouldn't need to worry about adapters, and you wouldn't need to worry about interoperability. That's the goal, but at the moment USB-C is a step backwards. "Any cable that fits in the port will work properly" is something we have today; USB-C is a regression from that.
- module0000 10y ago
  > Apple will never back down on USB-C This is true, it's not Apple's' MO to fallback, they will double down and plow forward(even if it's too soon).
econnors 10y ago
Before this generation of Apple products, I found their product shortcomings so minor that I wouldn't consider switching. I think I'll always favor apple products but I'm definitely loving them less than I always have. - If you buy a new macbook and a new iPhone, you can't physically connect them - If you buy standard aux headphones, you have to keep track of the tiny dongle - You can't charge your iPhone while using wired headphones - No more Macsafe chargers which have saved me so many times - A touchbar that I'm sure I could get used to, but haven't seen a compelling use case yet Unlike some others, I'm not pushed to the point of leaving Apple. I just don't want to buy the new gen and hope that they can refocus on creating great experiences that doesnt involve friction like the above changes do.
- bla2 10y ago
  There are a few USB C magsafe chargers on the market, they work with non-Apple hardware as well. Not that I disagree with your larger point.
  - apozem 10y ago
    I can't speak for all of them, but on the second-most recent episode of The Talk Show Gruber and his guest Joanna Stern agreed that the most popular aftermarket USB-C MagSafe replacement did not cut it. Be careful before you buy one of these.
  - partiallogic 10y ago
    I don't think there are any that provide enough power for the pro
- ohyoutravel 10y ago
  Agreed on all of this, but magsafe for sure. I was disappointed that they removed that feature. It saved me many times, through things that weren't even my fault like someone at the coffee shop tripping over the cord or my dog running past and snagging it. I shudder to think of my macbook likely flying to the ground in those situations.
davidf18 10y ago
> "If it was the 15in MacBook Pro I could almost imagine that you’d never use it when away from power, and that battery life wasn’t that important. But a 13in laptop is made for portability." At my university and nearby coffee shops the 15" model (which I own) has in the past year or so become very popular. And it is used portably. That is why I like the newer 15" model which weighs less and has a smaller form-factor. Makes it more portable.
- rhinoceraptor 10y ago
  If there were a PC equivalent to the old Retina 15" MBP, I would buy it instantly. It seems like all the quality PC ultrabooks are in the 13" category.
blakesterz 10y ago
I really like this review, it's the first one I've read where I feel like someone who uses a laptop like I use a laptop every day sat down and used the thing for a while and wrote about how it works. "Cons: short battery life, no USB-A ports, no ethernet, no native display ports, no upgrading after purchase, very expensive" For me at least, those cons mean I am very very hesitant to buy one of these, and mine just died, so I am trying to decide what to do now. I have an somewhat new Lenovo and I'm sticking with this for now. It's not my main work machine, mostly used for travel, but I traveled with it last week for the first time and it worked perfectly. I was really nervous. How could I possibly work on a Windows machine after almost a decade on OSX. I just worked. No issues, I missed NOTHING in OSX. But for some reason I still want to replace this perfectly functioning thing with a MacBook. Maybe just habit?
- SmkyMt 10y ago
  Well, picking from late-models while they're there is the only way I've bought macs for 10+years. http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac
- smonff 10y ago
  I am very amused that a 6 hours long battery life can can be so important. My laptop don't even have this battery life in sleep mode and when powered on, it must be something like 50 minutes. Do you run in the street with the thing in your hands or drive your car with the laptop on?
i_don_t_know 10y ago
Pity. I was considering it as a replacement for my 2010 15" MBP. I'm slowly getting tired of the random kernel panics. Come to think of it, has anyone tried to disable the NVIDIA graphics card in the 2010 15" MBP by moving the driver (.kext) somewhere where the OS cannot find it? If that gets rid of the kernel panics then I think I'd just buy more RAM and an SSD.
- amsha 10y ago
  Yeah, disabling the discrete card made a huge difference to my laptop's stability (also 2010 15" MBP with NVIDIA GT 330M). There's an open-source app called gfxCardStatus [0] that lets you switch between integrated and discrete from the menubar. On 10.12 the original app doesn't work properly, but one of its forks [1] fixes the issue. [0] https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus [1] https://github.com/steveschow/gfxCardStatus/releases https://github.com/steveschow/gfxCardStatus/releases
  - i_don_t_know 10y ago
    Thanks! I'll give that a shot.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- iwritestuff 10y ago
  Don't listen to the reviews here. My MBP 15" (late-2016) is fine. I get all day battery life too. You can return it Jan 8th if it doesn't work for you. Hearing complaints from people who never used it is tiring.
andrewfromx 10y ago
"The 13in MacBook Pro could be a wonderful computer, but it isn’t. Is it great to use? Absolutely, it’s brilliant, it’s beautiful, it’s almost everything Apple said it was, I absolutely love it … until it runs out of battery. Or you have to dig out yet another dongle to use a sodding USB flash drive, or a card reader, or attach a display." that's the exact opposite way I feel. I already was using a MacBook with USB-C so I'm used to the port issues. The battery life is great. The processing power is amazing. Don't listen to people telling you dongles and USB-C is bad. It's not bad. It's just the future.
- lmm 10y ago
  It may or may not be the future - Apple hasn't always picked the winners. Remember DisplayPort? Thunderbolt? FireWire? PERCH?
  - erelde 10y ago
    In the case of USB-C, it seems to be an industry wide push toward it. Not only Apple.
  - mitchty 10y ago
    USB, and now USB-C. Also dropping things like RS232, parallel, floppy drives, cd/dvd drives, VGA ports.
    - slantyyz 10y ago
      When the parent argues that "Apple hasn't always picked winners" he already conceded that Apple has picked winners.
      - mitchty 10y ago
        It is a bit of a pointless statement then. You could say that about any hardware company really.
  - mikhailt 10y ago
coldtea 10y ago
>It’s the best, lightest, most beautiful laptop around. Until it runs out of battery. So, like any other computer. >Or you forget a dongle You only need ONE dongle, which can give you several USB 3.1, SD card, and other ports. And for most devices you don't need ANY dongle -- you just replace their existing USB-A cables (that you had to carry anyway) with USB-C cables (those go for $5 to $10). >Or you realise you’re bankrupt Then opt for something in your price range?
joshstrange 10y ago
What really grinds my gears is not the MacBook but the fact they went with lightning on the iPhone for the newest gen. If I bought lightning headphones I'd be pissed I couldn't use them with my Mac, even more so if the next iPhone does go USB-C. You'd think it would make the most since to go USB-C at the same time you drop the headphone jack...
simonbarker87 10y ago
I took delivery of my 13 inch Touchbar MBP last week and after a weekend and 2 full work days with it, I have to say that I've not been this happy with a new Mac in since my first one. I've owned a Mac Mini (just after intel launch), iMac, MacBook (White), 15 inch MBP, 11 inch Air and most recently 2 years with a 13 inch air so I got a good stable to compare to. This laptop feels incredible, it's plenty powerful enough for what I do (Sketch/Photoshop, HTML/CSS, PHP/MAMP, Swift, C for embedded microcontroller work, large spreadsheets for forecasting) and while I've not put the battery through its paces I can't remember the last time I ran my Air's battery down to less than 50%. The screen is amazing (even compared to my wife's 2015 retina MPB), the overall finish is great, I really don't mind the keyboard although I type on a Magic Keyboard so it's not that different really. The touchbar is new, novel and not all that useful right now but given it's not tied down to an App store I'm looking forward to what people make for it. Touch id is a big plus as well. The USB C future is going to be very nice, sadly that future is not right now. Plugging my laptop into a screen for power, USB and video will be very convenient but right now it's damned awkward but that's the early adopter price I guess. Apple won't back down on USB and I'm glad someone is willing to force this through as it's time to settle on the one connection that can do it all. You can plug in an iPhone, you need to buy a USB C to lightning cable or dongle. People complain about the price of the cable but if you've got a £1,750 computer and a £700 phone then £20 really isn't that much. Just my 2 cents

57 points by noir-york 10y ago

I waited new MacBook Pro for 2 years. Once it came out I was ready to buy it but then I hesitated on the checkout flow and paused. I waited another 4 weeks reading reviews and slowly moved out of the Mac world where I have been since 2006. Today I received Dell’s XPS 13 so I am back to Windows now. It will be interesting to see if Apple is able to lure me back in to their world in 2017 but right now I am very excited with my new XPS.

matthewking 10y ago
Curious what stack you use for development? how do you find working on Windows?
- ciokan 10y ago
  I really tried myself but switched my XPS on linux after 1 hour. I placed all my hopes on that Ubuntu on Windows thing but it's full of limitations and you can't get through with a working development environment. It's locked on ubuntu 14 from what I recall and you can't really install/compile do your thing freely due to some limitations. If working with nodejs and light stuff I presume it can be okay'ish.
  - hashhar 10y ago
    As far as I know the only major things not working right now are databases (sockets are not implemented) and network device enumeration (although I don't know if any program uses it). Although your bash can access databases running on the Windows side. It's good enough for NodeJS, Python, Ruby on Rails, C++ and dotnet core dev. What did you face problems with?
    - ciokan 10y ago
      Docker really struggles
  - traviswatkins 10y ago
    If you switch to the preview releases of Windows they've upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 and you can easily execute Windows applications from the Ubuntu shell. The stock terminal is also a lot better (24-bit color!) but I'm using wsltty instead which, aside from not having the ability to use my preferred keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-Shift-C/V for copy/paste) works great. I have kotlin projects open in IntelliJ in Windows and can also run gradle in my Ubuntu environment to work with them.
    - vorg 10y ago
      Hope you're using Kotlin (rather than Apache Groovy) to write your Gradle scripts, since you're using it to build Kotlin code.
- hashhar 10y ago
  Well, the argument that Windows sucks for development environment is true only if you use programs like rbenv, nvm or other stuff that is built on GitHub. Even then most of them work on Windows. I've moved from Linux to Windows (battery life issues, video tearing and lots of maintainance for my extremely custom setup) around 7 months ago and mostly use Python, DotNET Core, NodeJS and MySQL and Postgres. I also run and deploy my Ghost blog from Windows. The only things I initially missed was bash, which is now available. Even 256 colour support for the terminal is here in Insider releases. I use VSCode as an IDE (with the vim plugin). Yes there are some issues if you want to run Ruby or Perl (package (gem or perl packages) management) but otherwise its good.
traviswatkins 10y ago
I was in the same boat, waiting for this update to finally upgrade my 2011 MacBook Pro. After seeing this new machine and trying it out in a store I ordered a Thinkpad t460s. I considered running Ubuntu on it but I wasn't a fan of the way the touchpad was working there and decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I'm now running Windows 10 insider preview so I can use Ubuntu 16.04 on Windows to get my terminal on and still run my IDEs and such on Windows.

electic 10y ago

I have to say, looking back, this is the first year, in close to 8 years, where I have not bought anything made by Apple. I decided this year to not buy the iPhone 7. I usually upgrade every year and buy the phone outright. But with the headphone jack issue and artificially low throughput on the modem, I decided not to. I also usually get every new refresh of the Macbook Pro. This year, I decided not to do that either because of the bad specs. I hope Apple can refresh the Macbook Pro with Pro specs so it is a viable purchase again.

dbbk 10y ago
You buy a brand new MacBook Pro every time it's updated? Isn't that a bit excessive. The performance gains between each update would be almost negligible.
- bryanlarsen 10y ago
  By "updated" I assume he means a new generation, which has happened about 4 times almost 11 years. Updating your computer every 3 years doesn't seem unreasonable if you use it for professional purposes: original: Jan 2006, unibody: Oct 2008, retina: Jun 2012, touch bar: Oct 2016. Kind of puts things into perspective: the jump from original to unibody was pretty significant, and the jump to retina was also a massive change.
  - dbbk 10y ago
    That would be reasonable, I interpreted his comment as every update (every 9ish months)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- greggman 10y ago
  Is it? You can sell your old one so it probably works out to a fairly small premium to always get the latest than to say upgrade every 3-4 years and for that premium you always have a new machine

davidf18 10y ago

The reviewer complains about battery life but is using Chrome which is a known battery hog. I use Safari instead of Chrome for precisely this reason. Regarding battery life, there are comments in macrumors forums from real users. He also complains about dongles. I use my laptop with iPhone (sometimes) and with USB drives. Hardly an issue. I'm a current 15" rMBP 2015 owner. I tried the different models in the store. For those "on the go" the 13" is a nice "Air" replacement. I'm not certain I'd go with the touch bar version. It is reasonable to keep up-to-date with Mac hardware if you use computers a lot. If things go wrong, it is far easier to take the laptop to the Genius Bar than options for other laptops. EDIT: Comments on macforums claims 10+ hours. http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mbp-13-tb-with-2-50-battery-life.2016587/ http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mbp-13-tb-with-2-50-batt...

nezza-_- 10y ago
> It is reasonable to keep up-to-date with Mac hardware if you use computers a lot. If things go wrong, it is far easier to take the laptop to the Genius Bar than options for other laptops. To be honest, the best service I so far was with my Lenovo machines.. Next-(work-)day technician on site, whether I'm at a customer or at home. Now with my MacBook Pro with Apple Care they have to send it in to replace the screen.. (According to the Apple Store personell here at least)
- hvidgaard 10y ago
  Only if you have the right warrenty. But when you do, they take care of you. I had a defective touchpad, but it was usable with a mouse. The technician arrived at my work, and while I was in a meeting, he switched it. Done. My coworker had his screen replaced the same way. The cost of not having a machine for even just a week, means it makes more business sense to simply buy a new machine, so this next-day onsite warrenty, is worth every penny unless you have a lot of machines and can realistically buy more machines as spares and come out ahead.
  - davidf18 10y ago
    I had Thinkpads until 2011. For hardware repairs I couldn't do myself there was an authorized dealer not far from work who would order the replacement parts (e.g., motherboard) and I'd bring it in for quick repair. With Apple for a major repair, I dropped it off at my nearby Apple Store on a Monday and had it mid-day on Wednesday.

JimmyAustin 10y ago

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Apple will never back down on USB-C. Not now, not ever. In a perfect universe, any plug will fit into any port, you wouldn't need to worry about adapters, and you wouldn't need to worry about interoperability. That's the future that Apple is counting on, and they think that they can bring it about by making every customer who buys the single most popular laptop on the planet a forced user.

11mariom 10y ago
I understand why there is no ethernet port. But… hdmi does not looks too big to have one on side. And the case is - when you are using Apple products you always must have some specific accessories - like adapters (for dvi in retinas, for usb-a for new mbp). Even the iPhone charging port is different - which is interesting as in Europe this should be usb port… I would like a bit bigger laptop with hdmi and usb-a without need to taking another bag with adapters… (bigger laptop without adapters would take less space than mbp + adapters)
protomyth 10y ago
I would be fine with the USB-C if it wasn't for the Lightning port and the drive to headphones on a proprietary connector or wireless. USB-C is a great standard and useful, it's the interaction with the Lightning port that making things difficult. On a side note, does Apple have a use case for Lighting / wireless headphones and ATMs with headphones jacks for the visually impaired?
lmm 10y ago
> In a perfect universe, any plug will fit into any port, you wouldn't need to worry about adapters, and you wouldn't need to worry about interoperability. That's the goal, but at the moment USB-C is a step backwards. "Any cable that fits in the port will work properly" is something we have today; USB-C is a regression from that.
module0000 10y ago
> Apple will never back down on USB-C This is true, it's not Apple's' MO to fallback, they will double down and plow forward(even if it's too soon).

econnors 10y ago

Before this generation of Apple products, I found their product shortcomings so minor that I wouldn't consider switching. I think I'll always favor apple products but I'm definitely loving them less than I always have. - If you buy a new macbook and a new iPhone, you can't physically connect them - If you buy standard aux headphones, you have to keep track of the tiny dongle - You can't charge your iPhone while using wired headphones - No more Macsafe chargers which have saved me so many times - A touchbar that I'm sure I could get used to, but haven't seen a compelling use case yet Unlike some others, I'm not pushed to the point of leaving Apple. I just don't want to buy the new gen and hope that they can refocus on creating great experiences that doesnt involve friction like the above changes do.

bla2 10y ago
There are a few USB C magsafe chargers on the market, they work with non-Apple hardware as well. Not that I disagree with your larger point.
- apozem 10y ago
  I can't speak for all of them, but on the second-most recent episode of The Talk Show Gruber and his guest Joanna Stern agreed that the most popular aftermarket USB-C MagSafe replacement did not cut it. Be careful before you buy one of these.
- partiallogic 10y ago
  I don't think there are any that provide enough power for the pro
ohyoutravel 10y ago
Agreed on all of this, but magsafe for sure. I was disappointed that they removed that feature. It saved me many times, through things that weren't even my fault like someone at the coffee shop tripping over the cord or my dog running past and snagging it. I shudder to think of my macbook likely flying to the ground in those situations.

davidf18 10y ago

> "If it was the 15in MacBook Pro I could almost imagine that you’d never use it when away from power, and that battery life wasn’t that important. But a 13in laptop is made for portability." At my university and nearby coffee shops the 15" model (which I own) has in the past year or so become very popular. And it is used portably. That is why I like the newer 15" model which weighs less and has a smaller form-factor. Makes it more portable.

rhinoceraptor 10y ago
If there were a PC equivalent to the old Retina 15" MBP, I would buy it instantly. It seems like all the quality PC ultrabooks are in the 13" category.

blakesterz 10y ago

I really like this review, it's the first one I've read where I feel like someone who uses a laptop like I use a laptop every day sat down and used the thing for a while and wrote about how it works. "Cons: short battery life, no USB-A ports, no ethernet, no native display ports, no upgrading after purchase, very expensive" For me at least, those cons mean I am very very hesitant to buy one of these, and mine just died, so I am trying to decide what to do now. I have an somewhat new Lenovo and I'm sticking with this for now. It's not my main work machine, mostly used for travel, but I traveled with it last week for the first time and it worked perfectly. I was really nervous. How could I possibly work on a Windows machine after almost a decade on OSX. I just worked. No issues, I missed NOTHING in OSX. But for some reason I still want to replace this perfectly functioning thing with a MacBook. Maybe just habit?

SmkyMt 10y ago
Well, picking from late-models while they're there is the only way I've bought macs for 10+years. http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac
smonff 10y ago
I am very amused that a 6 hours long battery life can can be so important. My laptop don't even have this battery life in sleep mode and when powered on, it must be something like 50 minutes. Do you run in the street with the thing in your hands or drive your car with the laptop on?

i_don_t_know 10y ago

Pity. I was considering it as a replacement for my 2010 15" MBP. I'm slowly getting tired of the random kernel panics. Come to think of it, has anyone tried to disable the NVIDIA graphics card in the 2010 15" MBP by moving the driver (.kext) somewhere where the OS cannot find it? If that gets rid of the kernel panics then I think I'd just buy more RAM and an SSD.

amsha 10y ago
Yeah, disabling the discrete card made a huge difference to my laptop's stability (also 2010 15" MBP with NVIDIA GT 330M). There's an open-source app called gfxCardStatus [0] that lets you switch between integrated and discrete from the menubar. On 10.12 the original app doesn't work properly, but one of its forks [1] fixes the issue. [0] https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus [1] https://github.com/steveschow/gfxCardStatus/releases https://github.com/steveschow/gfxCardStatus/releases
- i_don_t_know 10y ago
  Thanks! I'll give that a shot.
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iwritestuff 10y ago
Don't listen to the reviews here. My MBP 15" (late-2016) is fine. I get all day battery life too. You can return it Jan 8th if it doesn't work for you. Hearing complaints from people who never used it is tiring.

andrewfromx 10y ago

"The 13in MacBook Pro could be a wonderful computer, but it isn’t. Is it great to use? Absolutely, it’s brilliant, it’s beautiful, it’s almost everything Apple said it was, I absolutely love it … until it runs out of battery. Or you have to dig out yet another dongle to use a sodding USB flash drive, or a card reader, or attach a display." that's the exact opposite way I feel. I already was using a MacBook with USB-C so I'm used to the port issues. The battery life is great. The processing power is amazing. Don't listen to people telling you dongles and USB-C is bad. It's not bad. It's just the future.

lmm 10y ago
It may or may not be the future - Apple hasn't always picked the winners. Remember DisplayPort? Thunderbolt? FireWire? PERCH?
- erelde 10y ago
  In the case of USB-C, it seems to be an industry wide push toward it. Not only Apple.
- mitchty 10y ago
  USB, and now USB-C. Also dropping things like RS232, parallel, floppy drives, cd/dvd drives, VGA ports.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    When the parent argues that "Apple hasn't always picked winners" he already conceded that Apple has picked winners.
    - mitchty 10y ago
      It is a bit of a pointless statement then. You could say that about any hardware company really.
- mikhailt 10y ago

coldtea 10y ago

>It’s the best, lightest, most beautiful laptop around. Until it runs out of battery. So, like any other computer. >Or you forget a dongle You only need ONE dongle, which can give you several USB 3.1, SD card, and other ports. And for most devices you don't need ANY dongle -- you just replace their existing USB-A cables (that you had to carry anyway) with USB-C cables (those go for $5 to $10). >Or you realise you’re bankrupt Then opt for something in your price range?

joshstrange 10y ago

What really grinds my gears is not the MacBook but the fact they went with lightning on the iPhone for the newest gen. If I bought lightning headphones I'd be pissed I couldn't use them with my Mac, even more so if the next iPhone does go USB-C. You'd think it would make the most since to go USB-C at the same time you drop the headphone jack...

simonbarker87 10y ago

I took delivery of my 13 inch Touchbar MBP last week and after a weekend and 2 full work days with it, I have to say that I've not been this happy with a new Mac in since my first one. I've owned a Mac Mini (just after intel launch), iMac, MacBook (White), 15 inch MBP, 11 inch Air and most recently 2 years with a 13 inch air so I got a good stable to compare to. This laptop feels incredible, it's plenty powerful enough for what I do (Sketch/Photoshop, HTML/CSS, PHP/MAMP, Swift, C for embedded microcontroller work, large spreadsheets for forecasting) and while I've not put the battery through its paces I can't remember the last time I ran my Air's battery down to less than 50%. The screen is amazing (even compared to my wife's 2015 retina MPB), the overall finish is great, I really don't mind the keyboard although I type on a Magic Keyboard so it's not that different really. The touchbar is new, novel and not all that useful right now but given it's not tied down to an App store I'm looking forward to what people make for it. Touch id is a big plus as well. The USB C future is going to be very nice, sadly that future is not right now. Plugging my laptop into a screen for power, USB and video will be very convenient but right now it's damned awkward but that's the early adopter price I guess. Apple won't back down on USB and I'm glad someone is willing to force this through as it's time to settle on the one connection that can do it all. You can plug in an iPhone, you need to buy a USB C to lightning cable or dongle. People complain about the price of the cable but if you've got a £1,750 computer and a £700 phone then £20 really isn't that much. Just my 2 cents