In 2015, I almost bought my first MacBook Pro. It would have been my first Mac that I owned. I was determined to wait another year and get faster Intel chips. Apple, however, took almost everything I loved about the Mac in one sweep in October 2016.
The comfy keyboard? The comfortable keyboard was replaced by a thin slab that became a problem for many Mac users over the years. A butterfly switch mechanism that is so fragile even a tiny dust speck could fall it down. You will find the handy SD card slot, which is ideal for videographers and photographers, as well as the HDMI port that allows you to connect to TVs and monitors. They were apparently discarded in favor of more expensive dongles.
Apple seemed to have forgotten why people purchased the MacBook Pro, and the pros were delighted to point it out. The tiny touchscreen Apple placed on the keyboard was ridiculed by them, as well as the lack of RAM and missing ports. Pros also criticized Apple's choice of GPU to match the Windows competitor. These thoughts were mine at the time. Michael Tsai has more.
Apple has delivered all the things that they promised to give these pros five years later.
Fully loaded
Apple's Monday announcement included a thicker (16-inch) MacBook Pro. It has ports such as HDMI, SD card slot and the MagSafe charging cable. There are also three USB-C and Thunderbolt 4 connectors. This port is the most powerful. The new 14-inch and 16-inch Macs have 64GB and 8TB respectively of the fastest PCI-Express storage available, with 7,400MB/sec reads. The new Macs feature a redesign keyboard with function keys, instead of the annoying Touch Bar. They also have 120Hz high refresh rate MiniLED screens that could be the best panels available on any laptop (they theoretically offer all the benefits of OLED, but we will have to try it).
Apple claims its 32 GPU cores on the M1 Max chip are nearly as powerful as the Nvidia RTX3080 gaming-grade laptop chips found in a Razer Blade 15 Advanced with a similar price.
While Apple was working on these improvements, Apple finally added a 1080p Webcam. Yes, it has a notch. I don't feel great about that, especially since there is no Face ID.
However, I believe Im going to buy a Mac.
I'll wait until the dust settles a bit. There are still many questions about performance and battery life. These devices have not been touched by journalists, even for a simple hands-on.
Concerning battery life, I have to wonder if Apple is cherry-picking data. The company claims that the 16-inch model has the longest possible battery life on a Mac notebook. However, the company is only talking about the ability to play back video using its Apple TV app and does not specify other important variables such as the brightness of the screen.
Apple's wireless web test, which uses Safari and not Chrome last time we checked, found that the 14-inch MacBook Pro has only 11 hours of battery life. This is far less than the 17 hours it claims to have gotten from its 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 late last year. We saw about 10 hours of real-world usage. The new 16-inch MacBook Pro claims that it can now provide 14 hours wireless internet, which is a significant improvement on the 11 hours claimed by the 2019 model with Core i9 chips.
All I am saying is that I will feel more at ease spending $2000+ on a MacBook Pro after Nilay can verify it lasts, is fast, and doesn't cause sweaty palms. That's all I ask if Im going to switch to Mac from Windows.
Apple's creative professionals who have held onto their 2015 MacBook Pro with Retina Displays over the years or those who reluctantly upgraded to Touch ID-equipped laptops because it was the only option or those who switched to Windows after seeing the signs, today must feel like a new day. Apples are not just trying to sell pros faster Airs, but the 13-inch model is irrelevant. Although it took five years for this ship to turn around, Apple clearly listens to the pros. These computers were built by Apple for them.
