Apple MacBook Pro — Touching the Bar.
“The world’s creative forces use the Mac to push the world forward.” — Tim Cook.
27th October, 2016, was the 25th anniversary of the first notebook computer released by Apple, the Powerbook. It was the first portable that had an extended keyboard that allowed you to rest your hand on it while you typed. It was one of the most influential laptops that was ever made and it was the precursor to the MacBook that we know and love today.
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The original Powerbook was released 25 years ago.[/caption]
In order to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its notebook lineup, Apple announced the future of the MacBook lineup at a special event in Cupertino — the new MacBook Pros. Tim Cook described the new MacBook with the following words, “For 25 years, we have defining and redefining what a notebook is and what a notebook can do and today we are going to do it again.”
Design
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The new 13" MacBook Pro and the new 15" MacBook Pro. They are the thinnest and the lightest MacBook Pros that Apple has ever made.[/caption]
13” : 17% thinner and 23% lesser in volume than the last generation 13" MacBook Pro.
15” : 15% thinner and 20% lesser in volume than the last generation 15" MacBook Pro.
In fact, the new 13" MacBook Pro is thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air, making it a perfect MacBook Air replacement in Apple’s notebook lineup. The new MacBook Pros also do away with Apple’s signature glowing logo and instead replace it with a shiny, metallic one that is either dark grey or light grey.
In terms of input devices, the new MacBook Pros have a new force touch trackpad that’s about twice as large as the previous generation MacBook Pro. Apple also got rid of the chiclet style keys that have been the standard for its notebooks for the past couple of years and replaced it with a new, 2nd-gen butterfly mechanism — this correlates to lesser key travel and a slight increase in clickiness.
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The new trackpad and keyboard in the new MacBook Pro.[/caption]
Display, Speakers and I/O
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The display on the new MacBook Pros is 67% brighter, provides 67% more contrast and has a 25% wider color gamut, allowing all your content to look richer and sharper than before.[/caption]
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They have an all new speaker system that’s much louder and better sounding than the previous generation.[/caption]
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The new MacBook Pros have 4 Thunderbolt 3/USB C ports and a single headphone jack. Apple has removed the full size HDMI port, the SD card reader and the trademark MagSafe charging port from its newest Pro machines.[/caption]
Performance and Storage
On the performance side of things, all 13” MacBook Pros will have an i5 Dual-Core CPU and Intel’s integrated Iris Graphics.
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Performance of the new 13" MacBook Pro vs. the last generation 13" MacBook Pro.[/caption]
On the other hand, all 15” MacBook Pros will have an i7 Quad-Core CPU and an AMD Polaris GPU with 2GB of dedicated VRAM — that is up to 2.3x faster than previous generation notebook.
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Performance of the new 15" MacBook Pro vs. the last generation 15" MacBook Pro.[/caption]
As always, Apple allows people to configure their notebooks with more powerful internals at a cost. The full list of specifications can be found here.
The new MacBooks also have super-fast SSDs that should make the operating system boot almost instantaneously and should open all of your applications in the blink of an eye — they boast read speeds upwards of 3.1 Gbps, which is blazing fast.
Touchbar and Touch ID
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The touchbar shows you your open websites when you’re browsing the web through Safari.[/caption]
However, the most striking feature of the new MacBook Pros is the Touchbar. The touchbar is narrow touchscreen at the top of the keyboard. This multi-touch, retina touchscreen panel replaces the row of function keys and can respond to user’s gestures and taps. The highlight feature of the touchbar is that it adapts to whatever app you’re using and provides useful shortcuts to increase your productivity and make your experience better.
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The touchbar shows you shows you quick-type options or word suggestions and a send button when you’re answering your emails in the Mail App.[/caption]
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The touchbar shows you your open websites when you’re browsing the web through Safari.[/caption]
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The functions on the touchbar are user-customizable allowing everyone to set it to best improve their productivity.[/caption]
Apple has also brought Touch ID to the new MacBook Pros. The Touch ID sensor is at the right end of the touchbar and is covered in sapphire glass for durability. There is a new T1 chip built-in the laptop that allows you securely verify your fingerprint and to also authenticate purchases using Apple Pay on your favorite websites.
Touch ID can also be used to switch between different user profiles. For example, if a family is using a MacBook Pro as a common home computer, then each time a family member scans their finger on the Touch ID sensor, macOS would recognize whose finger it is and would load up their user profile and desktop settings. This allows for a truly multi-user machine experience that’s not only seamless but also easy to implement.
In addition to the new 13" MacBook Pro and 15" MacBook Pro, Apple is also launching a ‘base’ model for the 13" MacBook Pro. This model doesn’t have the touchbar, the Touch ID sensor and only has 2 Thunderbolt 3/USB C ports instead of the 4 available on the higher-end models — apart from these differences, the ‘base’ model is identical to the new 13" MacBook Pro. Apple would have been better served if they just branded the base model as a 13" MacBook and separated it from the Pro lineup.
The new MacBook Pros are available in the standard 13” and 15” sizes, but in two colors: the original silver and new space gray. The MacBook Pro ‘base’ model is available in stores now and the new 13" MacBook Pro and 15" MacBook Pro with the touchbar will be available in November. The ‘base’ model starts at $1,499, the 13" MacBook Pro with the touchbar starts at $1,799 and the 15" MacBook Pro starts at $2,399.
Should You Buy One?
Yes if,
- Your MacBook is atleast 4 years old, then the new MacBooks will provide a significant improvement in processor speed and display technology.
- You want all the cutting edge hardware in consumer technology.
- Your profession is heavily dependent on video editing, animation and picture editing.
- You don’t mind carrying some dongles.
- You’re an app developer.
- You’re buying your first laptop and you don’t like Windows or Linux.
- You want to.
No if,
- You bought a MacBook in the last 2 years and feel that it’s working well for you.
- You are heavily reliant on a SD card slot and hate carrying dongles.
- You are a gamer who wants the best-in-class graphics performance.
- You love the glowing Apple logo.
- You don’t want to.
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The Apple promo video that covers the new MacBook and all of its features is linked below:
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVPRkcczXCY[/embed]
