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Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

businessinsider.com

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Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#171

Post by Philipp__ »

RandomOpinion wrote: post #138
mmjaa wrote: post #19

I've had mine for a week now, and have been able to use it alongside my late-2014 rMBP, which has been a solid workhorse. I'm starting to notice very subtle preferences for the 2017 model creeping in - after an hour of typing, for example, going back to the old keyboard feels really, really inefficient and antiquated, and my typing rate is lower than on the new rMBP. I also really enjoy the Touchbar - it hasn't been…

> binding ESCAPE to Caps Lock has been an acceptable re-configuration for me as a vim user I've seen a lot of people say this but I dunno. I'm kind of leery of doing something that would cause me to develop problematic muscle memory when typing on normal keyboards, e.g. on other people's machines. I have enough trouble flipping between Mac and Windows keyboard shortcuts already.

Rebinding Ctrl to Caps Lock key was the lifechaning experience for me (I started to use Emacs for some things, and I couldn't stand using Ctrl down there). And as a matter of Vim, there are plenty of solutions to rebind exit to something like `jk` or use `Ctrl+[`.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#172

Post by lttlrck »

JBiserkov wrote: post #130
drakenot wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been having Safari issues since I updated to Sierra. Every once in awhile Safari will peg my CPU at ~250% and brings my computer to a standstill. I took a screenshot of the activity monitor while this was going on[0]. Note that this wasn't the "Safari Web Content" process, which I typically see where there is a rogue tab doing something crazy. This was simply the Safari process itself. The only extension I have…

I'm not familiar with the activity monitor, what does 247.9% even mean?! Two cores at 100% and one at 47.9%?

Yes - though it's a little more abstract. Those 57 threads could be occupying the available cores in any number of ways to get to 247.9%

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#173

Post by fpgeek »

IBM wrote: post #149
spilk wrote: post #135

Honestly to me the worst thing about the new MacBook Pro isn't that there are no legacy ports on it or that the battery may be smaller, it's that the new all-things-for-all-people ports it has are confusing. The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can y…

In practice most people aren't going to have multiple Macbooks, and if that's you you should go to Monoprice and just get different color cables for different types.

People? So Apple isn't interested in selling to families and couples anymore?

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#174

Post by fauigerzigerk »

jnbiche wrote: post #67
duggan wrote: post #33

This is an article that (incompletely) summarizes the Consumer Reports article[1]. The reason for the wildly varying performance appears to be due to a bug (presumably) in Safari. They had consistent results with Chrome: > Once our official testing was done, we experimented by conducting the same battery tests using a Chrome browser, rather than Safari. For this exercise, we ran two trials on each of the laptops, and…

The fact that Apple would ship a version of Safari that so deeply affected the battery of their newest MBP is concerning, and perhaps illustrative of why many MBP afficionados are so upset about the situation.

No excuse for shipping buggy software, but it has to be said that Safari uses a lot less CPU than other browsers under normal circumstances. I wonder how they do it.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#175

Post by grandalf »

krinchan wrote: post #151
spilk wrote: post #135

Honestly to me the worst thing about the new MacBook Pro isn't that there are no legacy ports on it or that the battery may be smaller, it's that the new all-things-for-all-people ports it has are confusing. The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can y…

Actually it isn't precisely Apple's fault. It's the USB-IFs fault. USB 3.1 in general is a mess. The spec allows for Alternate Modes, where the port is hardwired on the Motherboard to be able to be switched to deliver DisplayPort, HDMI, MHL, Thunderbolt, and damn near anything else you can figure out how to mux over the port's pins and cheaply demux on the other end of the cable. The best part is no one will actually…

So the alternate modes are required for proper operation? Or will it fall back to a standard mode and still work?

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#176

Post by grandalf »

rayiner wrote: post #78
alberth wrote: post #75

71.8 watt-hour: 2013 13" MacBook Pro [1] 49.2 watt-hour: 2016 13" MacBook Pro Touch [2] Why are so many people surprised that the battery life went down from ~10 hours down to ~7 hours? When the physical battery size is only ~70% of the previous model, it's no surprise the new MacBook Pro only gets ~7 hours of battery life. [1] https://support.apple.com/kb/sp691?locale=en_US [2] http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs…

The really disconcerting thing here is that this is the first macbook in 10 years to be a major regression on key points. Since the first Intel macbook, Apple has focused on core competencies: good touchpad, good screen, good battery life. Every generation got consistently better on those dimensions. PC vendors will do stuff like ship a great touchpad one generation and a shit one the next, but you could generally co…

If you work at Apple there are likely chargers all over the place so you don't realize that some people actually do care about battery life.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#177

Post by mgkimsal »

timemachiner wrote: post #162
mgkimsal wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had one for about 10 days, and do java dev (intellij/jetbrains stuff). I got 5-6 hours, then did the 10.12.2 update, and initially battery estimate went up a lot (15-16 hours initially) but it would ramp down sharply when real work was being done. I was seeing ~10% of the battery drain in an hour, meaning I probably could have done 9.5 hours of moderate work. Heavy duty dev (java/compiling, etc) I probably would ha…

I'm doing to do more intensive programming on mine in the coming days after Christmas and see what hours I get. If dissatisfied I'll return it by Jan 8th for a full refund. I need an all day programming machine for school. Thanks for your input on the 2015 model.

There were some refurb 2015 models I wanted last night for about 4 hours, but I wasn't in a position to order right at that moment (driving, in meetings, etc). Got home, and they're gone! :/ Will keep looking, and ebay/CL generally have some decent ones now and then too.

Benchmarks between 2015 and 2016 were within 1% on geekbench for most tests, and 2016 was often the slower one. Hard to justify $1000+ more for... not much more in the day to day benefit (but as you know, the 2016 is a pretty slick feeling machine, no doubt).

Oh, and 6 hours on battery for heavy use is pretty good - I currently get 2-3 now, on a 2012 battery that is 1200+ cycles in.

I may still go back to 2016 - we'll see. Good luck!

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#178

Post by slantyyz »

rayiner wrote: post #84
slantyyz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can make 32GB with current chipsets but chose not to for battery life. Given the outcry, they can put less efficient RAM in a newer model. The people asking for 32GB aren't newbies and presumably are willing to pay the price in battery life in exchange for the extra RAM. If I were in the market for a new Macbook Pro (I'm not), I'd be willing to make the sacrifice in battery life for the extra RAM, because I woul…

> If I were in the market for a new Macbook Pro (I'm not), I'd be willing to make the sacrifice in battery life for the extra RAM, because I would try to make the MBP last for at least 5 years. If you can afford an rMBP with 32GB of RAM, why do you need it to last five years? I buy Apple laptops refurbished 6-8 months after they come out, then sell after two years (when they still have a good amount of value). Comes…

Refurb supply is less predictable than BTO supply.

Because we're talking about soldered on RAM on a super high priced laptop, I tend to think refurb supply of those machines is going to be very small since fewer people are buying them in the first place.

And even if I bought a 32GB refurb, I'd expect it to last at least 5 years if the CPU is recent. IMO, you're not getting big enough performance gains every two years on the top quad core i7 chips that would make it worth the hassle to flip the computer. It's not like the old days where you could just pop your SSD/HD out and stick it in the new Mac. I find CCC/Time Capsule restores to be a pain in the ass.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#179

Post by samch »

sprite wrote: post #32
mgkimsal wrote: post #28

Had one for about 10 days, returned it for a variety of factors, but overall, it was a nice machine. But for my workload, I think I'll move to a 2015 if I can get the config I want - should be ~ $1000 cheaper for about 95% of the benefit (some weight, some speed, retina screen, etc). $3700 ($3500 + tax) ended up feeling just a bit too much for the speed/value. Apparently, though, if I wait a bit longer, we might see…

I really hope so. The 16gb ram limit is what's keeping me from pulling the trigger on one.

I'm in the same boat. My current MBP is a 2012 model, yet it has 16GB of RAM already. The biggest boost I would hope to see in a new MBP would come from increasing the RAM (I do a lot of work with large data sets and ETL, plus I run VMs concurrently with MacOS).

There are now enough competitors (Dell and Lenovo for sure) with 32GB that I was among those who were genuinely surprised that Apple kept the cap at 16GB.

Re: Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports

#180

Post by tbagman »

pash wrote: post #170
spilk wrote: post #135

Honestly to me the worst thing about the new MacBook Pro isn't that there are no legacy ports on it or that the battery may be smaller, it's that the new all-things-for-all-people ports it has are confusing. The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can y…

> The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape. For instance, I have a Windows desktop machine with a single USB-C port on the back, but it's not a Thunderbolt 3 port. So while I c…

> If you can plug it in, it will work

Unfortunately, this hasn't been my experience. As an example, I have a display-port-based Apple cinema display, and I bought this adapter to try to connect it to a new macbook pro 15":

  http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter
The physical size of the connectors are compatible, of course; you can plug the monitor into the thunderbolt-2-side of the adapter, and you can plug the thunderbolt-3-side of the adapter into the laptop. But, since the adapter isn't display-port compatible, no joy.

If I remember correctly (and I might not), the apple store page for this adapter didn't originally carry a warning about this, but instead had text that made it easy to misunderstand whether this would work. The text on the page has changed.

As a weaker example, I have an LG 27UD88 Monitor. The USB-C connection from it works, but only carries 60W of charging "oomph," and the 15" macbook pro needs 85W of charging. So, even though the menubar icon on the mac signals that charging is happening, the battery is actually depleting over time. (Yeah, this one is more caveat emptor than the other, but still.)

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