Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

16-inch MacBook Pro

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 1001 posts

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#311

Post by scarface74 »

John Gruber’s review

https://daringfireball.net/

And before everyone accuses him of being an Apple fanboy and biased, there is no disputing that he is very much a keyboard snob. He hated the last generation keyboard and he called it out during his initial review. He also famously still prefers an old ADB Apple Keyboard and he never bought a laptop with the old one.

He’s also linked to a lot of articles criticizing it.

If he praises it, I think you can trust him.

Edit:

And Marco Arment’s review. He’s never pulled punches when it comes to Apple’s hardware, their development tools, or the quality of the OS frameworks. He’s gushing over the review unit.

https://marco.org/2019/11/13/mbp16

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#313

Post by BurningFrog »

criddell wrote: post #292
charleshan wrote: post #184

Don't forget that the Touch Bar costs an additional $400 for consumers. The 2015 model was the best MacBook Pro. Perhaps the best laptop yet.

It always seemed backwards that the touch bar is a pro feature. Aren't pros the group that learn all the keyboard commands? The touch bar seems like it would be most useful to non-pro users.

Yeah, I think "pro" just means "expensive" :)

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#314

Post by lame88 »

charleshan wrote: post #184

Don't forget that the Touch Bar costs an additional $400 for consumers. The 2015 model was the best MacBook Pro. Perhaps the best laptop yet.

Problem is the video card performance is absolute garbage on that thing. Somehow seeming to perform even worse than a prior model I had.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#315

Post by abtinf »

insta_anon wrote: post #242

Can someone explain to me how Apple can justify only including a 720p FaceTime HD camera into the "the world’s best pro notebook"? The last iPhone that had this FaceTime camera was the 6S, released in 2015. Since the iPhone 7 (2016) the phones have had at least a 1080p FaceTime camera. Given that FaceTime / Skype calls are such a common use case and rarely anyones uses external webcams anymore, why doesn't Apple use…

I wish they would take advantage of the thickness of the panel to make a bigger camera with a bigger lens. I don’t care about resolution at all, but I suspect conference call image quality might increase dramatically if it the lens could gather double the light.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#317

Post by computerex »

pcr910303 wrote: post #218
ses1984 wrote: post #80

"I'm so glad this model has a touchbar" "I would buy a dell xps but only if it had a touchbar" things no one ever said.

> "I'm so glad this model has a touchbar" I'm so glad this model has a Touch Bar. I have seen numerous people who have a MBP 2016 or later which just can't use computers without the Touch Bar experience. If somebody doesn't find it useful, that's OK, but please, there are a lot of people (who doesn't loudly complain at HN) that finds the Touch Bar useful & incorporates it in one's workflow. I for myself uses my Touch…

The thing is, you are bound to come across someone who finds a feature useful even if the feature is not useful for the vast majority of the people. I like Apple laptops and own a MBP myself, but I definitely think that the butterfly keyboard and touchbar hurt Apple's reputation. The butterfly keyboard has had a lot of technical problems which is frustrating for the users and hurts Apple's bottom line due to the repair costs. The typing experience on the butterfly keyboard is also not the best due to lack of travel.

The touchbar is a flawed design concept imho. The entire reason I touch type is so that I don't have to look down from my screen. My eyes remain on the screen for 99% of the time I am working. It's jarring and discontinuous for me to have to look down to use the touchbar. That's why I personally never liked it. I think the tactile feedback of a real physical button is essential.

I think Apple realizes this already to some extent because they went and added a physical escape key.

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#318

Post by hombre_fatal »

insta_anon wrote: post #242

Can someone explain to me how Apple can justify only including a 720p FaceTime HD camera into the "the world’s best pro notebook"? The last iPhone that had this FaceTime camera was the 6S, released in 2015. Since the iPhone 7 (2016) the phones have had at least a 1080p FaceTime camera. Given that FaceTime / Skype calls are such a common use case and rarely anyones uses external webcams anymore, why doesn't Apple use…

Same issue with the super weak bluetooth antennae in macbooks.

My iphone6's bluetooth antennae lets me walk all over the house while listening to something with my headphones (an essential modern experience!) while my $2000+ macbook pro will barely let me leave the room without losing connection.

Wifi antennae too. On bad internet, my laptop cannot even connect to a wap that my phone can, so I'll tether my phone to get internet.

I want my laptop to be a portable powerhouse of connectivity too!

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#319

Post by CGamesPlay »

1_player wrote: post #182
Someone1234 wrote: post #22

Holy heck, they re-added a physical escape key. That's a huge improvement. a slight shame they didn't just move the touchbar up and re-add the F key row too, but it is a good compromise and improvement regardless. This could be the one a lot of people have been waiting for if the new switches/design pans out. PS - Although I might be an unusual demographic as I touch type and wouldn't use the touchbar regardless (sin…

> physical escape key I'm happy we VIM users have been loud enough to get the most important key back. :-) I know there's Ctrl-[ but it's 20 years of muscle memory to retrain, and I don't want to do that.

I’ve only been using vim for about 10 years but I’m pretty sure I’ve hit escape less than a few thousand times in those years. One of the first things I did was imap jk and it turns out that’s really all I need Escape for (Ctrl-C is goto to return to normal mode)...

Re: 16-inch MacBook Pro

#320

Post by optimuspaul »

benjymo wrote: post #256
ses1984 wrote: post #80

"I'm so glad this model has a touchbar" "I would buy a dell xps but only if it had a touchbar" things no one ever said.

I may be in the minorty and like the touch bar. Intellij, Outlook and Apple's own programs integrate it very well. Phyisical keys are great but 12 buttons labelled F1 to F12 with different functions depending on the program also isn't he pinnacle of UX.

I also like the Touch Bar and I think this..

>Phyisical keys are great but 12 buttons labelled F1 to F12 with different functions depending on the program also isn't he pinnacle of UX

x1000. Function keys have almost always been useless to me. Once in a while I will remember what one is mapped to and use it, but for the most part they go unused.

Post reply on HN