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New 13-inch MacBook Pro

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161–170 of 1001 posts

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#161
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, competitors are still behind Apple. They offer worse touchpad, worse screens (it's either 16:9 or weird resolution), no macOS, worse speakers, worse microphone, worse battery.

The resolution part is insane . I use my work Macbook at 125% scaling, which would be equivalent to 100% on a WQHD screen. There are some available on some very specific (expensive) ThinkPads from a generation I don't want and the new Ryzen ASUS Zephyrus G14 (but it seems like they absolutely don't want to sell it, I seriously have found no listing for it after spending a long time hunting down the actual model code)…

Razor has a 17” laptop that can be configured to have a 4K display, but you also have to upgrade the GPU to a RTX 2080 Max-Q. The RAM and storage is end user replaceable though and you’d have an absolute beast of a machine that could handle pretty much anything you’ll ever throw at it. It is $3700 though. https://www.razer.com/gaming-laptops/razer-blade-pro/shop

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#162

I was curious how the 13 inch was priced so I compared it to a new Dell XPS 13. Dell has a better processor (maybe, [2]) , but I couldn't find the option to upgrade the Dell to 4TB internal SSD, so I compared both with the 2 TB option. Ram is the same at 32GB. Dell came out to $2399[0] USD and Apple came out to $2999[1] USD. Dell Pros: * Row of function buttons (I've used BTT to customize my touch-bar to the point wh…

> and how the new Mac Pro is actually a Pro machine that they're headed back in the right direction (post Jony Ive).

Hardly, considering the lack of professional tools support outside Hollywood movie makers.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#163
post #15

Interesting to see they upgraded the RAM, but still kept it LPDDR3, even though all other Macs have DDR4 (except for the MacBook Air, which as LPDDR4X). At this price point I would honestly expect DDR4 in a "Pro" machine.

It's interesting. From the GPU and the remainder of the configuration (2 USB-C ports), the two cheaper models seem to be the same as the 2019 MacBook Pro, but with the fixed keyboard plus double the SSD storage for the same price. If this is the case, then the CPU/GPU are even weaker than the mid-2018 4 USB-C ports model.

Which raises the question, why would anyone (who doesn't care about the Touch Bar) buy the 1499 MacBook Pro and not the 1499 MacBook Air? The Air is slower in multi-core benchmarks, but offers double the SSD at that price (512GB), has 3733‑MHz LPDDR4 memory, and has a more power-efficient 10th generation CPU, AVX-512, and probably better GPU.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#164
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, competitors are still behind Apple. They offer worse touchpad, worse screens (it's either 16:9 or weird resolution), no macOS, worse speakers, worse microphone, worse battery.

Apple is still behind Lenovo. They don't have the TrackPoint, only glossy screens, not even 16:9, no Linux support, only one battery instead of two replacable ones, and so on.

I no longer care about removable batteries. I finally recycled my 2011 MacBook Air late last year, after 8 years of hard service doing development work on the go. The battery had half of what it once had, but the CPU and Ram could no longer keep up.

Removable batteries were more important back when batteries sucked, now they last the life of the machine.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#165

I was curious how the 13 inch was priced so I compared it to a new Dell XPS 13. Dell has a better processor (maybe, [2]) , but I couldn't find the option to upgrade the Dell to 4TB internal SSD, so I compared both with the 2 TB option. Ram is the same at 32GB. Dell came out to $2399[0] USD and Apple came out to $2999[1] USD. Dell Pros: * Row of function buttons (I've used BTT to customize my touch-bar to the point wh…

I think "better processor" can only fall into the Dell camp if it's confirmed that they're running it at a 25W TDP all-the-time and not the default 15W, or else Apple's chip choices will likely win because they can consume more power (but I don't know the actual model #s Apple is using).

Yeah, that's the stupid part about tech specs honestly--so many hidden caveats--I always thought it was interesting that Apple benchmarks usually outperform competitors when comparing similar hardware, usually to things like this.

Mostly annoyed now, because you are correct, it's running at 15W[0][1].

[0] https://imgur.com/a/ry5eAIy

[1] source for [0] (pg 11) https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/xps-13-7390-2-in-1-laptop_se...

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#166

I was curious how the 13 inch was priced so I compared it to a new Dell XPS 13. Dell has a better processor (maybe, [2]) , but I couldn't find the option to upgrade the Dell to 4TB internal SSD, so I compared both with the 2 TB option. Ram is the same at 32GB. Dell came out to $2399[0] USD and Apple came out to $2999[1] USD. Dell Pros: * Row of function buttons (I've used BTT to customize my touch-bar to the point wh…

The Apple list is shorter because you ignored nearly all of the differentiating features enabled by the Apple ecosystem. You also ignored many of the non-obvious details of the Mac hardware.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? Hasn't DDR3 been phased out nearly everywhere about 5 years ago?

LP = low power. It gives Apple laptops incredible sleep times, and Apple will take LPDDR3 over DDR4 given that choice.

LPDDR4 (X) is a thing...

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#168

I was curious how the 13 inch was priced so I compared it to a new Dell XPS 13. Dell has a better processor (maybe, [2]) , but I couldn't find the option to upgrade the Dell to 4TB internal SSD, so I compared both with the 2 TB option. Ram is the same at 32GB. Dell came out to $2399[0] USD and Apple came out to $2999[1] USD. Dell Pros: * Row of function buttons (I've used BTT to customize my touch-bar to the point wh…

I have an older XPS 13 with a glass screen (same design but previous generation) and one big annoyance is that every time you open the laptop, the screen will have grease marks across the centre where the keys have touched the glass while closed.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#169

I've a macbook pro 13' 2017 - It's the worst laptop I've used in the past 10 years. It continuously gets smoking hot lot of fan noise and very often kernel panics. I have lost faith in apple macbook especially when price to hardware ratio is higher than anyone else in the industry I expect the machine to just work seamlessly. I'm very soon disposing the laptop and buy a dell or a thinkpad. I'm not looking at apple ag…

I have same model at work and even ignoring the keyboard the thing has been awful to use. The two ports are a complete nightmare making you have to juggle between power/screen and reliable storage (Tried 5 dongles, none can hold a drive reliably under heavy use).

Kernel Panics on waking from sleep almost every day, bluetooth chip crashes and requires restarts to get working again.

Not to mention the disgustingly low storage in the base model that my company thinks is fine makes the thing almost unusable for any semblance of "Professional" work other than being a journalist.

The design doesn't even feel modern and the bezels are janky compared to whats normal now on the windows side. I understand the new model fixes some of this, but they still thought this thing was absolutely fine to ship for several years now speaks volumes to me.

Re: New 13-inch MacBook Pro

#170

I was curious how the 13 inch was priced so I compared it to a new Dell XPS 13. Dell has a better processor (maybe, [2]) , but I couldn't find the option to upgrade the Dell to 4TB internal SSD, so I compared both with the 2 TB option. Ram is the same at 32GB. Dell came out to $2399[0] USD and Apple came out to $2999[1] USD. Dell Pros: * Row of function buttons (I've used BTT to customize my touch-bar to the point wh…

I cannot agree more. At least for myself i would add MacOS as a huge plus over any other laptop. I know many people work in Linux but I just for the life of me cannot make it as comfortable as MacOS.
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