Live data from Hacker News

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

businessinsider.com

161–170 of 440 posts

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

#161
post #155
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…

I've gotten myself into a stupid situation where I have purchased something like 4 adapters that don't accomplish what I thought they would when I bought them. USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to HDMI -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to DVI-D -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to Ethernet - doesn't work I'm actually planning to just go to Best Buy today and try to find anything that will…

And I suppose Apple has also made a healthy profit, either directly or through licensing on each of the purchases?

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

#162

Mine is 15", 16GB, 512G, 455 model. I'm a student and use it for programming, checking emails and browsing sites. I program in Java using Eclipse and in Python using Jupyter Notebook. I browse using Safari and keep tabs of time estimates in the Activity Monitor Energy tab. First 2-3 days I was getting 5 hour estimates. Since then it increased to 8-10 and now has increased to 14.5 hours. I keep it unplugged for 6 hour…

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.

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

#163
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno man, my eyes glazed over somewhere in the middle of that third paragraph and I'm just happy I don't have to deal with any of that. Think they'll wise up and change any of it on the next model?

"Steve never would have backed down, remove more ports!" is how that product meeting will go.

"The future is wireless!"

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apple is lauded for making confusing technology simple. It's not Apple's fault, it's Apple's missed opportunity and it's our high expectations of Apple that are being eroded.

This! Thing is that situation with ports and adapters has never been worse, but Apple came there, wanted to be first again that will pull the plug on old technology and embrace the new one! But their execution was a miss. But anyway, my predictions are that from 2017. every Apple machine, wether it's computer or iPhone or iPad, will go down the USB-C route. Most probably next iPhone would use USB-C. And I just hope 2016. will be the year that was bad, and won't happen again. Since some Apple's small decisions were completely off, and we as costumers (or fans), are not used to it.

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

#165

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, I believe so. It was pegging multiple cores.

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

#166
I was getting the MBP 2016 13" a couple of days ago; best equipment you can buy in 13", 3300 EUR brutto.

Before (or still) I have a MBPR 13" Late 2015, also with max RAM, max CPU; 2400 brutto until 2 months ago. That is still running on El Capitan, the new one Sierra of course. System was migrated, so simlilar software stack (besides the OS version).

My typical application list looks like: Pycharm, PHPStorm (~3 projects open at a time), Vagrant, Virtualbox, Chrome with many tabs, Firefox with less tabs, minor stuff like Sublime, Terminal windows, iTunes etc.

Besides the critics on keyboard (especially the arrows issue), connection ports (try to buy a good usb c - displayport cable), which i would all consider as "managable".. To me this laptop is a bad joke if I see the battery time and performance.

Given my usage profile, which I think should be handled by the super expensive top model of a "premium company", this laptop does only a minimum (if at all) better performance. The base cpu usage on my older one, having all open and doing nothing ist at 9%. Same thing for the newer one is 13%. There is nothing that works obviously faster, general "snappyness" when working is subjectively worse due to wakeup delays from the OS power optimisation magic.

About the battery time I can only say, that 4hours is max for me at ~80% brightness. I'm also sure that the new MBP drains battery faster, meaning has less runtime (though i cannot provide exact measurements).

As a good thing to say: the display is fantastic and of course it looks nice.

After less than a week this device is not worth its money and does nothing more for me than what I have for roughly 1/3 less money and more than a year old.

It is sent back.

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

#167
post #161
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten myself into a stupid situation where I have purchased something like 4 adapters that don't accomplish what I thought they would when I bought them. USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to HDMI -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to DVI-D -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to Ethernet - doesn't work I'm actually planning to just go to Best Buy today and try to find anything that will…

And I suppose Apple has also made a healthy profit, either directly or through licensing on each of the purchases?

Apple receives licensing fees on USB Type C?

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

#168
post #161
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten myself into a stupid situation where I have purchased something like 4 adapters that don't accomplish what I thought they would when I bought them. USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to HDMI -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to DVI-D -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to Ethernet - doesn't work I'm actually planning to just go to Best Buy today and try to find anything that will…

And I suppose Apple has also made a healthy profit, either directly or through licensing on each of the purchases?

[deleted]

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

#169
post #77

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…

> They can make 32GB with current chipsets but chose not to for battery life. This is false dichotomy. There are alternatives, parallel decisions. They could've decided to not sacrifice weight or size for battery power. This'd have made the MBP Pro, not Air like it is now. You used to buy a MBP for several years, so it'd need good battery power. The new MBPs are all less good with battery power, than the 2015 version…

>> This is false dichotomy.

Sure, but I'm just going by what Schiller has said publicly about the low power RAM chips being the reason for sticking with 16GB.

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

#170
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 could physically plug in a Thunderbolt 3-only device, it wouldn't function at all.

There is no such thing as a "Thunderbolt 3-only device". Support for USB 3.1 is a part of the Thunderbolt 3 spec, and in your example the Windows machine and the device would talk to one another over USB 3.1.

If you can plug it in, it will work: every device with a standards-compliant USB-C port will work with any other device with a standards-compliant USB-C port. The only question is which underlying protocol will be used; in the worst case, it will be USB 3.1, and if both devices support Thunderbolt 3, it will be something fancier.

Post reply on HN