
Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports - temp
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-macbook-pro-2016-consumer-reports-2016-12
======
spilk
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 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.

Thunderbolt 3 is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 1/2 via an adapter, but
the Thunderbolt 2 adapter that Apple sells does not function identically to a
Thunderbolt 2 port on previous generation Macs - e.g. you cannot plug a Mini
DisplayPort display into it. Thunderbolt displays do work with it though.

Also, the lower-end 12" MacBook that Apple sells with a single USB-C port is
NOT a Thunderbolt 3 port, so you have to know which devices that have
identical connectors will work with it. Apple makes the distinction on its
peripherals by screenprinting a little Thunderbolt logo onto the
cable/connector housing. The messaging was reinforced with corresponding
Thunderbolt logos next to the connectors on previous iterations of the
MacBooks - making it obvious that these ports were not just Mini DisplayPorts
but also Thunderbolt ports - but the new 2016 models don't appear to have
anything like that on the hardware.

Additionally, there are USB-C cables and Thunderbolt 3 cables. Thunderbolt 3
cables are apparently higher-spec and will always work as USB-C cables, but
the opposite is not necessarily true.

~~~
0x09
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 let me plug this into my old monitor here even if it has to be the
official USB-C to VGA cable from Apple since I don't have time to wait for
shipping at this point.

I suppose this is my own fault but somehow I've never had this kind of problem
in ~20 years of using a computer.

Edit: There are also currently very few resources about compatibility between
all these new adapters and Apple hasn't done anything to help in their spec
info so it's really just a guessing game right now.

~~~
Bud
You can't expect an off-brand USB-C adapter to be able to fully support
DisplayPort. USB-C does not natively contain DisplayPort. Also, don't daisy-
chain adapters when you don't have to. Use a USB-C to HDMI adapter. Such as
this one:

[http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-
av...](http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av-multiport-
adapter?afid=p238%7Cs3kpSGqXc-
dc_mtid_1870765e38482_pcrid_52243316890_&cid=aos-us-kwgo-pla-btb--slid--
product-MJ1K2AM/A)

~~~
izacus
There is NO first party official Apple DisplayPort adapter. There actually is
no first party adapter that would support 4k@60Hz officialy. It gets even more
annoying since most 4K monitors made in last year will support 4k@60Hz only
over DP, not HDMI.

I went through 2 adapters before I got one that actually worked with the new
2016 MacBook. Which was incredibly annoying.

~~~
010a
That's because you don't need an adapter to use DisplayPort with TB3 (on the
MBP). Just purchase the correct [1] cable; the MBP implements DP as an
alternate mode.

[1]
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EZH7CKO/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EZH7CKO/)

~~~
seanp2k2
I want ONE CABLE for everything. That was the promise, I thought. I want
2x4k@60hz + power + 3 USB3 with one connector going to the tbMBP. Apparently
this is not possible.

~~~
qyv
Instead you have 4 identical ports that all do the same things poorly.

------
mmjaa
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 too intrusive, and binding
ESCAPE to Caps Lock has been an acceptable re-configuration for me as a vim
user.

Speed: okay, it seems slightly faster than the old machine, but then the old
machine is 95% full while new-rMBP is not even 5% full yet, so .. no indexing
hassles. (old-rMBP would often become unusable during Spotlight re-indexing..)

All in all, I'm happy with the upgrade - but with one huge big fat caveat: I
didn't buy it. My work did. If it weren't for this fact, I'd be very reluctant
to upgrade..

~~~
thought_alarm
How do you deal with the arrow keys?

I like the feel of the keyboard, but I found absolutely no way to orient my
fingers over the arrow keys. There is no way tell whether I'm hitting the up
arrow or the right shift.

As someone who works with text, it's a deal breaker for me.

~~~
HalfwayToDice
Yes I don't understand why more people aren't talking about this. The new
left/right cursor layout is awful for me, I keep having to look down at the
keyboard.

~~~
mmjaa
>How do you deal with the arrow keys?

I'm a vim user, so its hjkl all the way.. for the most part. And while I do
agree that the older invert-T configuration of the arrow keys was ergonomic
and sensible, I've found myself not having any problem with locating the arrow
keys on the new 2017-rMBP due to the fact that the gap between up/down is also
pretty easy to find by feel.

I guess I might be a little more tolerant for this change than most, since I
try to change my keyboard every 6 months (for RSI reasons) anyway, and am also
a keys/synth player with a room full of diverse haptic interfaces. But I do
understand the frustration of having these ergonomics yanked out from under us
by Apple ..

------
duggan
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 found battery life to be
> consistently high on all six runs.

I've been using a 13" MacBook Pro (without Touch Bar) for six weeks now, and
have found the battery life very impressive (I use Chrome rather than Safari).

[1]: [http://www.consumerreports.org/laptops/macbook-pros-fail-
to-...](http://www.consumerreports.org/laptops/macbook-pros-fail-to-earn-
consumer-reports-recommendation/)

~~~
jnbiche
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.

~~~
drakenot
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 installed is 1Password which I've
temporarily disabled to ensure it wasn't causing the issue. It isn't.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/YDv7c](https://imgur.com/a/YDv7c)

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

~~~
stouset
This is how CPU usage has been calculated across Windows, macOS, Linux, and
the BSDs practically as long as multiple cores have been a thing.

~~~
Tempest1981
Windows? Last I checked, the max is 100%. Pegging 1 core of a Core i7 shows
25%. Probably a more consumer-friendly way to measure. But 400% sounds cooler.

------
nilkn
The only complaint I really have about the new MBP is the price. MBPs have
always been expensive relative to the specs, and I've always been okay with
that. But it seems Apple's pushing their margins up even higher and have
eliminated more affordable options (e.g., a 15" model without a discrete GPU
-- I personally have no need for the GPU, but really wanted the extra screen
real estate).

After Apple Care and taxes, I ended up dropping over $3k on my 2016 15" MBP.
This makes it the most expensive laptop I've ever owned.

Just a few points that might be of interest:

* Battery life has legitimately been fine for me. I consistently get 8-10 hours of light work (working in the terminal and browser). Despite all the battery life complaints, this is actually the best battery life I've personally gotten on any MBP I've owned.

* I love the trackpad. It's comically large, but I adapted fast, and the palm rejection has been working really well for me.

* The Touch Bar makes sense and is well-implemented. It's not revolutionary and I wouldn't recommend getting the laptop because it has the touch bar. But it's a legitimate (if small) step forward in usability. It is not without its compromises (e.g., no physical escape key), but I've found I adapted to the compromises very quickly.

* The form factor is incredibly portable for a 15" laptop.

* The port situation isn't a big deal for me personally because I don't use this laptop as a desktop replacement and rarely have any need for the ports.

* I'm fine with the keyboard. It's very satisfyingly clicky, and I can type very fast on it, just as fast as any other keyboard. I wouldn't say I prefer it to more traditional keyboards; it's not a big deal to me either way.

~~~
IBM
I think price is the only real complaint I have as well. I've only bought
Macbook Airs because they were thin and light even though I wanted the power
and connectivity of Macbook Pros. This is the first MBP that I want to buy.

By the time I'm ready to replace my 2012 MBA I expect the price will have
fallen.

------
detaro
The URL should be changed to [http://www.consumerreports.org/laptops/macbook-
pros-fail-to-...](http://www.consumerreports.org/laptops/macbook-pros-fail-to-
earn-consumer-reports-recommendation/), since this only reports on that.

~~~
latortuga
Honestly, the reporting in TFA is insightful, pointing out that Apple got
complaints about battery life and instead of addressing them, chose to paper
over it. Seems very relevant and, to borrow a phrase, wiggles its eyebrows
suggestively toward a troubling trend.

------
alberth
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](https://support.apple.com/kb/sp691?locale=en_US)

[2] [http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/](http://www.apple.com/macbook-
pro/specs/)

~~~
rayiner
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 count on each successive Apple laptop to
meet or beat its predecessor on those core metrics.

~~~
slantyyz
The problem is that reducing thickness is a selling point/feature for a lot of
people on Apple products, but the compromises made in exchange for thinness
cause problems for people who don't value thinness over other things.

Having said that, it's important to note that CR did not give the Macbook Pro
a Recommended badge (think of it as the equivalent to "Editor's Choice"), it
doesn't mean they're telling people not to buy them either. The headlines are
somewhat misleading about this.

Personally, even though I've left Macs because I don't like the direction
Apple has taken, I'm still hard pressed to say that the current crop of Macs
are horrible just because they don't cater to my specific needs. For the vast
majority of people looking for a higher end laptop, they're perfectly fine
(albeit pricy). I've gotten over the fact that "Pro" in Apple speak no longer
means "Workstation Class" (or something close to it).

~~~
eropple
_> The problem is that reducing thickness is a selling point/feature for a lot
of people on Apple products_

Is this actually true? Like...is there a material population of customers who
really care about this? Not joking. I know zero people who care about that, at
least for laptops. (I don't use an iPhone, so I don't pay attention to that
side of things.)

~~~
slantyyz
>> Is this actually true? Like...is there a material population of customers
who really care about this?

Based on my memory of mac-related laptop threads I've seen on HN, I believe it
is. It sorta begs the question - if it wasn't worth some marketing appeal, why
would Apple keep making devices thinner?

Personally I prefer a bigger laptop for a Macbook Pro (think 2012 and earlier
unibodies), but I tend to think I'm in the minority.

~~~
eropple
I can totally believe that Apple might have an internal consensus that it must
be true. I am less convinced that it _is_ true, though, y'know?

------
en4bz
For those looking for alternatives here's a short video [1] that looks at some
Windows based competitors in the same class. List below.

Dell XPS 15 - [http://amzn.to/2hZjqpT](http://amzn.to/2hZjqpT)

Asus UX501 - [http://amzn.to/2hLG9VW](http://amzn.to/2hLG9VW)

MSI GS63 - [http://amzn.to/2ik00Zf](http://amzn.to/2ik00Zf)

Gigabyte Aero14 - [http://amzn.to/2ijMxk6](http://amzn.to/2ijMxk6)

Razer Blade - [http://amzn.to/2hvyGHj](http://amzn.to/2hvyGHj)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLsDn59fxdQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLsDn59fxdQ)

~~~
rayiner
None of which, ironically, can match the new MBP in battery life.

~~~
en4bz
True, but you can get double the performance for half the price of the 2016
MBPro, a 4x perf/dollar improvement. Obviously you pay for this increase with
half the battery life.

~~~
rayiner
The XPS 15 has the same CPU as the MacBook 15" and gets much worse battery
life in the high-resolution configuration (and less battery life even with
just a 1080p display). It's also not much cheaper.

~~~
en4bz
I'm talking more about the Aero 14 and the GS63. Both of which are roughly
half the price and have GTX 1060s which have 2x the GPU performance.

------
otalp
> For instance, in a series of three consecutive tests, the 13- inch model
> with the Touch Bar ran for 16 hours in the first trial, 12.75 hours in the
> second, and just 3.75 hours in the third. The 13-inch model without the
> Touch Bar worked for 19.5 hours in one trial but only 4.5 hours in the next.
> And the numbers for the 15-inch laptop ranged from 18.5 down to 8 hours.

What could possibly the reason for such drastic variations in the same laptop,
over a short period of time, when the testing conditions remain consistent?

~~~
coldtea
When they say: "ran for 16 hours in the first trial, 12.75 hours in the
second, and just 3.75 hours in the third" they don't mean that each of the
three trials consists of the same load.

The mechanism sounds highly random too: "Consumer Reports tests battery life
using a real-world test: They turn on the laptop's screen and surf webpages
using Chrome. It's not a test based on benchmarking software or watching video
that wouldn't require internet access, and the publication said that even
recent software updates did not help the problem."

Such tests should be repeatable, with same webpages, durations of visit, etc
to have any meaning (and to be able to actually indicate issues with different
battery life, and not merely different load).

~~~
coob
Doesn't seem fair to base a test on using Chrome when Apple bundles a more
power efficient browser with the OS.

~~~
otalp
This is where it gets more bizarre. They did not use Chrome. According to
their website: "We conduct our battery tests using the computer’s default
browser—Safari, in the case of the MacBook Pro laptops."

They proceed to find serious aberrations with battery life under Safari.

Then they say, "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 found battery
life to be consistently high on all six runs."

Chrome giving much better battery results than Safari? That is unheard of.
It's not a software issue either. I can confirm that with the latest Chrome my
Air runs for about a third of the time that it runs with the latest Safari(I
have the most recent Sierra).

So this makes very little sense.

~~~
copperred
Any issue fixable by software is a software issue.

~~~
EpicEng
Haha, you've not written many hardware drivers I imagine. Sometimes a software
workaround is viable, but that doesn't mean the root cause is not a hardware
problem.

------
rayiner
Saw a 15" in the store the other day. It's the future, just not this
particular iteration. The form factor is awesome--my 15" rMBP is like a boat
in comparison. Make carrying a 15" as a daily driver much more practical (and
the extra screen space is a _big_ step up from 13-14" for getting work done).

The battery life will get fixed in successive iterations, I think. There is a
ton more space in there for bigger batteries:
[https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/cBFfrfQPrPBFgV1s](https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/cBFfrfQPrPBFgV1s).
Compare to how packed the old 15" is:
[https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/Jxqp6l2cEQn4olWQ.h...](https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/Jxqp6l2cEQn4olWQ.huge).

------
sprite
Good thing they removed the battery time remaining indicator. People will
never notice. /s

~~~
jjawssd
In macOS 10.12 sierra you can option-click on the battery indicator and click
on "show percentage".

Now the fact that they are trying to obfuscate how low you are on juice is
really damning

~~~
MiddleEndian
Show percentage is insufficient. If something in my behavior will cause the
battery to drop from 50% to 0% in one hour instead of six, I want to know
that.

~~~
JimDabell
You still do – that drop-down shows apps using significant energy, and if you
want more details, Activity Monitor shows per-process stats, graphs, and time
remaining.

~~~
MiddleEndian
That's still a big jump back in usability.

------
pansen
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.

~~~
pyrophane
It is the JetBrain software. I use IntelliJ with various language plugins. It
does a lot of work in the background to provide advanced features like
completion, even for dynamic languages like Python.

The problem, of course, is that the new CPUs are optimized to provide better
battery life under typical usage. If you've got something running in the
background that is constantly re-indexing your source code, then the CPU
optimizations aren't going to help you and a smaller battery is still a
smaller battery.

Also, a lot of that indexing can take advantage of multiple cores, so the jump
to a quad-core proc as in the 15" helps more than the minor boost in clock
speed is going to. I'm usually fine with a dual-core processor unless I'm
either trying to do big compilations (especially in Scala) or using JetBrains
IDEs. God help me if I'm trying to do both.

~~~
davidf18
The Skylake processor consumes less power than the Broadwell that was in the
previous model. This is particularly true on idle, but even when doing medium
tasks it is about 25% - 35% more efficient.

Near the bottom of this detailed review you can see some power consumption
tables for various laptops. [http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-
Pro-15-Late-2016-...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-
Pro-15-Late-2016-2-6-GHz-i7-Notebook-Review.185254.0.html)

------
outworlder
Good.

The error of the MacBook Pro is the 'Pro' part. It's supposedly being marketed
to professionals, but optimizing for one thing only, which is thinness. I
don't think anyone ever asked for the "old" MacBook Pro to be thinner. Maybe a
beefier CPU, maybe a GPU worth something, maybe more battery life. Or more
ports. But thinner? They used to have a very good product for that, and that's
the Air, which is now neglected.

Apple's product lineup is a mess. Like the time after Steve got kicked out.

Disclaimer: typing this on a 2015 15" MacBook Pro.

~~~
shanusmagnus
I'm so sick of exactly this. I can deal with a few tradeoffs for thin-ness,
with the idea that maybe it's Good For Me indirectly by moving the industry to
adapt to a thinner, more mobile vision.

But compromising on literally everything else about the computer just to get a
bit thinner (worse keyboard, smaller battery, worse graphics, less memory --
things I actually care about) is infuriating.

------
timemachiner
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 hours regularly
and the estimates have been consistent thus far with the 14.5. I haven't kept
it unplugged more than 6-7 hours but I am not afraid of it running out of
juice while I'm out and about. Suits my needs as a student.

~~~
mgkimsal
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 have got at least 6 hours, maybe a bit
more.... but I took mine back. Nice as it was, the price was just a bit hard
to swallow relative to performance - was not really expecting 1% diff from
2015 model. I have a 2012 model, so it was faster than mine, but I'm looking
at getting a 2015 and saving $1000.

~~~
timemachiner
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.

~~~
mgkimsal
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!

~~~
timemachiner
Thanks for the feedback! I hope you get a refurb 2015 soon, sounds like they
are selling out rather quickly! I have a fully spec'd out 2013 MBP 15" and the
battery last at most 3 hours under an intensive programming load. The cycle
count is nearing 1,000. I thought about saving money altogether by replacing
the battery / backing up the data on an external hard drive and resetting it
to factory. I do like the sleek design on the 2016 model and how light it is.
It makes it much easier to throw in my book bag along with my other notes /
books.

~~~
mgkimsal
Beware - it will dent that much easier too. And there were not (as of 2 weeks
ago) any cases for the 2016 MBP available for purchase.

------
mgkimsal
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 a 32g model next year?

~~~
s_kilk
> we might see a 32g model next year?

Wasn't this year supposed to be when 32GB landed?

~~~
rbanffy
Would have been if Intel had released a 32GB capable mobile chip that's not
slower than the last generation.

Probably it got delayed after the overall shape and size were set in stone, so
Apple had to go with the previous gen and work a miracle.

Or it was a conscious decision since this shape/size will be the base of all
laptops for the next few processor generations and will be supported for the
next 10 years or so.

~~~
skizm
How does the Dell XPS 15in or the Razer Blade laptops have 32gb of ram if
Intel doesn't support that much? Do they use different chips in their laptops?

~~~
otalp
Because the chips aren't optimised for that much RAM they sacrifice a lot of
battery life. Apple could theoretically ship these MacBook Pros with 32 gigs,
but their battery life would probably be halved.

~~~
Bud
More like quartered, from what I've read, i.e., reduced by 3/4.

Those gaming laptops which use full-power desktop RAM also weigh 8-10 lb and
they STILL have terrible battery life. They are effectively unusable without
being plugged in.

~~~
FireBeyond
The Razer Blade weighs 4.6lb, and the XPS 4.4.

Not "eight to ten pounds".

~~~
Bud
The Razer Blade Pro also has a laughable battery life: 2 hrs 45 min for WEB
SURFING. That's hilarious.

What that means is, probably less than an hour of battery life if you are
actually gaming, which is the raison d'etre of this laptop.

Laughable.

What would people say if Apple made a high-end professional machine with half
an hour of battery life? We'd never hear the end of it. Perfectly acceptable
in the PC world, though.

Nice cherry-picking, though. The desktop-replacement gaming laptops category
in general is indeed 8-11 pounds, just like I was saying:

Asus ROG G701V: 8.2 lb MSI Titan SLI: 11.6 lb Origin Eon17: 12.8 lb

Razer Blade Pro is 7.8 lb in the review I found, btw. Here:
[http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/razer-blade-
pro](http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/razer-blade-pro)

~~~
Dylan16807
If the ram's power use is the main problem, then that disproportionately
affects low-power uses. There's no reason to think gaming would have a
similarly crippled battery life.

Any idea how long the MBP lasts if you peg the GPU?

~~~
izacus
In my experience, the new 2016 15" with Radeon 460 will die in about 2 and a
half hours.

------
S_A_P
I'm pretty disappointed by the new mbp and the state of Mac in general for
several reasons. I've made pretty significant investments in the Mac
ecosystem. I bought a semi pro sound card(uad Apollo 8) tons of software audio
related plugins and logic and I don't have a lot of confidence that when it's
time to replace my 2014 mbp that there will be a viable Mac option to replace
it with. That immediately makes my sound card useless (thunderbolt connection)
and unless there's a Windows version of the plugins (most do have this) then
I'm out that money as well. I'm already looking at having a dongle if I want
to use the new mbp with a thunderbolt connection which feels like a hack.
Maybe this seems like first world problems but I bought into Mac on the
promise that they truly supported the "pro" community. It's looking more and
more like Tim Cook and company have forgotten that.

~~~
spilk
I think you probably mean Thunderbolt, or maybe Firewire, and not Lightning,
yes? Lightning is the connector found on iPhones.

I don't remember people complaining this much about adapters when the Firewire
800 port was a different form factor than the Firewire 400 port that came
before it - most of the equipment that plugged into it was "pro" level
hardware like you mention.

~~~
S_A_P
Yes thank you for the correction. I will edit the parent.

------
api
I'm calling it the MacBook Vista.

Ouch.

After seeing the touch bar, I think it's really not all that useful. I would
_much_ rather have seen more battery, RAM, faster CPU options, traditional USB
and HDMI, magsafe, and more SSD. Basically take the 2014-2015 MacBook Pro and
beef it up and I will be very happy.

People say it's selling. Of course it is. Mac still has a near-monopoly on
"Unix with good UI." But if they keep doing this, it will erode. Windows is
becoming nicer in many ways, MS and other PC hardware is getting better, Linux
desktop is steadily improving, etc. The ecosystem never stands still.

~~~
dashoffset
I really hope that better "Unix with good UI" laptops will exist in the
future. Right now, I'd rather buy a 2015 MBP than any of those "Dev Edition"
machines.

~~~
api
Over a decade of crawling on its belly at the bottom end of the market has
really taken a toll on PC hardware and the whole PC ecosystem. The bundling of
actual malware with PCs marks what I think is the low point. Dell's XPS
machines are starting to climb out of that hole, but it'll take some resolve.

------
Keyframe
I went to a store in order to try one out. I wanted what was in 15" model in a
13" form, but ok - I went out to at least check out the 15" model. Even though
I knew it was too big for my needs. What really surprised me was how bad the
keyboard was on new models. What's up with that? It feels like a cheap plastic
mockup of a keyboard. That turned me off completely. I hope they get their act
together within a year and push out new models which are better. I'd buy a 13"
version if it had what 15" has inside, but it doesn't. Other laptops look like
crap too. Razer (14) is either unavailable in Europe or reading about it and
looking at videos makes it look like not suitable for anything - bad battery
life and crappy vents (makes for screaming noise and heat down the road).
Shame, what would otherwise be a great laptop. Microsoft's Book thing is also
semi-unavailable, can't buy it (asked Microsoft, they've said it's not really
supported (retail) in Europe - wtf?), with Dell I had nothing but bad
experiences so it's a no-go from the start... situation is kind of dire.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
I'm still happy with the high-end Lenovo ThinkPads (currently using a W541) -
not as awesome as in the early 2000s but still very solid, well-built, great
keyboards, matte screens (but check if you mind this, I'm not sure if every
model has them) and with trackpoint, which becomes a must when you get used to
it.

~~~
guitarbill
I'm glad you've found something that works for you. I've had to use the W520,
W530, W540, and W541. And sorry to be so negative, but they all suck. At least
the W541 doesn't have chipset errors like e.g. W520 (x2APIC). But for 2016, I
find the W541 behind times. So just a heads up to others on HN thinking of
buying.

It's a huge, bulky machine that still manage to feel like cheap plastic. The
trackpad is awful. It has all the obsolete ports you'd ever want, but no HDMI.
The screen is okay, but 1080p. It's so heavy and unnecessarily large. The big
battery pack sticks out of the back and means it won't fit into many laptop
bags. And they're shockingly expensive.

------
crazygringo
> The 13-inch model without the Touch Bar worked for 19.5 hours in one trial
> but only 4.5 hours in the next.

It worked for nearly _twenty hours_ , when advertised for just "up to 10"?

Presumably whatever bugs led to 4.5 hours can be fixed in software updates
(occasionally I find my Mac running at full-CPU due to some boneheaded OSX
process).

But if my new laptop has a best-case scenario of nearly 20 hours (and not
"minimal brightness while not running anything")... then that's the best
recommendation I've heard yet.

------
heisenbit
This is great news. Value for money is declining and someone needed to send a
loud and clear message to Cupertino.

------
post_break
I have one. It has usb c. My google pixel has usb c. They don't talk, only
charge. I don't understand, USB C is now a bag of hurt. Especially when there
are three types of usb c cables.

------
symfoniq
A co-worker who upgraded last week to a 2016 MacBook Pro from a 2013 is
complaining about battery life, too. He used to get 10+ hours and now he's
lucky to get six.

~~~
spilk
Having owned MacBooks/PowerBooks/iBooks in various configurations over the
past 15 or so years, what models were getting real-life 10 hour lifetimes, and
while doing what? I've never seen anything near that on anything I've owned
before.

~~~
waffl
Likewise, I've owned a huge number of mac laptops since the titanium PowerBook
and I don't think I ever managed to get more than 4-5hr of real work use
(adobe suite etc) I've always been confused by these 10hr claims and have
never expected more than 4-5

~~~
symfoniq
I could get around 10 hours on my 2013 MacBook Pro doing mostly Web
development in a text editor with the screen brightness set fairly low. My
coworker is a writer, so he's not using Adobe CS or anything like that.

------
blacktulip
> For instance, in a series of three consecutive tests, the 13- inch model
> with the Touch Bar ran for 16 hours in the first trial, 12.75 hours in the
> second, and just 3.75 hours in the third. The 13-inch model without the
> Touch Bar worked for 19.5 hours in one trial but only 4.5 hours in the next.
> And the numbers for the 15-inch laptop ranged from 18.5 down to 8 hours.

How could this happen? Did each test follow the same process?

------
DoodleBuggy
Source minus the ads ads ads ads Business Insider ads ads ads ads
regurgitation:

[http://www.consumerreports.org/laptops/macbook-pros-fail-
to-...](http://www.consumerreports.org/laptops/macbook-pros-fail-to-earn-
consumer-reports-recommendation/)

------
ArlenBales
I just got my new Macbook Pro 15" a few days ago. Keyboard will take some time
getting used to, but I'm still able to average 130 WPM on 10fastfingers.com.

The trackpad is probably going to take the longest for me to adapt to. Not the
palm rejection, that works fine for me. Rather the tactile feedback of it is
so different from my 2012 Macbook Pro. It's very shallow and I feel like it
should be used more like a touchscreen click (single tap to left click) rather
than placing my finger on it and pressing into it, as the shallowness is weird
to me. I have it on medium-depth click right.

Battery life isn't too concerning to me since I'm mostly plugged in, but I
will test it this weekend when I'm on the road and hope it's at least 6 hours.

Also, why are all media outlets reporting on what Consumer Reports has to say?
Why is Consumer Reports regarded so highly? Media outlets don't report on what
CNET or ArsTechnica have to say about the new MacBook Pro. It reminds me of
media outlets reporting on what the BBB.org has to say.

------
pnw_hazor
I have lost faith in Apple engineering.

My iPhone 6s is sketchy (e.g., lockups, shutdowns) whereas my iPhone 4s was
bulletproof. And it seems the new MPBs are lame.

I just bought a Samsung 9 to hold me over for a year while I wait to see if
Apple can get its act together.

------
karim79
Just a random and wild thought: I wonder if the inconsistency in battery life
might be related to variances in ambient noise levels in the test environment.
Could it be Siri listening to stuff when it shouldn't be by way of a bug or
something else?

I have a maxed out 15 TB MBPro and the battery seems just fine and in line
with what I expect. I love it: keyboard, screen, build quality, performance. I
have literally worked with every single previous generation of the Pro and
this one feels the best. Happy customer here.

------
SimeVidas
R.I.P. Safari for Mac. Nobody is going to use you after this. ;-)

------
wolfgke
Could the problem with the battery life be that Apple has the same power
management issues for the Skylake processor (which is used on recent MacBook
Pros) under OS X that plagued Microsoft for its Surface Book and Surface Pro 4
and also causes/caused trouble under Linux
([https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html](https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html))?

BTW: Is this problem finally fixed under Linux?

------
datahack
I have a 13" macbook pro touchbar (~2500 bucks with warranty!). I've had it
for about 4.5-5 weeks or so.

I LOVE my Apple laptops, and have NO problem paying a premium for them. They
have been excellent, and every member of my family is outfitted wth an Apple
computer. The IT distraction time since I switched everyone has been pretty
much NIL.

I took it on a trip that was 16 days, or I would have returned it (14 day
return policy). Now I'm thinking about dumping it on eBay.

Here is why:

* The battery life for a developer is terrible. I consistently get between 3-4 hours of battery life when developing, at best. It's probably 2 hours less than my old 2013 Macbook Pro 15.

* The touchbar is not an improvement. I'm constantly hitting back in browsers as my hand is large and brushes against the bar. It has also crashed on me multiple times when watching long videos, which means I can't mute or adjust the volume when someone calls (that's when I find out it's dusted itself). My experience is that it does a lot of accidental stuff because it exposes a lot of functionality that normally requires explicit input as casual input, so zooming around youtube videos and losing your spot, triggering Siri (yes, I turn it off eventually), accidentally muting with a simple touch, etc, are all super easy mistakes to make. I preferred it when my machine's behavior was predictable. The major issue is that thus far there is no upside for this downside — there are no killer features for the bar (even the volume, rather than giving you more granular controls, uses the old sound register stop points rather than moving to a 99% scale as would be obviously intuitive given the interface — just plain dumb design from Apple honestly). Similar to my experiences with Siri, it's not making my life better.

* It's not faster in practical applications, and in fact takes a while to recover compared to my old laptop (a lot of waiting to type on the login screen), though it's not particular noticeable.

* The arrow keys are utterly terrible. For a developer, they are a fail. Why Apple needed to kill those essential buttons (for games, dev, etc) is beyond my comprehension. The keyboard is definitely better, but the arrow key situation is a mess. * I have to keep my phone plugged in all the time, which means I have a dongle on my laptop pretty much permanently. This is dumb.

* The loss of the magsafe adapter has already caused my laptop to scoot right off the couch twice when animals and kids are around. Why? Why would you kill this and _especially_ go back to a port than can be damaged with basic use? This just violates common sense.

What is better:

* The screen is sweet. I absolutely love it.

* The keyboard is awesome for touch typists.

* The touch pad is really the best I've ever used.

* The dark grey color is attractive.

I've also heard rumors that Apple has merged their macOS team into their main
engineering / iOS teams or some such. Not what I wanted to hear, and totally
not the direction that would keep me loyal to the company.

Overall, it's worse. And the features that have been added do not redeem the
laptop (which is totally what almost every Apple device has done for me — I
was stunned). This is the first time it's genuinely a step in the wrong
direction. Though I haven't seen any discussion of it, I believe Apple made
many of the mistakes it has made with the Apple watch on the Macbook Pro, but
that may be because Apple added an Apple Watch to the Macbook Pro. It's
solving problems I don't have, and therefore providing me with products that
don't possess essential utility and therefore don't meaningfully improve my
life or provide me with a "sense of better being," which is what graduated
design at it's best can do. This is a big, big mistake, and exactly how Apple
lost it's way the first time around.

~~~
realityking
> I have to keep my phone plugged in all the time, which means I have a dongle
> on my laptop pretty much permanently. This is dumb.

I don't understand what you mean with this point? Why does your phone have to
be plugged in permanently? Why wasn't it necessary with your previous MacBook?

------
ronyeh
For people who want to improve their TouchBar experience, BetterTouchTool
allows you to add custom buttons to your touch bar, accessible globally. I've
been using it for weeks with great success. You can even change the buttons
that show up when you have alt depressed, etc.

------
Razengan
The new MacBooks have still outsold all other competitors, apparently:

[https://intelligence.slice.com/apples-macbook-pro-
launch/](https://intelligence.slice.com/apples-macbook-pro-launch/)

~~~
Eric_WVGG
I dunno who Slice is, but Phil Schiller claims "our online store has had more
orders for the new MacBook Pro than any other pro notebook before."

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/02/phil-schiller-
new-...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/02/phil-schiller-new-macbook-
pro-has-more-orders-from-apple-than-any-other-pro-model-ever)

------
disposablezero
No more MBPs for me unless Apple makes a significant U-turn. The
unupgradability was the final straw.

MBP 13" non-Retina mid-2012, 2x 960 GiB SSD, 16 GiB RAM

------
rememberlenny
Do any MacBook Pro users like the ability to charge their machines with an
external battery?

~~~
datahack
I would love it. Unfortunately, when I talked to Apple about it at the Apple
Store they said "be careful, it can void your warranty and there are a lot of
poorly made batteries out there."

------
threefour
Let's not forget when Consumer Reports attacked the iPhone 4 because of the
antenna issue. That model went on to set sales records. If we're looking for a
signal about the MacBook Pro's success, sales numbers may be a better
indicator.

~~~
bdcravens
> ...the iPhone 4 because of the antenna issue. That model went on to set
> sales records.

Apple also conceded the issue and gave all iPhone 4 users a free case.

------
omarforgotpwd
Mine works fine. I love it.

------
dillondoyle
I might as well shovel on my very negative experience, I want to switch but no
one can make hardware like this... PLEASE someone prove me wrong with a link.

GOOD: \- screen is amazingly bright and fantastic.

\- sound noticeably better, even using the same headphones which does not make
any sense, so I think that has got to be placebo?

The Horribleness: \- the mouse touch pad is so big on my 15" that my new
default hand position on home has to hover and hands angled down and in. i'm
resting like a few inches below my wrist on the edge of the machine, which is
actually pretty sharp. If I go back to a better more relaxed home position my
palms touch the touch pad randomly and when typing it jumps and clicks all
around.

\- I think Apple's dedication to security is mostly to blame.

1) went to apple store, they didn't have cases when the announced at end of
Oct right?

2) had to get a usb c to usb female to use my external drives. The store only
had usb 2.0 not 2.1, so my hd is half as fast as 3 year old laptop

3) - For instance did OS look at the machine? To turn down sound, I have to
touch bar. In some apps it has the normal three sounds buttons. In finder it
doesn't and I've found some other times when I'm working and listening to
music and need to turn it down it sucks: the touchbar might not even be lit,
so that's one touch. Then you can either touch mute or what looks like lower
volume, which actually opens a slider two inches to the left. The slider seems
to be 0-100 but on screen it's the same old sound overlay with 15 clicks or
whatever, and I can definitely move volume in between the clicks. Also while I
was type that sentence both numbers accidentally hit the touch bar and did
weird shit.

4) could go on and on, ESP the iphone thing. I get wireless is the future but
come on...

5) I will never enable siri or the finger print. i was able to remove siri on
finder, but it still pops up in the right for most other apps who haven't made
integrations yet.

6) os seems to sleep or hibernate but then when logging in it refreshes all
the apps? like all 20 chrome tabs reload? maybe there's some setting I don't
have but that has never happened and is very annoying. And 1/10 times I miss
backspace it hits siri or whatever shit is on the bar.

7) no space above up and down key is the WORST. gamers are fucked. even my
career using photoshop and writing shit is slowed down until I get muscle
memory.

In the past everything has been so seamless, ready to go. But I think Apple is
more concerned about a leak about the new millimeter they shaved off than get
everyone working on the same team and actually using this product, with os,
with iphone.

(plus these keys are really loud when you type somewhat fast, to the annoyance
of my boyfriend trying to sleep next to me).

I can't WAIT until we get fast enough reliable internet everywhere so I can
just stream a VPC in Amazon. Spin up a few Teslas when crunching a huge ML
dataset or video project, no need to upgrade. AND Apple could do away with
everything! So thin! Or quadruple the battery! That's the future I want, even
if Apple controls the DC and my VPC.

------
davidf18
This very thorough review: See under "Battery Runtime"

"Even though the battery capacity was reduced by almost 25 % compared to the
predecessor, Apple still managed to improve the overall runtimes with the
76-Wh battery. Our WiFi test determines an advantage of 130 minutes, so little
more than two hours." [1]

If you read actual users of the 2016 rMBP in this thread as well as reports on
macrumors forum you'll see that there are a number of people who report good
battery times and even exceeding those of the 2015 machine.

I would question the Consumer Reports review process given the review cited
above, the reports in this thread and that in the macrumors forum.

[1] [http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-
Pro-15-Late-2016-...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-
Pro-15-Late-2016-2-6-GHz-i7-Notebook-Review.185254.0.html)

------
jjawssd
Does Apple sell a 2016 laptop without a dedicated GPU?

~~~
agmcleod
Nope, 15" one has Radeon graphics.

~~~
jjawssd
I can't believe it. Have they lost their minds? I was trying to buy one
yesterday but I couldn't find one so I gave up and got a 2015 model with
integrated graphics.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
I believe this is due to the desire to have 5k display support across all the
new Pros, and none of the integrated graphics chips available now can wing it.

Seems likely that the 2017 models will drop in price a bit and have integrated
graphics for the baseline models.

------
yoplait_
what a load of bollocks

~~~
dang
Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13245862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13245862)
and marked it off-topic.

------
wildchild
Because you can't cheat people forever.

~~~
cmdrfred
I'm not an apple fan but I don't think that is the problem. It just seems
their competitors are able to deliver similar value at prices that are much
more attractive.

~~~
sbuk
Or that they are willing to sell at considerably lower margins.

------
jjtheblunt
Why the heck would anyone listen to Consumer Reports for this sort of thing?

~~~
Tempest1981
Who else has done similar testing? This is the first article I've seen
mentioning the issue -- are there others?

------
Daviey
I'm not really a fan of Mac's, but I don't think too much weight should be put
on this. _Everything_ that Apple delivers is greeted with negative reports,
and yet it turns out to be successful.

Also... i've never even heard of "Consumer Reports" before.. but the name is
pretty subjective.

~~~
organsnyder
Consumer Reports is a widely-respected nonprofit. They make their money from
selling subscriptions (most of their information is behind a paywall), and do
not sell advertising. Their board is elected by their membership. All products
that they review are purchased at retail—in fact, they even make their
purchases discretely, to make sure that they don't get preferential treatment.

~~~
mturmon
Your summary is totally correct.

But, it must be noted that _CR_ has a history of inventing ad hoc tests, and
basing overall product ratings on the ratings in a single-point test. There
have been errors in the past, with the rollover test of the Suzuki Samurai,
and some infant car seat tests. See their wiki page. Their audio equipment
reviews (don't know if they still do them) have been useless. Often their
reviews may be useful for a general consumer, but not for a specialist.

(I'm a former subscriber, but don't buy enough of that kind of stuff to make
it worthwhile to still subscribe.)

