Extremely disappointed at the new Macbook Pros

[mikegg]

I got desperate and bought the 13" Pro with touch bar. I will be returning it and so I could purchase a 2015 13" Pro instead. Here's my take on the 2016 Macbook Pro after 5 days of usage:

Touch bar: I find it neat but mostly annoying to use and mostly useless. I now have to look down on my keyboard each time I want to adjust the brightness or volume because I can no longer feel my way around physical buttons. The touch bar is also prone to accidental touches because I rest my fingers slightly above the number keys. This becomes annoying quickly and I've had to relearn where I can rest my fingers. I haven't had that moment of "wow, this thing makes my life easier". When I'm watching a movie with the lights turned off, any touch on the giant touch pad will trigger the touch bar which distracts from the movie.

Giant touch pad: I have no idea why Apple decided to make the touchpad bigger. It feels weird now that half of my palm is always resting on the touchpad as I type. Palm detection is mostly good but scrolling with a resting palm is sometimes off. I prefer the smaller touch pad.

Keyboard: I must admit that I was skeptical of the new keyboard but so far, I actually quite like it. It has a satisfying crispness to keystrokes and my typing speed is just as fast. I had an issue with the space bar malfunctioning. I fixed it by hitting the key hard several times. Still, this doesn't give me confidence that the keyboard will last.

Battery life: Anecdotally, the battery life is advertised but it's still disappointing. When web browsing, it lasts about 8-9 hours. Streaming a movie is only 3 hours or so. I really wish Apple stepped up and delivered next-gen battery life of around 15 hours.

Ports: I haven't been bothered by the lack of ports yet because I purchased a USB-C to lightning cable to charge my iPhone and because I haven't had a need to plug anything into it. I'm sure it'll get annoying if I ever decide to use an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, or flash drive.

Size and weight: The best thing about this new laptop is the weight and the thinness. It feels much lighter than the old Macbook Pro Retina and it's even thinner. I also love the space gray color.

Ultimately, my fears were realized. It's expensive ($1700) and it doesn't make my life easier. I'll be returning it for the 2015 model.

 

[manly]

@Tegeril It'll be close, my guess is that the recently completed holiday quarter will fall just short of the 2 year ago period. At any rate, this thread isn't about iPhones or overall profitability but whether Apple still gives a damn about Macs. Even if the new MacBook Pros are selling well, that shouldn't really surprise anybody due to the pent up demand from people who've patiently waited for a couple years. What is perhaps surprising is for people like Eug or myself to opine that we may have already purchased our last Macs.

Or you have senttoschool who will remain faithful by buying last year's model instead.

This is a pretty good article discussing the current state of the Trash Can Pro:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/unmitigated-disaster-longtime-apple-fans-184949224.html

 

[Blackjack200]

@Tegeril

This is a pretty good article discussing the current state of the Trash Can Pro:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/unmitigated-disaster-longtime-apple-fans-184949224.html

Wow, this is from the blogger that the article links to: In the Mac line, at least, 2017 Apple seems a lot like 1994 Apple: misguided products, propped up by gouging the loyalists.

That's pretty damning. Go back 5 years and macs were the top of the heap with industrial design and performance that was at the top. Now the macs come out and everyone is scratching their heads.

 

[Murloc]

This is such an odd narrative that keeps getting repeated. Apple is on track for their best holiday quarter ever on strong iPhone 7 and MacBook Pro sales.

more people around the world have more money, no wonder there.
If somebody wants an iphone, the headphone issue is not that relevant.

This is about the laptops though. How much more could they be growing if they were good?

 

[badb0y]

I bought the 15" 2016 model and it's the best laptop I have owned.

In the past year I have had:

- SurfaceBook
- 2015 MB Pro 13
- 2016 MB 12"

The ports are a non issue for me since I haven't plugged in a USB in my laptop in like 2 years. All my crap is stored on the cloud and internet service in my school and Home are good enough to access it anytime I want. In case I am heading somewhere without internet service I can always just download the stuff I need to access and I am good. Also this is the first time in like 9 years I have bought a 15 inch laptop. It's thin, light, and small enough that it doesn't feel like a 15 inch laptop anymore.

 

[Blackjack200]

I bought the 15" 2016 model and it's the best laptop I have owned.

In the past year I have had:

- SurfaceBook
- 2015 MB Pro 13
- 2016 MB 12"

The ports are a non issue for me since I haven't plugged in a USB in my laptop in like 2 years. All my crap is stored on the cloud and internet service in my school and Home are good enough to access it anytime I want. In case I am heading somewhere without internet service I can always just download the stuff I need to access and I am good. Also this is the first time in like 9 years I have bought a 15 inch laptop. It's thin, light, and small enough that it doesn't feel like a 15 inch laptop anymore.

To me the 15" seems like a good machine, just wildly overpriced for its hardware specs. Just seems like much larger premium over an equivalent PC than the 2012-2015 Macs commanded.

 

[Rubycon]

No problems with mine!
Macs were always more expensive than a Windows machine with comparable specs.

 

[slugg]

I don't think anyone is saying that the new MacBook Pros have problems. They're saying that they're wildly overpriced.

Here's the thing about Macs. Generally speaking, they're a premium product: lots of money, but unique and fairly high end. Look at the original Retina MacBook Pro; there was nothing like it when it came out and it was a wicked performer.

But the new MacBook Pro is the opposite. There are plenty of other thin and light, high resolution, premium laptops out there now with specs that dwarf the MacBook Pro's for almost half the price. The memory performance and limitations are a joke in the year 2017, and they were intentionally selected as a tradeoff for battery life. It actually gets worse battery life in real-world usage than the older model, so that's a major fail. Real world performance of the machine is negligibly faster than the old model, not enough to make any perceivable difference. The new model requires various dongles/adapters to work with basically any device that exists today, including Apple's own products. But we got the touch bar that literally nobody wanted.

And this disaster is actually even more expensive than it used to be.

I'm sorry, but Apple shat on their users that actually need a high end machine. People are willing to spend a lot of money, but they aren't willing to waste a lot of it.

 

[HaukSwe]

Did you opt for the 450? I've found the 460 so far to be pretty solid all things considered (its power envelope, its ability to not melt the computer as quickly as prior generation GPUs did at full load, and its overall performance in games and in applications for OpenCL acceleration).

Personally, I don't really want a faster GPU inside if it means even faster battery drain and even hotter operation.

The 455. Only one in stock at the time and i sadly had to buy there and then for reasons.

Had a lot more time with my 2016 MBP, top model but not upgraded:

Performance > Weak. There's the same GUI lag as on my 2011 macbook air, upgrading made me realzie that's probably due to apple not optimizing the OS so much. The 455 GPU is underwhelming even for not very demanding games. But whatever. SSD is very fast and that's nice.

Screen > Insane. Code looks so incredibly good in the editor and the colors pop. So. So. Nice. 15" with the UI scaling gives you a very good amount of real-estate.. in a small package.

Design > you get a lot of screen that's extremely comfortable to use in your lap. It's nice to code in my armchair or in the sofa or whatever with this laptop. A 15" of this weight and size is nicer to use in lap than a 13". It's light enough to definitely not bother you in briefcase. So i guess thin and light did matter a bit to me afterall...

Touchbar > Don't really care, except for two features: It's a very handy way for me to change input languages. I did that with a keyboard command before, but it's nicer with the touchbar because i dont have to cycle between my 4 languages, I can just select the one i want. Previously when in fullscreen you don't see the icon for which language you're switching to so this makes things a lot easier for me.

That's the point of the touchbar. There may be some specific apps or situations that'll enable it to make something random very easy for you. Having spotify in the background and being able to scrub in a track directly on the TB without bringing the spotify window to focus is great. I prefer the volume sliders to mashing buttons.

The escape key is my biggest annoyance. It's easy to accidentally hit, you get used to it for a bit but could barely play Starcraft in the beginning.

Keyboard > a lot better than the my 2011 macbook airs. I like the clickyness, it could use more travel that's for sure. Your fingers land "hard" so to speak. It's good not great.

Yea, wouldn't hurt to have a standard USB A but having a dongle around or attached to the external mouse i like to use is no big deal. With all the USB C displays and docs coming out this is going to make for a really nice desktop docking experience. I just connect my camera on the rare occasions i need to with a mini usb cable instead, which i use my dongle for. But one is always lying around at home, no big deal.

 

[quikah]

I don't think anyone is saying that the new MacBook Pros have problems.

Some people are. The battery life is wildly unpredictable, that is a fact (probably fixable in software updates). The keyboard is junk, opinion, but pretty common complaint. Many comments that the trackpad is too huge and the touchbar is borderline useless, but that is pretty subjective.

 

[Rubycon]

Are the folks "trashing" the new mbp actually owners that have used it more than a few minutes at a store?
You know, something that actually has merit?

I own and use a lot of hardware. I have every surface from the original to the 4 (all with top configurations) as well as the SurfaceBook. iPads, iPhones, and Macbooks including the 12" model. Windows laptops: Dell XPS 9550 with 32GB and Samsung 960 2TB. Only "high end" turnkey (Mac) I don't have is the trash can. I was not permitted to own one due to a technical lore that I will not bore you with in this thread.

But anyways, when it comes to (Windows) lappies and Macbooks there are Chevrolets and there are Mercedes.

Being able to use both to run a production show and have some fun with limited free time is an added bonus I suppose.

None are perfect and they never will be.

Now for wish lists...

option for 17" 4096x2160 OLED display. Other display options like 5000x3000 as well.
Xeon CPU with 8MB or more L3 cache
ECC RAM up to 128GB
Dual M.2 slots capable of accepting 960 Pro 2TB devices and ability to stripe them.
Magsafe charging
Apple pencil support on screen.
Quadro GPU options with support up to 3k cores/24GB RAM etc.
Fast charging support to 1/2 cycle pack in under 30 minutes.
Unibody chassis machined from Titanium with option of other metals.

Oh well, can wish in one hand...

 

[poofyhairguy]

The 15 inch model is a nice laptop for the size, especially with the 460 GPU.

The 13 inch models bug me though, because not having Kaby Lake means they can't decode modern video formats in the hardware.

I have recommended the 15 inch (and the 460) just for that reason.

 

[slugg]

Are the folks "trashing" the new mbp actually owners that have used it more than a few minutes at a store?

No. I don't want to pay the restocking fee after returning it. I would only buy the 15 incher, in its current state, if I could get it for $1500. I would have happily paid $2600 if it didn't suck for the money.

 

[Tegeril]

What restocking fee? http://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund - $1500 is crazytown. I'll concede the price *feels* higher but I also feel like I got a lot more.

- I'm not having any UI hitching as mentioned by HaukSwe
- I have played some games on it both under OS X and Windows and (at least the 460 which is the best money spent) the GPU is more than I would expect in a non-gaming laptop.
- The keyboard is *awesome*. Compared to my old 2012 rMBP, 2014 rMBP (current work machine), and the 2015 MacBook (questionable for longer periods of typing), I significantly prefer it over both. It is just as easy to type on as the MS Sculpt ergonomic keyboard which is my preferred go to.
- I'm moderately positive on the touchbar. It's not earth shattering to me but I use it more than I've ever used a touch screen on past Windows laptops.
- Battery life has been solid. I wouldn't mind a little more but it lasts no less time than any other comparable machine I've used
- Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 are awesome and allow me to boot windows off an external SSD at basically SATA-III speeds as if it were internal and leave room for me to pickup an external GPU when the market settles.
- The screen is brighter than ever, more rich and quite beautiful to work on
- Overall the smaller enclosure makes the 15" housing feel much more portable and that's definitely appreciated.
- The SSD is jaw droppingly fast.

I've had it for a while now. I'm so happy with it.

Also, Skylake isn't nearly as bad at doing HEVC as people make it out to be:
https://www.reddit.com/r/htpc/comments/421h3c/skylake_is_a_more_cost_effective_4k_h265_decoding/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9562/intels-skylake-gpu-analyzing-the-media-capabilities

Yes, Kaby Lake brings high bitrate 10bit HEVC where Skylake struggles so there's something to want for, but... shrug.

 

[Tegeril]

more people around the world have more money, no wonder there.
If somebody wants an iphone, the headphone issue is not that relevant.

This is about the laptops though. How much more could they be growing if they were good?

How about we just wait for the sales numbers at the end of the quarter.

 

[HaukSwe]

Some people are. The battery life is wildly unpredictable, that is a fact (probably fixable in software updates). The keyboard is junk, opinion, but pretty common complaint. Many comments that the trackpad is too huge and the touchbar is borderline useless, but that is pretty subjective.

Wouldn't you argue that function keys are borderline useless? I agree, the touchbar isn't super useful, but more useful than function keys.

It's not possible to call this keyboard junk, even subjectively. Unless you expect a full travel mech keyboard in your laptop. The huge touchbar is a strange one, i feel zero benefit of it being this big but the palm rejection is good enough that it doesnt mess with you when typing etc.

For most use cases, if money doesn't matter so much for you when buying your laptop (it tends not to if you use it for work and 8+hrs a day, every day) then the mbp 15" is the best laptop you can get. The only valid disappointment is that it isn't a bit better, because apple could've made it better.

 

[quikah]

It's not possible to call this keyboard junk, even subjectively. Unless you expect a full travel mech keyboard in your laptop.

It is the worst keyboard on a laptop in this price range (or even compared to many lower priced laptops). Sorry, that to me equals junk. Hey, it is subjective, if you like it good for you, it is not hard to find criticism of the keyboard on the internet.

 

[Rubycon]

Dell XPS keyboard could be called junk! A top tier laptop should not do that. And pulling it apart reveals tape not staying down. Yes, tape! LOL

The mac keyboard was always top notch. This one is no different. The butterfly keys on the 12" macbook were different but I actually did not mind them. On the 2016 macbook they are better. Now when I type on my 2015 macbook, they feel loose like they're gonna fall out!

 

[swanysto]

I think it will be very interesting to see the numbers for MBP sales when they are released. Especially if they account for returns. It seems like every time an apple product comes out, it gets lots of criticism, yet manages to have great sales. Nearly every iPhone release to date has had people crying about something, yet they still sell like crazy. I know the regular macbook got a lot of grief as well.

I don't own one, but from reading on different forums and articles around the internet, it is taking a beating. There are literally hundreds of youtube videos just destroying the new MBP.

 

[manly]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-macs-were-biggest-losers-230819267.html

Of course holiday MBP sales will look "great." They really stunk for the rest of the calendar year.

 

[Eug]

Was in the store the other day. The best laptop trackpad was the MacBook Air because it has a mechanical trackpad. The trackpad on the new Pro is better than the MacBook's but still is a big step backward. It the very least they could have given it a firmer feel but even in its firmest setting it feels lifeless.

The keyboard is better than the MacBook's but still needs more travel.

Form factor is nice and that is reflected in the non-Touchbar version too, but too bad they gimped the non-Touchbar version, esp. since the Touchbar still seems borderline useless. In fact, in some situations it actually felt like step back in UI because some of the virtual buttons are now hidden requiring an additional tap to get to them. It's actually kind of annoying.

Bottom line is I won't be buying the Touchbar MBP. It's just waaaay too expensive. The MacBook would be perfect for me but the keyboard and trackpad just annoy me. It's already a premium machine but a step backward in the user input methods. And the Air just has a poor screen in comparison.

I'm now actively looking at the Windows 10 competition but Windows still has problems with Retina level screens in terms of the UI AFAIK.

So it pisses me off. I want to buy something but Apple has lost its way and Windows still hadn't quite found it in the first place.

BTW, the reason I was there was to return an Apple Extreme. I just got Gigabit internet and it turns out in PPPoE mode the AE chokes badly. It maxes out at less than 250 Mbps. That's for wired performance. Ouch. Make that double ouch considering that in non-PPPoE mode I can do well over 250 Mbps over WiFi on my damn iPhone. Makes the AirPort feel wildly out of date now that I actually have fast broadband to test. I've already switched my routing to the included gateway that my ISP supplies. The sad part is AirPort may never get updated, since rumour has it the AirPort team has been disbanded. Top to bottom integration my ass.

 

[Rubycon]

I will never go back to a springboard trackpad again!
My Dell 9550 is the best portable Windows machine I've owned but its trackpad (while pretty much the best non Apple trackpad I've used as is the one on the Surface Book) still feels clumsy in comparison. And for Heaven's sake MS PLEASE add two finger left and right for page backward/forward gesture to the precision touchpad feature set in Win10!!!

I like Windows Hello on the SP4/SB and understand it may be coming to Dell's new lineup (the near bezel-less display is a challenge!) but touchID is nearly as convenient and will always work regardless of lighting condition.

 

[Eug]

I will admit that most of the non-Apple trackpads aren't as good as Apple's best trackpads.

The problem here though is that Apple's current trackpads aren't as good as Apple's best trackpads either.

 

[quikah]

And for Heaven's sake MS PLEASE add two finger left and right for page backward/forward gesture to the precision touchpad feature set in Win10!!!

I like Windows Hello on the SP4/SB and understand it may be coming to Dell's new lineup (the near bezel-less display is a challenge!) but touchID is nearly as convenient and will always work regardless of lighting condition.

It does. At least Edge supports it.

Hello supports fingerprint sensors.

 

[manly]

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/01/31/q1-2017-results/

Revenue and EPS were up, but net profit was actually down. But even revenue is technically flat YoY because there was an extra week vs. a year ago. iPad sales were poor. iPhone looks healthy but it benefited from a one-time Note 7 debacle (so figure an extra 2 to few million in 7 Plus sales on top of the extra week).

Analysts were happy, but I've exited my long-term AAPL position. Personally I think we've seen peak Apple. They can still financial engineer higher EPS, but buybacks at the current valuation are just not smart. The main reason to hold the stock IMO is that Trump will facilitate repatriation of the overseas cash hoard at 10% tax rate.