Macbook Hardware Update Schedule

[sweenish]

I'm seriously considering an MBP as my next laptop sometime next year. So, this will seem pre-emptive, but I haven't really followed the MBP hardware refresh schedule. I'm starting out on my research phase, which usually means staying abreast of things for a few months to get a feel for good times to buy.

As far as I remember, last November, the touch bar MBP's were announced, and they were refreshed with new CPUs this summer at WWDC.

Basically, what is the timeline I should be looking at in 2018? From what I've observed, it looks like they'll just get a CPU refresh next year, and not a new hardware generation? If someone who has been following this closer could shed some light, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[pakotlar]

Expect 12 months. This is typical; the 9 month cycle on 2016 MacBooks is pretty rare. If any refresh happens in Spring, it will be extremely minor, nothing like a 4 -> 6 core boost.

 

[amyklai]

Going by the old Macbook Pros, the outside of the last generation remained pretty much unchanged from 2012-2016 (only exception was the Force Touch trackpad). The current iteration was introduced in 2016, so I'd mostly expect internal upgrades until around 2020 or so.

The next upgrade should be in June 2016, by then the Coffee Lake mobile hexacores (6 cores) will have been available for a few months, so I expect the 15" to use those, at least at the top end of the range.

Intel has already introduced 15W quadcore chips (already available in some PC notebooks like XPS 13), so I'd expect the 13" MacBook Pro to use those.

So, at least if your software can make use of extra cores, waiting until next June may well be worth it.

 

[slugg]

The big thing to worry about, in my opinion, is RAM. If you plan on keeping the MBP for a long time, keep in mind that 16 GB DDR3, which is ancient, is as good as it gets.

That said, because of the long list of cons with other Windows laptops, I still prefer the MBP. Money not being an object, that is.

 

[sweenish]

I'm surprised I wasn't getting notifications about the responses.

Good to know about the timings of these things. If they do the refresh in June, that falls in line pretty well with my timeline. I would love for the refreshes to earn the Pro moniker again. I was extremely disappointed to learn that the 13" model only has a dual core. I find that to honestly be kind of pathetic at their price points. Same goes for not using DDR4, but I suppose it's not affecting their performance enough to warrant the upgrade.

I'm seriously considering the MBP because I get the best of both worlds in a stable OS, and easy access to Linux tools. A "Developer" laptop like the XPS 13/15, Precision 15, or X1 Carbon apparently are super compatible with Linux, but I still find Desktop Linux lacking enough for my daily use. I'm using Fedora at the moment, and it does not hot-plug from my VGA connector. Displayport works great, but not VGA. Windows and macOS both do it fine. Kubuntu was a dumpster fire. I just don't have the time to do any OS tinkering.

Whatever laptop I go with, I'd have to live the dongle life because I will still need to connect to VGA (yay work), so that's a wash.

Add the allure of being able to write apps for iOS and Android natively (Not interested in the Visual Studio porting tools), and here I am. And while I consider the other laptops I mentioned to be quite attractive themselves, there is always the allure of Apple hardware. And that trackpad.

 

[slugg]

I'm surprised I wasn't getting notifications about the responses.

Good to know about the timings of these things. If they do the refresh in June, that falls in line pretty well with my timeline. I would love for the refreshes to earn the Pro moniker again. I was extremely disappointed to learn that the 13" model only has a dual core. I find that to honestly be kind of pathetic at their price points. Same goes for not using DDR4, but I suppose it's not affecting their performance enough to warrant the upgrade.

I'm seriously considering the MBP because I get the best of both worlds in a stable OS, and easy access to Linux tools. A "Developer" laptop like the XPS 13/15, Precision 15, or X1 Carbon apparently are super compatible with Linux, but I still find Desktop Linux lacking enough for my daily use. I'm using Fedora at the moment, and it does not hot-plug from my VGA connector. Displayport works great, but not VGA. Windows and macOS both do it fine. Kubuntu was a dumpster fire. I just don't have the time to do any OS tinkering.

Whatever laptop I go with, I'd have to live the dongle life because I will still need to connect to VGA (yay work), so that's a wash.

Add the allure of being able to write apps for iOS and Android natively (Not interested in the Visual Studio porting tools), and here I am. And while I consider the other laptops I mentioned to be quite attractive themselves, there is always the allure of Apple hardware. And that trackpad.

You pretty much nailed how I feel about it.