The much awaited MacBook pro refresh is here and its a mixed bag, in terms of performance and price its an upgrade and its totally upto you “The consumer” to decide wheather you want to pay the substantial premium for the performance upgrade and yes we are here to help you decide that.
Click here to watch the video review
Design
Well one thing apple is know worldwide is for designing amazing hardware, while the MacBook design has remained largely unchanged for some time now and like millions of apple customers, we actually like the industrial design of the MacBook
Keyboard
The keyboard as always is well laid out, however the key travel is less than the previous MacBook pro`s, Apple calls it the butterfly mechanism, we think the new keyboard will take some time to get used to.
Click here to watch the video review
Trackpad
The trackpad is twice the size of the previous MacBooks and it uses the force touch mechanism and its feels much better and roomy to use.
Speakers
These are the best speakers ever on a MacBook and on the 2016 MacBook pro the stereo speakers are placed near the keyboard facing you, the sound doesn’t distorts and it doesn’t disappoints.
The Touch Bar
This year, the touch bar is touted as the USP of the new MacBook pro devices and it looks kind of a marketing gimmick than an actual upgrade, Fundamentally, apple has removed all the first row function keys of the keyboard and replaced them with a touch screen, which can display different functions or keys under different apps, this space will be open to developers to utilise along with there respective apps.
The touch bar also supports a fingerprint sensor on the extreme right hand side, it can be used to unlock the MacBook or make payments using apple pay, we are sure more functionalities will be added gradually to the touch bar and the fingerprint sensor.
It remains to be seen how the consumers react to this new piece of tech implementation and also how the developers are going integrate the touch bar into there apps and utilises it to its full potential.
Display
The new display supports a wider range to colours called “p3 Colours” at a higher resolution, 2560 x 1600” to be precise, frankly this is the best screen we have ever seen on a laptop.
I/O ports
This is a major point of backlash and almost everybody we know is not happy with this, all the ports available in the new 2016 MacBooks are Thunderbolt-3 / USB-C ports
From Apple`s point of view, Thunderbolt-3 ports supports higher data transfer rate, higher voltages and interoperability as USB-C ports and on theory this all seems fine and right way ahead for the future.
But, this change is happening today and today is not the future, any professional laptop requires connectivity, I/O ports are an important part of any laptop with a pro tag and by removing the Memorycard reader, HDMI port, full size USB ports, Legacy thunderbolt ports and the megasafe magnetic charger, Apple has crippled a good pro laptop into a high perfomance entertainment netbook.
Configuration
The MacBook pro is available in two sizes the 13” and the 15”, lets talk about both of them one by one
13” MacBook pro
This version of the MacBook Pro comes with and without the much touted touch bar, The MacBook Pro sans the touch bar, comes with integrated intel iris 540 graphics & the MacBook pro with the touch bar comes with integrated intel iris 550 graphics, mind you, the option for better graphics chip is not available on the 13” MacBook pro model.
The base model comes with intel i5 (sixth generation) processors with 256GB of SSD storage & 8 GB of DDR 3 RAM, Upgradable to i7 3.6GHz processors 1TB of SSD storage & 16 GB of DDR 3 RAM, the MacBook Pro sans the touch bar, comes with only two I/O ports in the form of thunderbolt 3/ USB-C and a headphone jack (remember iPhone 7) and the MacBook pro with the touch bar comes with Four I/O ports in the form of thunderbolt 3/ USB-C.
15” Macbook pro
The 15” MacBook pro comes with the touch bar, the base model comes with intel i7 2.6GHz (sixth generation) processors, configurable upto i7 3.8GHz processors, with 256GB of SSD storage configurable upto 2TB of SSD storage and by default the system is configured with 16GB of DDR 3 RAM & the 15” Macbook pro also has Four I/O ports in the form of thunderbolt 3/ USB-C,
The major difference between the 13” the 15” MacBook pro comes in the graphics department, in addition of the intel Iris graphichs chip, the the 15” MacBook pro is configured with Radeon Pro 450 & 455 chipsets with 2GB of dedicated DDR 5 Graphics RAM and both the graphics chips are upgradable to Radeon Pro 460 chipsets with 4GB of dedicated DDR 5 Graphics RAM.
Conclusion
Configuration and usability wise the Apple MacBooks has always been top notch and the 2016 MacBook Pro is no different, with high performance intel processors, huge amount of RAM and an option for high performance dedicated graphics chips, the MacBook Pro has a very wide and high performance range, depending on the price range of the product, however with the removal of key I/O ports, the “Pro” tag of the MacBook seems questionable and also you can get a windows based laptop with similar configuration at a much lower price.
Our rating for the MacBook Pro is
Weighing all the factor including “price & I/O ports” its6.5/10
Weighing factors except “price & I/O Ports” its9.5/10
Watch the video review below https://youtu.be/2E5Qh_jM5ro
