New MacBook Pros

[leglessAlex]

tankplanker said:

epends if you want the touchbar? I wouldn't so would not pay for it on the 13" at that price differential.

Of course! I wouldn't want the touchbar I don't think, but then I'd also quite like a quad core. I guess it's a moot point, the 15" doesn't have the option and I can't afford it anyway.

[qube_TA]

leglessAlex said:

qube_TA said:

leglessAlex said:

Phunk said:

If you check every box, it goes up to £6200

It's about £1500 more expensive than the Dell XPS with 32GB, i9 and 1TB storage. Okay, there has often been an Apple tax, but that's hard to swallow.

Still, it's good that they've done it. Was Apple actually worried I wonder? It's not like them to update out of the blue like this. Their computers in general seem to be getting a bit of a hammering on youtube recently for being out of date and too expensive.

Ticking all the boxes means it comes with a 4TB PCIe Enterprise class SSD drive in it,

Essentially one of these https://www.scan.co.uk/products/4tb-intel-dc-p4500...

Yeah, I phrased that badly, I meant it was that much more than the similarly specced XPS.

New 15" XPS with i9, 32GB RAM, 4k screen and 1TB storage: £2,599

New MacBook Pro with i9, 32GB RAM and 1TB of storage: £3,689

Ok, so £1,100 or so, not £1,500. That changes to £1,400 difference though when you change the processor on both models to an i7.

I get that there are no shortage of people out there with money, and that Apple products have never been cheap. I also welcome the fact that for once Apple laptops have a processor in them that isn't about to be outdated in a couple of months. They'll probably have a better battery life too (for lightweight tasks), and the trackpad will be unquestionably better to use.

I get there are positives. But £1,100-1,400 more than the equivalent Windows based machine? I really like using OSX, but that's a tough pill to swallow. Even if it wasn't, and I know it's not very PH of me to say this, but I just couldn't afford that. I've been loyal to Apple for a long time, but I'm being priced out. Maybe Apple just doesn't care? I'm not sure I'm alone in that situation though...

Yeah the Dell is in a plastic case, no OLED screen as far as I can see, is it an enterprise class SSD or a regular domestic one or that touchbar thing, battery capacity on a Dell is is usually poor in comparison plus it's running Windows or Linux which is a deal breaker for myself.

The big difference though is that if I put my current MBP on eBay I'll get about £800 for it but if I had a Dell it would depreciate faster than a Skoda, you first Mac is usually a lot of money but the upgrades afterwards are, in my experience anyway cheaper than going down the PC route.

[leglessAlex]

qube_TA said:

Yeah the Dell is in a plastic case, no OLED screen as far as I can see, is it an enterprise class SSD or a regular domestic one or that touchbar thing, battery capacity on a Dell is is usually poor in comparison plus it's running Windows or Linux which is a deal breaker for myself.

The big difference though is that if I put my current MBP on eBay I'll get about £800 for it but if I had a Dell it would depreciate faster than a Skoda, you first Mac is usually a lot of money but the upgrades afterwards are, in my experience anyway cheaper than going down the PC route.

Well, that's not quite right. The Dell is in a mostly aluminium case, although not unibody, and the battery capacity is 97 watt hours vs a 83.6 watt hour on the Apple. The Apple will most likely have a better battery life when doing low intensity tasks though, they usually do. Neither of them have OLED main screens.

As you say, the SSD is far superior in the Mac, and the Dell doesn't run OSX anyway so for a lot of people such as yourself it won't really matter how good the Windows based competition are or aren't.

Interestingly, I just looked, and it seems a reasonably specced Dell XPS 9550 is about £700-800 on eBay, so not all that far off a MacBook that was bought at a similar time. Certainly it's not an extreme difference. I was surprised, I didn't expect the residuals of those machines to be that good.

I get that if you want or need a Mac, you'll get one anyway and it doesn't matter how good or bad the competition is. I'm just sad that as a Mac user myself, I'm being priced out of the latest machines. To continue the XPS vs MacBook Pro pricing argument, in 2015 the 15" Pro was £1599, and a similar spec (maybe slightly better) XPS was around £1500 I think. It's sad to see the gap increase to over a thousand pounds, even before you think about the ports situation.

[ecs]

WinstonWolf said:

ecs said:

Been waiting for these for such a long time - my mid-2014 is really showing it's age now.

Has it got an SSD? If not it's a worthwhile upgrade. Mine's four years older and it's still spot on for what I do.

Yup, it's the SSD version. Just a bit out of date on the processor side of things!

[bitchstewie]

I'm still debating with myself.

It's not affording it (sorry, I know how that might come across but I think people get how I mean it) it's simply there do seem to be some nice options available.

Shame Chromebooks don't support Sky Go as that would probably do it otherwise

[Troubleatmill]

The SSD speeds are just bonkers compared to XPS etc

https://www.macrumors.com

Some 9-10 times faster!!!!

[JulianHJ]

I've decided to hang on to my late-2013 13" rMBP until it dies. I can't justify £2500 for a replacement any earlier than absolutely necessary.

[Bikerjon]

I'm just pleased there's actually some new models because for a while I was getting a feeling the computers side of things was being abandoned in favour of iOS domination. There's even a TV advert running for Mac's - whatever next!

[tim0409]

Apple appears to have fixed the issue with the keyboard (dust getting into the butterfly key mechanism, which can require a new top case/battery/keyboard), not that they would ever admit to there being a fault; according to Apple the keyboard is a 3rd generation model designed to reduce keystroke noise.....

They have put a silicon cover around the mechanism, which according to their patent from a few years ago was to stop contaminates getting into the mechanism. I can appreciate that Apple don't like admitting design flaws, not least when they are faced with numerous class action law suits over the keyboard design, but it's pretty obvious that's the reason for the redesign.

I hope they are using the new keyboard for their extended warranty programme as I am taking a second MacBook in for a replacement next week.

[Durzel]

tim0409 said:

Apple appears to have fixed the issue with the keyboard (dust getting into the butterfly key mechanism, which can require a new top case/battery/keyboard), not that they would ever admit to there being a fault; according to Apple the keyboard is a 3rd generation model designed to reduce keystroke noise.....

They have put a silicon cover around the mechanism, which according to their patent from a few years ago was to stop contaminates getting into the mechanism. I can appreciate that Apple don't like admitting design flaws, not least when they are faced with numerous class action law suits over the keyboard design, but it's pretty obvious that's the reason for the redesign.

I hope they are using the new keyboard for their extended warranty programme as I am taking a second MacBook in for a replacement next week.

I think it's a bit early to say that when people haven't even received the new model yet?

[Leicester Loyal]

I like Apple, but there's no way in hell I'd pay that for a Macbook.

[272BHP]

Ordered one today for pick up tomorrow.

13" Quad, 8GB and 256GB. I am hoping that the fast SSDs will make up for the fact I did not get 16GB but that was 180 pound extra!

Got it with an educational discount and with free Beats Solo 3 wireless headphones (these are very good)

Came to about 1700 with Applecare added on. I currently use a 2011 Macbook so should see a major performance jump!

[dmsims]

272BHP said:

Beats Solo 3 wireless headphones (these are very good)

If you like really poor treble and overpowering bloated bass I suppose they are

[tim0409]

Durzel said:

I think it's a bit early to say that when people haven't even received the new model yet?

They have, and ifixit have already taken one apart and posted up the results.

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/ifixit-butter...

[leglessAlex]

Troubleatmill said:

The SSD speeds are just bonkers compared to XPS etc

https://www.macrumors.com

Some 9-10 times faster!!!!

I actually had a look into this, and it seems to be a bit misleading on two fronts.

Firstly, it seems that the APFS file system doesn't properly copy files when moving them from one folder to another, it just changes the metadata. This results in artificially high read/write speeds indicated.

Secondly, they're comparing the Mac to a base Windows laptop, all of which ship with traditional SATA SSDs in them. NVME SSD drives are an option on any of the models that would be compared to the MacBook, and these are much much faster. I looked up some benchmarks for the 15" Dell XPS and it seems a read/write speed of around 1,500MB/s each way is to be expected.

I think Apple still tend to use faster storage drives even when everything is taken into account, but it's a lot less than this article indicates.

[wiffmaster]

Finally! My Macbook Air 2011 is basically dead (top Qwerty row broken, meaning I have to use on-screen-keyboard to type)

New 13" touch bar, but upgraded from 8GB to 16GB RAM. Due to get here on the 31st and can't come quickly enough.

Edited by wiffmaster on Sunday 15th July 00:08

[272BHP]

dmsims said:

If you like really poor treble and overpowering bloated bass I suppose they are

The older Beats were terrible yes but my son has had some Solo 3s for awhile and they are very good, not the absolute best but a good allrounder, comfortable and well made.

Getting them for free is very welcome. I am sure we paid near to 200 pound for my sons pair.

[272BHP]

wiffmaster said:

Finally! My Macbook Air 2011 is basically dead (top Qwerty row broken, meaning I have to use on-screen-keyboard to type!)

New 13" touch bar, but upgraded from 8GB to 16GB RAM. Due to get here on the 31st and can't come quickly enough!

I really was unsure whether to get 8GB or 16GB as I do a fair bit of development work and have a couple of VMs running most days.

In the end I looked at my memory temperature in Activity Monitor which revealed that I rarely go above 80% and is always completely green so I went for the 8GB - still not sure if that was the right decision as I intend to keep this machine for at least 5 years.

Might regret that decision but 180 pound for an extra 8GB is pretty outrageous.

[silentbrown]

leglessAlex said:

Secondly, they're comparing the Mac to a base Windows laptop, all of which ship with traditional SATA SSDs in them. NVME SSD drives are an option on any of the models that would be compared to the MacBook, and these are much much faster. I looked up some benchmarks for the 15" Dell XPS and it seems a read/write speed of around 1,500MB/s each way is to be expected.

I'd agree. Just ran a test on my year-old XPS-15.

[Durzel]

DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.

Not sure what you mean. The memory needs to be specced at point of build. It is soldered in and cannot be upgraded by an end user or Apple store.