New MacBook Pros

[roger482]

If anyone is heading in this direction and after a Apple product, this is worth the visit:

https://newton.gi/uploads/appleprices.pdf

https://store.newton.gi/SearchStock/MacBookPro

Edited by roger482 on Monday 16th July 20:19

[mikef]

thebraketester said:

Has anyone tried the magnetic usb C things you can buy that turns it into a "Magsafe"?

Yep, it sort of works in an emergency-trip-over-the-cable way, but can pull out the USB-C dongle part if you pull straight out

It’s really my only complaint (I have two 2017 MacBook Pro’s, one at home and one for work). I can live with the keyboard and actually prefer standardising on USB-C rather than have a bunch of different incompatible ports

[silentbrown]

roger482 said:

If anyone is heading in this direction and after a Apple product, this is worth the visit:
https://newton.gi/uploads/appleprices.pdf

Gibraltar - need to add VAT to those prices unless you want to smuggle them back...?

[mikeiow]

AndrewEH1 said:

My 2012 MBP is showing it's age, so if the new improved keyboard isn't a hot broken mess that it was on the last gen I might pick one up

...still wish it had mag-safe charging and more ports

Yup: Apple are losing the plot in my feeble and utterly insignificant opinion!
I have hated windows for quite some time, but really, the massive Apple price increases and removal of all useful ports make it hard to imagine replacing my 2014 MBPr with another Apple device. Work buddies who chose the last upgraded units have roundly berated the keyboard as well - maybe this one solves that issue, but it is nuts how they could take a proper "pro-spec" unit and continually remove the value.

Kinda sad really, but I think they have been on a downward tech-slide pretty well since Jobs departed the world.

Clearly I hope my unit continues well - we are really are a Mac house here (kids got uni-price models around 2014-15 as well), but I don't see it in the future for us. Bah!

[roger482]

silentbrown said:

Gibraltar - need to add VAT to those prices unless you want to smuggle them back...?

Just walk or drive over the border back into Spain exactly the same as everyone else does here.

Edited by roger482 on Monday 16th July 22:26

[Matt London]

thebraketester said:

Has anyone tried the magnetic usb C things you can buy that turns it into a "Magsafe"?

I have one of these and it works really well!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B075F3J4SN/ref...

[Silverbullet767]

Matt London said:

I have one of these and it works really well!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B075F3J4SN/ref...

The good old apple 'remove stuff and sell you it as a dongle later' approach.

Removing magsafe + ports = utter madness and dongle hell.

[TheJimi]

Does this mean that only the pros are getting updated this year?

[leglessAlex]

TheJimi said:

Does this mean that only the pros are getting updated this year?

According to rumours (mostly from KGI Securities), the whole lot is getting updated this year. Well, almost all. Refreshed iMacs and Mac Minis, along with a replacement or lower cost Macbook Air. New Mac Pro sometime next year, hopefully early. That, along with the normal iPad update.

[Rollin]

It's a shame they don't make the 17" Macbook Pro again.
I've had mine since 2011.
It's had a new battery and free logic board repair in that time.
I'm hoping I can 'Trigger's broom' it if stuff starts to fail as I like the bigger screen.

[tankplanker]

USB C is a big step forward for me as it means I can charge the laptop both from a USB C PD rechargeable battery (that will also charge my phone) and from a non Apple charger that can also (high speed) charge USB devices at the same time. The fact that a greater number of companies support it as its the same standard for Windows and no licensing from Apple means I will pay less as well.

A USB C docking station (supports both Windows and Macs) soon sorts out plugging everything in, one single cable to the laptop for the docking station and power, everything else into the docking station.

I have a pair of USB C PD batteries, a smaller one that'll do about one full charge of the laptop, and a bigger one that will nearly squeeze three full charges out of, on top of being able to charge my phone.

[Lynchie999]

... why didnt they upgrade the "cheaper" ones too ?!



... whats the likely difference between the old i7 processor and the new Gen8 i5 ??

[GoodDoc]

Lynchie999 said:

... why didnt they upgrade the "cheaper" ones too ?!



... whats the likely difference between the old i7 processor and the new Gen8 i5 ??

The non touch bar versions of the MacBook Pro (and the MacBook Airs) use Intel's low TDP (Thermal Design Power) processors. You get lower performance, but better battery life. The touch bar MacBooks use the medium TDP processors, higher performance, but worse battery life.

Intel released medium TDP versions of it's latest Coffee Lake processors which are now found in the new touch bar MacBooks, but they haven't yet released low TDP versions, so the non-touch bar MacBooks stick with the older low TDP Kaby Lake processors.

As for performance differences;
The optional 3.5 GHz i7 in the previous 13" MacBook Pro (the 7567U), has a CPU PassMark of 6535.
The standard 2.3 GHz i5 in the new 13" MacBook Pro (the 8259U), has a CPU PassMark score of 7658.

Bare in mind that the older MacBook used dual core processors whereas the newer MacBooks use quad core, but the standard i5 now has about 17% higher performance than the old high end i7 (at least based on PassMark score, your millage my vary).

[Bacardi]

Last month spilt a drink on my old MBP 2008, can't believe it has served me well for 10 years. I had upgraded the drive to SSD which gave it a new lease of life, but it had run out of OS upgrades, not that I needed it as all worked well.

Looked at the options, the MacBook nice and small and light, but gutless. The new Pro, expensive and the need to have a touch bar for extra ports annoyed me as well as the need to buy dongles for all my older peripherals Also the reports of keyboard problems put me off.

So went with old tech of MacBook Air with a BTO i7 and 512 SSD and am delighted with it. Form factor, lighter weight, SD slot, ports and MagSafe for £1384. I would have happily paid more for 16gb, 1TB TB3 and a Retina display and a bit more graphics grunt, but this will do nicely .

[Thorburn]

GoodDoc said:

Intel released medium TDP versions of it's latest Coffee Lake processors which are now found in the new touch bar MacBooks, but they haven't yet released low TDP versions, so the non-touch bar MacBooks stick with the older low TDP Kaby Lake processors.

Yes they have. I've had an i5-8250U based laptop (quad-core, 15W TDP) since November 2017.

Bacardi said:

So went with old tech of MacBook Air with a BTO i7 and 512 SSD and am delighted with it. Form factor, lighter weight, SD slot, ports and MagSafe for £1384. I would have happily paid more for 16gb, 1TB TB3 and a Retina display and a bit more graphics grunt, but this will do nicely .

The screen on the Air is a disgrace at £500, let alone £1000+

[Bacardi]

Thorburn said:

The screen on the Air is a disgrace at £500, let alone £1000+

As I said, would prefer a retina, but it's OK, nothing worse than it replaced, but brighter. A £500 repair bill for a keyboard on a £2k-5k machine because it got a bit of dust behind it, now that is a disgrace.

[thebraketester]

Bacardi said:

Thorburn said:

The screen on the Air is a disgrace at £500, let alone £1000+

As I said, would prefer a retina, but it's OK, nothing worse than it replaced, but brighter. A £500 repair bill for a keyboard on a £2k-5k machine because it got a bit of dust behind it, now that is a disgrace.

I had similar. The right hand bass speaker stopped working on mine, I would stretch my imagination to say its a 2 quid part. Needed a whole top case replacment.... 498quid+69 service charge. All under warranty.... so I had a new screen out of them too as it had a blemish on the backlight, that was another 332quid

[Glasgowrob]

Maybe im an odd one but love the usb C setup

It just works for me. One cable to rule them all

And I can charge my phone using my MacBook charger 😂

But seriously it rocks 1 cable into my dock at work same charger for both phone and MacBook and the usual apple everything just works out the box. I use a USBC to hdmi at home for Netflix and it just works no hassle no faff proper plug and play

[ashleyman]

Glasgowrob said:

One cable to rule them all

It's not so bad now but back when I got my MBP with USB-C I couldn't find a USB-C to Micro-B cable anywhere. Thankfully they're more accessible now!

I still can't find a USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 cable so have to use a dongle. I'm also using a dongle for USB-C to HDMI because neither Apple or Belkin or any of the 'trusted' cable guys make a USB-C to HDMI cable.

I can't fully switch to USB-C because my iMac desktop machine is a mix of USB 3 and Thunderbolt. Someone needs to make a USB-C dock that plugs in via USB3.

I do like the fact that my 19W MBP charger works with my USB-C to lightning cable. I can charge my phone from flat to 95% in about half hour.

[Phunk]

ashleyman said:

Glasgowrob said:

One cable to rule them all

I still can't find a USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 cable so have to use a dongle. I'm also using a dongle for USB-C to HDMI because neither Apple or Belkin or any of the 'trusted' cable guys make a USB-C to HDMI cable.

I use Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 dongle for an external hard drive, the dongle itself heats up a fair bit, so there must be something complex going on inside.