Hands-on: MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar gets rave reviews

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macbook pro
There's a lot to love about the new MacBook Pro.
Photo: Apple

The new MacBook Pro won’t ship for another 2-3 weeks, but members of the media who got their fingers on the new Touch Bar came away from Apple’s event with rave reviews.

Apple hosted a hands-on section after today’s keynote and based on the quick impression the new MacBook Pro made, it looks like Apple has another hit on its hands.

Magic Touch Bar

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“The Touch Bar is, in a word, neat…The strip itself is glossy. Not quite slick, but frictionless enough so as to run a finger across with little effort. It’s quick and responsive, reacting to multi-touch and the amount of pressure the user applies. It also adapts quite quickly as you toggle between different apps. It’s a really cool and really versatile new addition – like having a small mobile display embedded directly into the Notebook.” — TechCrunch

Great Keyboard

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“The keyboard is almost identical to the Butterfly keyboard found on the tiny MacBook. That’s going to cause some people to grind their teeth, but I think it’s great and easy to type on — and I do think the keys might have sightly better travel, but don’t hold me to that. In any case, I expect that this will be a sore spot for some people, but my level of sympathy isn’t as high as it ought to be, because I think this keyboard is great.” — The Verge

Super light

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“As a road warrior and a 13-inch MacBook Air user, I was most interested in that model and pleased to learn that it’s the same weight (3 pounds) and a bit smaller form factor. Even the 15-inch, at 4 pounds, is a reasonable weight for people on the go. I was able to handle both models and could easily see myself carrying around the 13-inch MacBook Pro model as I go about my day or walk from booth to booth at a large trade show like CES.” — Forbes
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Yuge trackpad

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“The one thing I don’t like about the Touch Bar is that it doesn’t offer haptic feedback. What does is the mammoth touchpad on each of these MacBook Pro, which is twice as large as before. The Force Touch trackpads are positively huge, almost comically so on the 15-incher. It still feels like a real button when you press down, even though it’s not.” — Laptop Mag

Touch ID

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“At the right edge of that strip lies a Touch ID sensor, that allows folks to login to their Macs via their fingertips. In the limited time I spent with the new Pro, that sensor worked as it should — which is to say considerably faster than typing in a password.” — Engadget

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