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2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar | Review
Apr 30, 2024
More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com It’s been four long years since Apple’s last big update to the MacBook Pro lineup. But finally in 2016; the year of doom and gloom Apple has finally answered our prayers and delivered us the brand new MacBook Pro we’ve been waiting for .. or have they? Follow us! Twitter: https://twitter.com/cultofmac Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultofmac Instagram: https://instagram.com/cultofmac/
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It's been four long years since Apple's last big update to the MacBook Pro lineup
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But finally in 2016, the year of doom and gloom, Apple has finally answered our prayers and delivered
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us the new MacBook Pro we've been waiting for. Or have they
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Let's start off with the design. The new MacBook Pro takes a lot of inspiration from the MacBook Range
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It now comes in space gray, it's thinner and lighter, it has smaller bezzles around the screen
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and it features a lot less ports. The one thing you can't argue about though
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is how beautiful the new MacBook Pro is. It's thinner bezzles around the screen
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and even the keyboard make the new MacBook Pro 23% smaller than the previous generation
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which just makes it feel super sleek and easy than ever to carry about
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Then there's that new, larger, force touch trackpad. Although it's great that the trackpad now has more real estate
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for swiping and clicking away, I find myself resting my palm on it from time to time
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Yes, it has that palm rejection technology in there to combat this, but it doesn't work 100% of the time
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Plus, the trackpad itself sounds a little cheap. There's also that new butterfly mechanism compact keyboard
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It's a lot less shallow than the previous MacBook keyboard, which means it has less travel when typing
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Thankfully, it's still a joy to type on. If you're moving from the previous MacBook Pro or even a magic keyboard
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it's going to take some getting used to. The keys are still nice and clicky, but it just takes a few hours to build up the touch typing confidence
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especially with those new arrow keys. But the addition that everyone wants to know about is the shiny new touchbar
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Apple has replaced the top row of function keys with a super bright and clear OLED touchscreen
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It's less a row of digital buttons, but more of a tiny iPad. The standard function keys have been replaced with a row of always present buttons
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so volume, brightness, escape and so on are always accessible through tapping on each button
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and sliding them left or right or they extend out if you want a more traditional full row The four fixed buttons thankfully can be customized to different functions that are more suitable for each user So if you not a Siri user you can switch that out with something like Spotlight
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But when you open up different apps, the center of the touchbar transforms to be more useful
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to each app. This works better in some apps than others. For example, in Safari, the touchbar will add tab and back page Ninja, search bar
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Pages will give you formatting options, messages gives you emojis and photos helps you out with
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some edit keys. Mail will give you archive and spam buttons, so you can fire through your emails and get rid of the useless emails quickly
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Oh, and if you use the F1, F2, F3 keys and so on, don't worry, you can hold the function key to bring them back up temporarily
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Where the touchbar does fail is on things like word suggestions. It's great on an iPhone, but here on the Mac, it just feels strange and out of place and actually just slows me down
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The touchbar is a really nice idea, but it just feels like a gimmick. Most pro users tend to already know traditional keyboard shortcuts that they use on a daily basis
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I personally never find myself looking down at the keyboard when working away, as I know all the shortcuts that I need
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So whenever I was actually doing work on the new MacBook Pro, I'd actually forget the touchbar was there at all
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If you're starting out using the touchbar and aren't familiar with shortcuts, then it's probably a different experience and would actually save people time
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But by all means, I don't see the touchbar as a pro feature. It'll be interesting to see in the coming months what third party developers such such as a show
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as Adobe come up with within their creative cloud range of apps and they could come up with
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something brilliant. But at the moment, I don't think it's there just yet
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Also hidden within the touch bar is the power button with touch ID. I didn't personally think too much of it before getting my hands on the new MacBook Pro
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But for those times where I had to switch back to my old pro, it's something that I really missed
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Being able to log into my Mac without a password or wearing my Apple Watch was Bliss
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This is the perfect way to access my Mac. Yes, I know many laptops in the past have had fingerprint scanners and sensors
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sensors but just like the iPhone it works every time But surely the most important thing about a Pro MacBook is performance right If you a day user by which I mean you browse Facebook shop online and file your taxes the MacBook Pro is going to be super snappy
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But if you're a pro user, the news isn't as great. When editing a 1080p video project within Premiere, it handles it no problem, as you'd
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hope for in 2016. But when I start adding 4K video and try to lay any shots on top of each other, it all falls
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to bits and simply can't handle it. export times compared to my older MacBook Pro, which is also the entry model, aren't significantly
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faster. Geekbench scores clearly show that the new MacBook Pro is faster on the single-thread
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side, but when it comes to multi-thread, it's actually a little bit slower
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Users are reporting that Apple's own editor Final Cut Pro is handling 4K no problem
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But if you're editing commercially, chances are you're not going to be using Final Cut Pro 10
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And no one should have to change their workflow for the laptop. I've also noticed little glitches here and there
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But the MacBook Pro will seem to freeze on certain apps, not allowing me to click on anything
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unless I swipe off the app and back again. Whether this is due to my hand resting on the larger trackpad or it's a software bug that
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can be fixed down the road, it's not something that I want to see on my $700 laptop
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Plus, limiting the MacBook Pro to just 16 gigs of RAM seems a little bit strange, as 32
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gigs would have benefited a lot of people. The MacBook Pro boasts a 10-hour battery life
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Of course, I never expect to see Apple's estimates in real life, but I'm getting around 6 to 8
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hours depending on what I'm doing, which is about the same as my previous Macbook
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It's by no means bad, but there's no big improvement. First, Apple took away the headphone jack, now they've taken away all of our USB ports
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HGMI ports and SD card slots, in favour of 4 USBC ports, and surprisingly, a headphone jack
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Whilst it's great that USBC can charge your MacBook and transfer data or plug-in displays at
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the same time, it's still a huge pain in the arse for everyone like myself who uses a load
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of peripherals. I know there a growing number of native USBC products out there but it still in the early days There absolutely no doubt that you going to need some adapters and new cables Thankfully Apple have cut the prices of their dongles for a limited time but it still
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an extra cost that you're going to have to factor in before picking up the new MacBook Pro
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Need to use an external hard drive? Probably going to need an adapter
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Want to charge your iPhone? Yep, an adapter. Need to use an SD card
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You get the point. Two features that I have absolutely no complaint about are the display and speakers
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The display itself is super crisp, the color of the color. are noticeably more vibrant, with deep looking blacks and increased brightness, and the speakers
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on the new MacBook Pro aren't necessarily a lot louder, but have a much fuller sound
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If you'd like to see a full side-by-side comparison video between the new MacBook Pro and the
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2015 model, make sure to subscribe as that'll be up soon after this video
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So the main question is, is it worth it? To be honest, I'm a little bit split
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For a starting price of $1,799 for the base model, you want to be sure that you need the upgrade
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If you've got an older MacBook Pro without the Retina display, then definitely
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The amazing display and killer speakers are worth it alone. Plus the speed improvements you'll see in everyday life
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If you've got a more recent MacBook Pro with Retina display, I'd say hold off
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The touch bar itself isn't enough of a reason to make the switch, especially until we truly
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see what developers can do on the platform. Apple's integrations are nice, but whether I actually use them is still a little bit hit and miss
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Plus I'm still kind of waiting for the novelty to wear off. There's not a massive increase in terms of performance from the 2015 MacBook Pro, which
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is where I'd really like Apple to concentrate on for their pro lines of Macs
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I may sound really harsh on the new MacBook Pro, but that's because I expect a lot of it
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Despite its flaws, I do genuinely love this laptop. It is an upgrade over the previous model
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It's quicker, sexier, has an amazing display in speakers, and still easily one of the best
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laptops Apple's ever made. But for now, I'm going to hold off on upgrading
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