PRODUCT REVIEW: MacBook Pro (Late 2018)
(Fire On High - ELO)
Yes, I know. I bought another Mac.
Here's the thing though: I used my last Mac, a Late 2013 27" iMac with modest innards, for nearly six years before I made the choice to step up to another rig, and the only reason why I made that choice was because I'm sort of spoiled and didn't want to wait as long for my multimedia projects to render.
I don't think I've ever used a PC for six years before I was upgrading parts or fettling with it to keep it running. I KNOW I've never used a PC for six years without having some kind of trouble with it, reinstalling the operating system, or otherwise having to care aggressively for it. I've never, not once, had a single problem with my iMac, and it does everything I want it to do. Especially as I get older, that carries a ton of weight with me. I -could- continue to wrangle a PC. I know how. I just don't want to anymore.
When the time came, I didn't hesitate to plop down the money for another modestly spec'd Mac. Here's what I've got under the hood:
CPU: 2.6GHz Intel Core i7
RAM: 16GB
GPU: Radeon Pro 555x with 4GB of RAM -and- an Intel UHD 630 with 1.5GB of RAM.
HDD: 256GB SSD
Ports: 4 USBC, two of which are Thunderbolt 3
I'll spare you the super-nerdy benchmarks on this rig. There are other, more qualified people who have done a ton of that analysis already, and Google is a thing.
As with all things, there are loves and hates with new toys. Here are mine.
LOVE:
- Goddamnit, this thing is gorgeous. It's breathtakingly good looking.
- The display is staggering. Mac knows how to build a display, and this is no exception. It's a monster 15" Retina Mk2 display that just looks incredible whatever you do to it. I work off of an internal display most of the time, and my biggest regret is that I'm not looking at that gorgeous Retina panel...
- It's -FAST-. Mind you, my iMac wasn't a slouch, and you can't really see much of a difference with day to day tasks once programs are open. The biggest differences are opening programs and really media-intensive tasks like rendering videos. This thing is just so much faster! Everything happens immediately. No waiting. No hesitation. As it should be, given what I paid.
- Thunderbolt 3 and USB C was a match made in heaven. Thunderbolt 3 is an amazing bus, and I'm delighted that this system has so many TB3 ports on it. Some people are cranky about only having four ports. I'm not one of them. I cannot wait for the rest of the world to catch up to USB-C and TB3. Yes, I have adapters plugged into my MBP. I don't give a damn.
- The speakers are surprisingly good for their size. As with the iMac, I always find myself blown away that I'm getting the depth and volume of audio from such a cramped, tiny set of speakers.
- Touch ID! I -love- Touch ID. Sorry, I do. I love having it on my system.
NO LOVE:
- I don't dig the keyboard. It's not bad, but it's a huge step down from the MacBook Pros from, say, 2015. Those were borderline perfect. The butterfly hinges on this new keyboard don't have enough travel to them, and I'm always worried that I'm typing too hard on them. This is less of a concern with me since I work off of an external keyboard most of the time, and I absolutely -LOVE- Apple's Magic Keyboards. My ideal keyboard travel allows me to hit the end of the key's travel lightly, and then spring away from it. I never feel like I'm pounding the keys, just pressing them firmly with their Magic Keyboards. This is not, unfortunately, the case with the MBP's butterfly-hinge keys. I know I'm not the only one who doesn't care for them, and their durability worries me to a certain extent, especially with all of the stories I've seen online. That said, I think it'll be less of an issue for me, as I've said.
- 256 Gigs of storage is not enough for most people, and I'm included here. I'm less concerned here as well because I have plenty of external USB 3.0 storage, and could easily buy an external TB3 drive if I needed REALLY speedy access to my data, but it's just one more thing to drag around when I go mobile. Do I always need my external drives? No. But low-balling external storage on laptops shouldn't be a thing anymore. This isn't a problem unique to Apple either, before people start lighting torches. Upgrading to a more realistic 512 Gigs of storage shouldn't cost me several hundred dollars.
- 16 Gigs of RAM is plenty for what I'm going, but as with storage, upgrading to 32 Gigs of RAM shouldn't cost me bloody $400. That's also not entirely an Apple problem.
- For everything that I love about Touch ID being on my system, I hate, hate, HATE the Touch Bar. This is very much a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. Yes, it's cool that it updates itself dynamically with crap unique to each program you're using, but I just don't care! One of the things that Mac got right long before PC was burying semi-useless function keys and using that space for common system functions like media control, screen brightness, and volume. Yes, you can get to those things with the Touch Bar, but they're all more than one press away, and I have to look away from what I'm doing to trigger those functions. I can't just find the button like a good little touch-typer. Again, this is less of a deal-breaker for me because I'm using an external keyboard that still has physical keys to control those functions, but still... Also, getting rid of the physical keys means that, on the rare chance you need them, you won't be able to actually USE Function Keys.
- Mechanical keys are a thing for a reason. You move a mechanism that completes a circuit or presses a switch and things happen. This includes mice and track-pads. Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with Apple's Force Feedback tech. I'm using a Magic Trackpad 2 right now, and I love it. That said, the day has already come that I woke my MBP up from a nap -- admittedly in a semi-unique fashion -- and my built-in trackpad wouldn't accept inputs. I had to reboot my Mac before it would start working again. This was less of an issue for me because I have a variety of external pointing devices, but it's just one more thing that could leave you up shit creek when it fails.
Like all purchases of this type, I researched the MacBook Pro extensively before I made my purchase, and did so in the safest fashion possible -- Thank you, Costco! I'd like to think that I went into this with both eyes open, and yes, the irony is not lost on me. Macs aren't for everyone any more than PCs are. Know what you're buying. I like to think I did, and while the price tag might make some people balk, I go back to the fact that I expect to be able to use this machine for the next five or six years. That kind of reliability and peace of mind is worth a few hundred extra dollars.
Yes, I know. I bought another Mac.
Here's the thing though: I used my last Mac, a Late 2013 27" iMac with modest innards, for nearly six years before I made the choice to step up to another rig, and the only reason why I made that choice was because I'm sort of spoiled and didn't want to wait as long for my multimedia projects to render.
I don't think I've ever used a PC for six years before I was upgrading parts or fettling with it to keep it running. I KNOW I've never used a PC for six years without having some kind of trouble with it, reinstalling the operating system, or otherwise having to care aggressively for it. I've never, not once, had a single problem with my iMac, and it does everything I want it to do. Especially as I get older, that carries a ton of weight with me. I -could- continue to wrangle a PC. I know how. I just don't want to anymore.
When the time came, I didn't hesitate to plop down the money for another modestly spec'd Mac. Here's what I've got under the hood:
CPU: 2.6GHz Intel Core i7
RAM: 16GB
GPU: Radeon Pro 555x with 4GB of RAM -and- an Intel UHD 630 with 1.5GB of RAM.
HDD: 256GB SSD
Ports: 4 USBC, two of which are Thunderbolt 3
I'll spare you the super-nerdy benchmarks on this rig. There are other, more qualified people who have done a ton of that analysis already, and Google is a thing.
As with all things, there are loves and hates with new toys. Here are mine.
LOVE:
- Goddamnit, this thing is gorgeous. It's breathtakingly good looking.
- The display is staggering. Mac knows how to build a display, and this is no exception. It's a monster 15" Retina Mk2 display that just looks incredible whatever you do to it. I work off of an internal display most of the time, and my biggest regret is that I'm not looking at that gorgeous Retina panel...
- It's -FAST-. Mind you, my iMac wasn't a slouch, and you can't really see much of a difference with day to day tasks once programs are open. The biggest differences are opening programs and really media-intensive tasks like rendering videos. This thing is just so much faster! Everything happens immediately. No waiting. No hesitation. As it should be, given what I paid.
- Thunderbolt 3 and USB C was a match made in heaven. Thunderbolt 3 is an amazing bus, and I'm delighted that this system has so many TB3 ports on it. Some people are cranky about only having four ports. I'm not one of them. I cannot wait for the rest of the world to catch up to USB-C and TB3. Yes, I have adapters plugged into my MBP. I don't give a damn.
- The speakers are surprisingly good for their size. As with the iMac, I always find myself blown away that I'm getting the depth and volume of audio from such a cramped, tiny set of speakers.
- Touch ID! I -love- Touch ID. Sorry, I do. I love having it on my system.
NO LOVE:
- I don't dig the keyboard. It's not bad, but it's a huge step down from the MacBook Pros from, say, 2015. Those were borderline perfect. The butterfly hinges on this new keyboard don't have enough travel to them, and I'm always worried that I'm typing too hard on them. This is less of a concern with me since I work off of an external keyboard most of the time, and I absolutely -LOVE- Apple's Magic Keyboards. My ideal keyboard travel allows me to hit the end of the key's travel lightly, and then spring away from it. I never feel like I'm pounding the keys, just pressing them firmly with their Magic Keyboards. This is not, unfortunately, the case with the MBP's butterfly-hinge keys. I know I'm not the only one who doesn't care for them, and their durability worries me to a certain extent, especially with all of the stories I've seen online. That said, I think it'll be less of an issue for me, as I've said.
- 256 Gigs of storage is not enough for most people, and I'm included here. I'm less concerned here as well because I have plenty of external USB 3.0 storage, and could easily buy an external TB3 drive if I needed REALLY speedy access to my data, but it's just one more thing to drag around when I go mobile. Do I always need my external drives? No. But low-balling external storage on laptops shouldn't be a thing anymore. This isn't a problem unique to Apple either, before people start lighting torches. Upgrading to a more realistic 512 Gigs of storage shouldn't cost me several hundred dollars.
- 16 Gigs of RAM is plenty for what I'm going, but as with storage, upgrading to 32 Gigs of RAM shouldn't cost me bloody $400. That's also not entirely an Apple problem.
- For everything that I love about Touch ID being on my system, I hate, hate, HATE the Touch Bar. This is very much a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. Yes, it's cool that it updates itself dynamically with crap unique to each program you're using, but I just don't care! One of the things that Mac got right long before PC was burying semi-useless function keys and using that space for common system functions like media control, screen brightness, and volume. Yes, you can get to those things with the Touch Bar, but they're all more than one press away, and I have to look away from what I'm doing to trigger those functions. I can't just find the button like a good little touch-typer. Again, this is less of a deal-breaker for me because I'm using an external keyboard that still has physical keys to control those functions, but still... Also, getting rid of the physical keys means that, on the rare chance you need them, you won't be able to actually USE Function Keys.
- Mechanical keys are a thing for a reason. You move a mechanism that completes a circuit or presses a switch and things happen. This includes mice and track-pads. Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with Apple's Force Feedback tech. I'm using a Magic Trackpad 2 right now, and I love it. That said, the day has already come that I woke my MBP up from a nap -- admittedly in a semi-unique fashion -- and my built-in trackpad wouldn't accept inputs. I had to reboot my Mac before it would start working again. This was less of an issue for me because I have a variety of external pointing devices, but it's just one more thing that could leave you up shit creek when it fails.
Like all purchases of this type, I researched the MacBook Pro extensively before I made my purchase, and did so in the safest fashion possible -- Thank you, Costco! I'd like to think that I went into this with both eyes open, and yes, the irony is not lost on me. Macs aren't for everyone any more than PCs are. Know what you're buying. I like to think I did, and while the price tag might make some people balk, I go back to the fact that I expect to be able to use this machine for the next five or six years. That kind of reliability and peace of mind is worth a few hundred extra dollars.
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