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16" MacBook Pro, buy now or wait for the mini-led?

David1986H

David1986H

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 12, 2020
493
376
Cheshire, UK
Hi, sorry for the long post but its better to get everything out there that I'm thinking. So last spring I heard that a 16" MacBook Pro was coming out at some point in 2019, when Apple updated the 15" in May 2019 I stupidly upgraded my 2017 MacBook Pro then 6 moths later in November the 16" come out lol. With the bigger screen better keyboard, speakers etc it sounded amazing but I couldn't justify buying another MacBook twice in one year. Then I hear about the mini-led rumours a possible release around fall 2020, now some are saying its been push back to 2021. With Intel just realising their 10th gen cpus, Apple most likely will be updating the 16" soon. So my question is do I upgrade to the next 16" update which should be released soon or do I wait for the mini-led next year if it come out? The main advantage of mini-led is deeper blacks but I don't really watch anything or look at things with a dark background , so will I benefit from it? Thanks
 
If you have a relatively recent 2017 machine, why do you want to upgrade at all? I would recommend just using it until it stops to perform what you need out of it and then upgrade to whatever is the latest available machine at that point of time.
 
I think they have a 2019 15” machine. In which case I would say no, unless you like burning money, you shouldn’t upgrade until you need to. If your machine works fine, why would you need to keep updating it? Chasing every new MacBook pro revision is an expensive hobby with very little gain.
 
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What real world benefit will mini-LED screens drive? Not being sarcastic here but, instead, I'm really trying to understand for myself. Will it widen the color gamut? Will it drive higher screen brightness? Other benefits?
 
pcdtech said:
What real world benefit will mini-LED screens drive? Not being sarcastic here but, instead, I'm really trying to understand for myself. Will it widen the color gamut? Will it drive higher screen brightness? Other benefits?
Click to expand...
I think a lot of people hope for less screen blurr or even a higher refresh rate
 
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Mini LED is -- at least for now -- vaporware.

If you need a new MacBook now, then it's time to BUY one... now.
 
pcdtech said:
What real world benefit will mini-LED screens drive? Not being sarcastic here but, instead, I'm really trying to understand for myself. Will it widen the color gamut? Will it drive higher screen brightness? Other benefits?
Click to expand...

On paper right now, the purpose of Mini-LED is to have higher contrast ratios (brighter whites/deeper blacks) and wider color gamut than current LCD-LED screens, while also being more power efficient and the physical tech being smaller. In theory, it would be closer to OLED (but not quite), but without having the issue of burn in that OLEDs can have. There's also the potential of Apple implementing Mini-LED being when MBPs could go to higher resolution displays than they currently offer and potentially with higher refresh rates. Right now though we don't know for sure and it's just a lot of ifs ands and buts.

Me personally, my 2013 MBP will last me long enough to wait and see what the Mini-LED MBPs will be like next year. If i like it and it doesn't have problems, i'll be buying it. If it's not up to snuff and i decide i don't want/need it, i will just get the supposed late 2020 16" MBP spec bump (that likely won't have Mini-LED or be ARM) from the refurb store and hang onto that for a bit.
 
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One thing I would like to see is a non-reflective screen on a laptop. I understand there's some fancy-pants nanotexture technology on the ridiculously expensive Pro monitor. I presume we might see that in laptop form at some stage.

I'm still on a late 2012 15 inch MBP! It's been upgraded with lots of RAM and a 2TB SSD, and generally works well. I would very much like to run multiple 4K monitors, so might upgrade soonish.
 
David1986H said:
Hi, sorry for the long post but its better to get everything out there that I'm thinking. So last spring I heard that a 16" MacBook Pro was coming out at some point in 2019, when Apple updated the 15" in May 2019 I stupidly upgraded my 2017 MacBook Pro then 6 moths later in November the 16" come out lol. With the bigger screen better keyboard, speakers etc it sounded amazing but I couldn't justify buying another MacBook twice in one year. Then I hear about the mini-led rumours a possible release around fall 2020, now some are saying its been push back to 2021. With Intel just realising their 10th gen cpus, Apple most likely will be updating the 16" soon. So my question is do I upgrade to the next 16" update which should be released soon or do I wait for the mini-led next year if it come out? The main advantage of mini-led is deeper blacks but I don't really watch anything or look at things with a dark background , so will I benefit from it? Thanks
Click to expand...
If you have a 2019 Macbook Pro, then you should wait.There's not a lot of reason to update now.
 
At this stage in the cycle, I’d want a substantial discount on the 16”. Apple is overdue to switch to OLED or another substantially better screen technology. Even the iPad Pro’s screen handily outperforms the MacBook Pro.

The 16” is otherwise great, but the screen is 2016-era quality, which is to say not bad, but it’s not up to 2020 standards either; especially the smearing/ghosting issue. An iPhone-quality OLED would be ideal, even as an optional upgrade.

Unfortunately, the candidate 10th-gen i9 processors don’t support LPDDR4. Intel really is a joke at this point.
 
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If ARM processors are about a year away, I guess one should wait for those - and then wait a bit longer as the first version's bound to have issues ;-)
 
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thewinelake2 said:
If ARM processors are about a year away, I guess one should wait for those - and then wait a bit longer as the first version's bound to have issues ;-)
Click to expand...

Another silly question. Have there been rumors of ARM processors powering mini-LED displayed Macs? Is there something inherent that prevents ARM from working with a mini-LED display? I assume not (as it was rumored that the iPad Pro would be getting a mini-LED display) but thought I would ask.
 
10th gen 45 watt chips are not much of an upgrade over the 9th gen already in the existing units, so I wouldn't expect a spec bump to mean much of anything if one happens at WWDC. Any big changes worth holding out for are probably 6 months+ out.
 
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Mini LED isn't something that's coming soon. Ask yourself how quickly Apple adopts new technology, it took years before we got OLED iPhones. Apple is currently "In talks" to potentially invest in the tech, plus it will likely come to the Pro Display XDR or Apple Watch depending on yields and then make its way down the rest of the lineup gradually.
 
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That’s the point, if they have a computer that’s less than a year old, why would they need to upgrade? They can do whatever they want with their money, but seems like a waste to me, especially given some major tech changes that appear to be forthcoming.
 
Neither ARM devices nor new display techs will be launched in 2020. This year is a complete bust. He’ll, we should considering ourselves lucky if we get the iPhone 12 this year :)
 
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