MacBook Pro Refresh Might be Sooner Than We Think - Kaby Lake R

[Mr. Dee]

Dell, today, announced its XPS 13 refresh with Quad Core Intel Kaby Lake processors. Starting price is $1,400 and up. With brands such as Dell adopting the 8th gen CPU's so quickly, it wouldn't be surprising for Apple to follow suit. We might see new MacBook Pro's by late October, early November to accompany High Sierra. It's possible that this might be an in addition to existing 7th generation processors.

Apple could for instance push 7th generation Kaby Lake down to entry level model 13 and 15 inch then add KB-R to mid range to high end models.

Just today, Macrumors linked an article from a former Apple employee in which he mentioned updated laptops this fall.

The current laptop line forces users to pay for the Touch Bar on the higher end devices whether they want it or not, and that’s a cost users shouldn’t need to pay for a niche technology without a future. So Apple needs to either roll the Touch Bar out to the entire line and convince us we want it, or roll it back and offer more laptop options without it. I’m going to be curious what they do if/when they announce updated Laptops this fall.

https://chuqui.com/2017/08/the-life-and-death-of-the-touch-bar-revisiting-the-macbook-pro/


So, what are your thoughts, plausible or Apple is likely to skip it or wait it out until spring 2018? Also, how does affect your purchasing plans going into 2018?

 

[jerryk]

The one thing holding Apple back from refreshing the 13" dual cores is the lack of a 28W CPU. Currently only the 15W KabyLake Parts are available. But the 28W part should come out soon with higher base clock speeds. The 15W base clock speed is low, but they boost up to 4 GHZ.

I hope Apple does upgrade the 13" units to the new CPUs as soon as possible. But these days Apple seems a little risk adverse, so they may wait until summer/fall 2018 and upgrade the 13" with the 15" using the 45W 6-core CPUs.

But by then the XPS 13 will have had the new CPUs for a while, and new black Microsoft SurfaceBook should be out and ...

As far as upgrading, I need/want the 15" with hex core, so I will wait until they update the 15" with 45W processors. And the timing will fit in well with my 2 year upgrade cycle of machines and let me sell my current system with one year left on the AppleCare,

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Dell, today, announced its XPS 13 refresh with Quad Core Intel Kaby Lake processors. Starting price is $1,400 and up. With brands such as Dell adopting the 8th gen CPU's so quickly, it wouldn't be surprising for Apple to follow suit. We might see new MacBook Pro's by late October, early November to accompany High Sierra. It's possible that this might be an in addition to existing 7th generation processors.

Apple could for instance push 7th generation Kaby Lake down to entry level model 13 and 15 inch then add KB-R to mid range to high end models.

Just today, Macrumors linked an article from a former Apple employee in which he mentioned updated laptops this fall.

The current laptop line forces users to pay for the Touch Bar on the higher end devices whether they want it or not, and that’s a cost users shouldn’t need to pay for a niche technology without a future. So Apple needs to either roll the Touch Bar out to the entire line and convince us we want it, or roll it back and offer more laptop options without it. I’m going to be curious what they do if/when they announce updated Laptops this fall.

https://chuqui.com/2017/08/the-life-and-death-of-the-touch-bar-revisiting-the-macbook-pro/


So, what are your thoughts, plausible or Apple is likely to skip it or wait it out until spring 2018? Also, how does affect your purchasing plans going into 2018?

Fundamentally here. Dell HAVE to upgrade to the latest thing in order to attract customers, Apple DON'T have to do squat to sell millions of machines.

So just because Dell does something, it in no way means Apple will do the same. And given Apple, they should likely upgrade next March or October, but I doubt very much we'll see anything else this year. This is for a variety of economic reasons, number 1 being have you ever noticed Apple sell far fewer iPhones this time of year? Because everyone is waiting for the new one. If they start rolling MBPs out every 6 months, it'd take a huge hit into their profits as a large percentage of buyers just buy them because Apple, and they'll wait until the new one... KL was added purely to streamline production and buying power from Intel, the real world gains are minimal so it was more to increase margins.

Also current laptop is same price as every new generation MBP (They've always been ~$2500, if anything newest is cheapest due to inflation), no added cost for the TouchBar; it's added value if you like.

 

[leman]

I seriously doubt it. These CPUs are still Kaby Lake and they come with the low-end GPU. I'm curious to see some benchmarks though. How would a 15W quad-core perform? I really don't except too much sustained performance from these configurations...

 

[polbit]

Also current laptop is same price as every new generation MBP (They've always been ~$2500, if anything newest is cheapest due to inflation), no added cost for the TouchBar; it's added value if you like.

Ugh, no. They had a significant jump in price:

2015 MBP 15: 16/256/Iris Pro - $1,999
2017 MBP 15: 16/256/AMD 555 - $2,399

2015 MBP 15: 16/512/M370X - $2,499
2017 MBP 15: 16/512/AMD 560 - $2,799

20% increase on a base model, and 17% on the top model. Whatever you think about added/removed features, the fact is that the entry price point for the 15" MBP is higher. This is unlike prior years, where the pricing has not changed, just specs.

 

[jerryk]

I seriously doubt it. These CPUs are still Kaby Lake and they come with the low-end GPU. I'm curious to see some benchmarks though. How would a 15W quad-core perform? I really don't except too much sustained performance from these configurations...

The show 15-20% increase over current 15W processor on single thread. The 28 W and 45W products have not yet been officially announced.

 

[Nik]

Ugh, no. They had a significant jump in price:

2015 MBP 15: 16/256/Iris Pro - $1,999
2017 MBP 15: 16/256/AMD 555 - $2,399

2015 MBP 15: 16/512/M370X - $2,499
2017 MBP 15: 16/512/AMD 560 - $2,799

20% increase on a base model, and 17% on the top model. Whatever you think about added/removed features, the fact is that the entry price point for the 15" MBP is higher. This is unlike prior years, where the pricing has not changed, just specs.

Add in the needed adapters and you are well into the +25% price increase.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Ugh, no. They had a significant jump in price:

2015 MBP 15: 16/256/Iris Pro - $1,999
2017 MBP 15: 16/256/AMD 555 - $2,399

2015 MBP 15: 16/512/M370X - $2,499
2017 MBP 15: 16/512/AMD 560 - $2,799

20% increase on a base model, and 17% on the top model. Whatever you think about added/removed features, the fact is that the entry price point for the 15" MBP is higher. This is unlike prior years, where the pricing has not changed, just specs.

You're comparing end of generation prices to new generation though.

Looking at top end prices...

2016 MBP 15" $2799
2012 MBP 15" $2799
2008 MBP 15" $2499

Whenever a new one is released, older one is kept on sale with a price drop. Prices also drop throughout the run of the computer. So yes, the 2015 is cheaper than the 2016 but for those reasons. The current generation will probably hit $1899-1999 in 2019, and then a new one will be released in 2020 costing $2799, and it'll be this all over again.

 

[hajime]

Ugh, no. They had a significant jump in price:

2015 MBP 15: 16/256/Iris Pro - $1,999
2017 MBP 15: 16/256/AMD 555 - $2,399

2015 MBP 15: 16/512/M370X - $2,499
2017 MBP 15: 16/512/AMD 560 - $2,799

20% increase on a base model, and 17% on the top model. Whatever you think about added/removed features, the fact is that the entry price point for the 15" MBP is higher. This is unlike prior years, where the pricing has not changed, just specs.

With a big China market, Apple can afford to sell less capable machines with outdated components at higher prices. Rich students often own iPhone, iPad and Macbook Pro when they enter university.

 

[Falhófnir]

Think the gap between early/ mid 2015s and late 2016s show Apple aren't particularly concerned by being 'behind' in chipset generations. Or at least weren't up until the last release where they started focusing on VR/AR, which is, I gather, power hungry. Still, most likely if we do see anything, it'll be a new 17" cramming in an ultra powerful cpu, higher end gpu and 32gb ram, and maybe a 'ntb' 15" to replace the 2015 (likely using a 28W with Iris graphics as there's apparently still no high-end iGPU H series chip).

 

[akis-k]

Also it appears that we might see a 6 core mobile CPU sooner than expected https://www.notebookcheck.net/First-Coffee-Lake-6-core-mobile-CPU-benchmarks-are-in.245804.0.html

 

[HerbertDerb]

late 16/early 17 - "Wait for 2017 MBP" - Mr. Dee

2017 MBP gets released. - "Wait for 2018 if you can" -Mr. Dee

Late 2017 - "It will get update soon, just wait." - Mr Dee

2018 new MBP gets released (In 2018) - "Oh its ****, wait for 2019 if you can" - Mr. Dee

I'm not sure about anyone else, but i am getting tired of this....