The No Touch Bar 13 Macbook Version

[blackberrycubed]

Thanks, this was really helpful! I actually didn't end up going to the Apple store today but I might tomorrow. Between PSVR, PS4 Pro, the iPhone 7, and now these MacBooks it's been an expensive fall!

It's good to hear that you're enjoying your new MBP though. I can relate to having been tempted to pick up the retina MacBook earlier in the year but I held out for Apple to announce new MBPs. I'd like to sell my MBA but between the battery issue and a small (but noticeable) white dot in the center of the screen, I doubt I'd get much on eBay especially after fees and shipping. What I might try to do is just trade it in through one of those online sites like Gazelle or NextWorth.

bestbuy is giving good money for mac laptop trade ins. Take it in, get a quote.

 

[budfoot]

All day usage - 45% battery left. I haven't charged it at all (except when I first got it to get up to 100%).

Keyboard, like others have said, is "louder" but faster - I can type much faster on this keyboard than I can on my 15" MBP. In fact, when I went back to my 15" MBP, I actually noticed the difference.

Trackpad is awesome as always. Hit or miss with force touch, but for me, it's the first time I've ever used it. I turned on tap to click and I've only been using that - so maybe I'm missing something.

My wife has the 12" MB, and the keyboard is definitely better than that. I've tried both, typing the same document, and hands down, the MBP kb is 150% better.

Speakers - OMG. My wife thought I had my MBP hooked up to our soundbar via bluetooth, thats how awesome it sounded.

Screen - great, amazing, woof.

Overall : 100% glad that I bought it. Do I wish I had the douchebar? Absolutely not. Like I said before, I've hit escape at least 50 times today. I used the function keys to play/stop Spotify - WHILE IN WORD. Tell me that you can do that with the douchebar. Fire up Spotify. Fire up Word or Pages and start typing a document. Word is the active application. Where's the pause key or volume up key when you want it?

I HOPE that Apple will keep the non-douchebar version and expand it to the 15" honestly. It's a gimmick.

 

[SBruv]

All day usage - 45% battery left. I haven't charged it at all (except when I first got it to get up to 100%).

Keyboard, like others have said, is "louder" but faster - I can type much faster on this keyboard than I can on my 15" MBP. In fact, when I went back to my 15" MBP, I actually noticed the difference.

Trackpad is awesome as always. Hit or miss with force touch, but for me, it's the first time I've ever used it. I turned on tap to click and I've only been using that - so maybe I'm missing something.

My wife has the 12" MB, and the keyboard is definitely better than that. I've tried both, typing the same document, and hands down, the MBP kb is 150% better.

Speakers - OMG. My wife thought I had my MBP hooked up to our soundbar via bluetooth, thats how awesome it sounded.

Screen - great, amazing, woof.

Overall : 100% glad that I bought it. Do I wish I had the douchebar? Absolutely not. Like I said before, I've hit escape at least 50 times today. I used the function keys to play/stop Spotify - WHILE IN WORD. Tell me that you can do that with the douchebar. Fire up Spotify. Fire up Word or Pages and start typing a document. Word is the active application. Where's the pause key or volume up key when you want it?

I HOPE that Apple will keep the non-douchebar version and expand it to the 15" honestly. It's a gimmick.

You know you can just hold the Fn key to bring the function keys up universally, right?

 

[SamVilde]

Do I wish I had the douchebar? Absolutely not. Like I said before, I've hit escape at least 50 times today. I used the function keys to play/stop Spotify - WHILE IN WORD. Tell me that you can do that with the douchebar. Fire up Spotify. Fire up Word or Pages and start typing a document. Word is the active application. Where's the pause key or volume up key when you want it?

Yeah. I'm going to hold off until people get their TouchBar versions and report back on this, but I really worry about Apple's sense of context-dependent options. I hate how the volume rocker on my phone sometimes changes the volume and sometimes changes the ringer, and the documentation says it's context dependent and will always anticipate your needs. I've missed alarms before because I thought I had set the alarm volume (is that the ringer?), but had really set the volume (or is it reversed?) and the alarm went off silently. I know my keyboard shortcuts pretty well, and some of them use the function keys ('remove all hyperlinks' in Word?), so the TouchBar doesn't seem like it would be much benefit (those emojis tho).

Still? Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe people will get these TouchBar versions and say it's super seamless to get the TouchBar to do the things you really want to do? So trying to hold out.

 

[cibonak]

How is the battery when you only surf the net? More than 10 hours?

 

[torana355]

How is the battery when you only surf the net? More than 10 hours?

If you stay away from Flash video and You tube you can get over 10 hours without an issue, I used mine this morning for an hour and it was sitting on 95% when i left for work. The estimated time remaining was 12 hours. If you are on flash heavy websites you can still get around 6 hours which is pretty good imo.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I've been following this thread off and on. Seems like the consensus is that with light usage the no-TB MBP gets 11-12 hours of battery life?

 

[cibonak]

A review artstechna? Said 16 hours!! So i wanted to ask the question to those who have bought it.

 

[Devyn89]

I haven't used it enough to have a great sense of battery life just yet, I've been transferring files and the like but so far it seems pretty great. I was sad to see mag safe go for sure but it's nice not accidentally removing the charger by brushing it the wrong way.

 

[tx2005]

My 13" MBP came in today and I've been using it all evening. I'm enjoying it so far. I went with the non touchbar version because this is the computer is going to be the one my girlfriend uses for casual stuff (internet, streaming video etc..), while I do some light gaming and use it for it's portability. I have a Windows laptop that I use for gaming, which I'm going to replace next year with another Windows computer since Apple's video cards just aren't worth it for that use. Based on our use, I didn't think the extra $300 was worth getting the Touchbar, so I used the extra money to upgrade the RAM and HD space. I have no regrets, and if the touchbar becomes a must have feature at some point down the line, I'll sell this for an updated MBP after Applecare expires in 3 years.

 

[jjlannoo]

All day usage - 45% battery left. I haven't charged it at all (except when I first got it to get up to 100%).

Keyboard, like others have said, is "louder" but faster - I can type much faster on this keyboard than I can on my 15" MBP. In fact, when I went back to my 15" MBP, I actually noticed the difference.

Trackpad is awesome as always. Hit or miss with force touch, but for me, it's the first time I've ever used it. I turned on tap to click and I've only been using that - so maybe I'm missing something.

My wife has the 12" MB, and the keyboard is definitely better than that. I've tried both, typing the same document, and hands down, the MBP kb is 150% better.

Speakers - OMG. My wife thought I had my MBP hooked up to our soundbar via bluetooth, thats how awesome it sounded.

Screen - great, amazing, woof.

Overall : 100% glad that I bought it. Do I wish I had the douchebar? Absolutely not. Like I said before, I've hit escape at least 50 times today. I used the function keys to play/stop Spotify - WHILE IN WORD. Tell me that you can do that with the douchebar. Fire up Spotify. Fire up Word or Pages and start typing a document. Word is the active application. Where's the pause key or volume up key when you want it?

I HOPE that Apple will keep the non-douchebar version and expand it to the 15" honestly. It's a gimmick.

lmao you haven't even used it to know. You are just trying to feel better about your purchase.

 

[WickedPorter]

All day usage - 45% battery left. I haven't charged it at all (except when I first got it to get up to 100%).

Keyboard, like others have said, is "louder" but faster - I can type much faster on this keyboard than I can on my 15" MBP. In fact, when I went back to my 15" MBP, I actually noticed the difference.

Trackpad is awesome as always. Hit or miss with force touch, but for me, it's the first time I've ever used it. I turned on tap to click and I've only been using that - so maybe I'm missing something.

My wife has the 12" MB, and the keyboard is definitely better than that. I've tried both, typing the same document, and hands down, the MBP kb is 150% better.

Speakers - OMG. My wife thought I had my MBP hooked up to our soundbar via bluetooth, thats how awesome it sounded.

Screen - great, amazing, woof.

Overall : 100% glad that I bought it. Do I wish I had the douchebar? Absolutely not. Like I said before, I've hit escape at least 50 times today. I used the function keys to play/stop Spotify - WHILE IN WORD. Tell me that you can do that with the douchebar. Fire up Spotify. Fire up Word or Pages and start typing a document. Word is the active application. Where's the pause key or volume up key when you want it?

I HOPE that Apple will keep the non-douchebar version and expand it to the 15" honestly. It's a gimmick.

Great report! The touchbar might be cool for my next MacBook... but I'm not quite ready to invest in that yet and glad that Apple is offering this option for us... a few minor setbacks, but same form factor, and the form factor and new design is what sells it for me.

 

[Mcdevidr]

Im at 72% mine is telling me I have a projected 11 hours left. I've put several hours on it today already. Mostly just messaging, word and web browsing and I watched an episode of John Oliver on hbo go. Id say the battery is pretty good.

 

[Abaganov]

Is it true that the new MBP still not support windows via bootcamp? did anyone here try that?

 

[apocalyarts]

I'd also like to chime in that I'm extremely satisfied with my new non-TB MBP. Upgraded from a 2012 MBA so... woa.

 

[Geert76]

love the screen of my new 2016 non-douche bar MBP.
Colors are a nice bit crispier then my previous 2015 rMBP.

I am in no way a real Pro-user and 2 ports are just perfectly fine for me!
Battery life of this new rMBP is almost identical to my previous 2015 rMBP.

I still have to get used to the new keyboard. Think it will take a few days.

Also, the speakers deliver a real nice stereo ''upgrade'' to my previous rMBP.

happy camper!

 

[GZR]

What brightness are you guys using to achieve these battery life estimates? I use 4 bars less than maximum.
I'm a light user but I don't get anywhere near the battery life some of you are reporting. The only thing I can think of is that I use a higher than average brightness setting.

The Coconut Battery image was taken at 99% reported by Apple but the app shows a battery charge of 94.9%.

 

[budfoot]

You know you can just hold the Fn key to bring the function keys up universally, right?

So I have to hit FN, then Mute? So hitting two keys instead of one because... courage?

 

[Mcdevidr]

What brightness are you guys using to achieve these battery life estimates? I use 4 bars less than maximum.
I'm a light user but I don't get anywhere near the battery life some of you are reporting. The only thing I can think of is that I use a higher than average brightness setting.

The Coconut Battery image was taken at 99% reported by Apple but the app shows a battery charge of 94.9%.

I don't like super bright screens so mine is usually half way up or less. I don't usually mess with it though. The auto adjusted seems to work well for me.

 

[Vimy]

So I have to hit FN, then Mute? So hitting two keys instead of one because... courage?

Meh, It doesn't seem to be a big issue. I think I'll get used to it very quickly. -> https://cl.ly/3u013I1T2833

 

[manny88]

I haven't got mine yet, but I did some testing with my uncle's base model, and the battery life felt like it was going quickly.

Then again I did some of that testing with my new USB-C Asus 15" portable monitor, so I definitely think that could have caused some serious drain the 20 minutes I was using it.

My brightness was also 3-4 bars below high.

 

[jbachandouris]

bestbuy is giving good money for mac laptop trade ins. Take it in, get a quote.

What is your definition of good money? I have AppleCare on my rMBP until March 2018. I'm not looking to give it away just to have the latest and greatest.

 

[SBruv]

So I have to hit FN, then Mute? So hitting two keys instead of one because... courage?

Yeah, you're right - that's going to be pure hell, with absolutely not pay-off whatsoever in terms of the Touch Bar doing anything useful in return.

Give me a break.

 

[tomas97vl]

can this macbook be charged with a powerbank like the rMB 12''?

 

[torana355]

What brightness are you guys using to achieve these battery life estimates? I use 4 bars less than maximum.
I'm a light user but I don't get anywhere near the battery life some of you are reporting. The only thing I can think of is that I use a higher than average brightness setting.

The Coconut Battery image was taken at 99% reported by Apple but the app shows a battery charge of 94.9%.

Yeah around halfway for brightness, if I turn my brightness up the battery life decreases dramatically.