The No Touch Bar 13 Macbook Version

[yillbs]

It is rarely worth it if you can't directly make money out of a couple of saved seconds here and there. They both have Hyperthreading (4 virtual cores), so they really are two i7 with different clock and little else.
It's more of an OCD thing, if you're gonna keep it till the end of time (and can easily afford it) probably embrace the urge to max it out.

What? L2 Cache, speed, HT speed, core speed, bus speed, that I7 has quite a huge margin of difference over the I5.. and for 300 bucks, it's not a bad deal.

 

[Wowereit]

Adding 300$ to a 1500$ machine is a price increase of 20% for about 5% better CPU performance.
The only way I would even think about this is if you've already added 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD, don't care about the added 300$ and can't see yourself carrying around a 15" notebook under any circumstances.
You are getting right into 15" territory with a few upgrades and the 15" will crush any upgraded 13" easily with double the cores and dGPU.

 

[Abaganov]

I have around 10 tabs open on safari and i am editing the unboxing video on final cut pro x. Smooth as silk so far.

nice nice! thanks for that

did you go with any upgrades or this is the basic one?

 

[hj576]

nice nice! thanks for that

did you go with any upgrades or this is the basic one?

nop, too poor for that **** man

 

[mattopotamus]

Now I've been using it for a while, I still have nothing but positive feedback for the laptop. I took a bit of a convoluted route before ending up with this particular model and the only nagging doubt I had was whether I should instead go with my original choice of a touchbar model.

For what its worth, I think the touchbar is a really exciting feature and I can't wait to see what developers do with it, but I use my laptop in clamshell mode a lot of the time, so I'm not sure how much use I'd get out of it. That model plus the memory upgrade I had planned because, well, I could, took the price to nearly £500 more than this model. And so far this laptop has handled everything I've thrown at it without breaking sweat.

• Screen is stunning, but coming from an 11" MBA that's to be expected.
• The build quality is Apple's usual high standard - the body of the laptop just feels like the usual big chunk of metal we've come to expect. Its still fairly portable, obviously not like the Air, but its a nice balance between power, screen size and weight. I certainly wouldn't like to lug a 15" version of this around as I do like something smaller and lighter.
• I've been using a Magic Keyboard for a while so I quite like the keyboard.
• Speakers are good enough to use on their own when I'm travelling and in hotel rooms and the like. Nice bass and clarity.
• Touchpad works very well and I've had no problems with palm rejection or any of the gestures not working very well - three finger drag has been mentioned online as being problematic.
• Wi-Fi and USB-C works fine for me.
• Battery life is good - apart from a few small panics when certain applications seem to be hammering the battery, I've been working since 08:30 today and still have 8hrs, 30mins expected battery left. Today's work has mainly been in Citrix, Safari, Mail, Photos and Pages.
• Performance wise its very snappy indeed. The one upgrade I had ordered on my cancelled touchbar model was the 8-16GB RAM upgrade, but so far I've not had any RAM issues. I guess the most traditionally intensive thing I've been doing is using imovie to edit 4K video from a GoPro.
• I've had a few quick games of Football Manager 2017 which runs well, but the fans kick in as soon as the match engine starts and the laptop runs very hot to the touch underneath.
• When using it with an external monitor I've had some strange behaviour when disconnecting the Apple AV adapter. I'm connecting it to a 27" Dell screen and when I use it in clamshell mode and disconnect the adapter, I open the laptop and the screen is black as if the Mac thinks its still connected to the screen, so I need to reboot it.

I have had some really weird behavior happen when disconnecting an external monitor. The laptop screen would flicker and I had to restart the machine. I never had that happen once with the rMB, and it has happened twice on the 13" pro.

 

[beDELIGHTED]

Please help, I can't decided between base nmbp 13" with ram 16gb or nmbp 13" with 512 gb.
I need to use more than 5 years.

 

[vddobrev]

I have had some really weird behavior happen when disconnecting an external monitor. The laptop screen would flicker and I had to restart the machine. I never had that happen once with the rMB, and it has happened twice on the 13" pro.

As far as I know, when in clamshell mode, if you unplug the external monitor, the laptop will go into sleep automatically.
Can you describe the exact setup when you are unplugging, i.e. is the lid open, is picture only on external monitor or both?
[doublepost=1479140949][/doublepost]

Please help, I can't decided between base nmbp 13" with ram 16gb or nmbp 13" with 512 gb.
I need to use more than 5 years.

If you can afford both, if not 16GB RAM. You can always plug in external storage, but not RAM.

 

[mattopotamus]

As far as I know, when in clamshell mode, if you unplug the external monitor, the laptop will go into sleep automatically.
Can you describe the exact setup when you are unplugging, i.e. is the lid open, is picture only on external monitor or both?

I am in clamshell mode when I unplug it. I take it home and try to use it, and the screen has just completely glitches. The mouse will create like 10 clones of itself and the screen flickers and looks glitches if that makes sense. I have to hold the power button to restart. If I have done this 20 times over the past two weeks, it has happened twice.

 

[Abaganov]

Its too early to tell but from the early reviews that came out today for the touch bar models I have to say I'm not very impressed , it seems awkward to use, gimmicky and borderline annoying.



and regarding the performance boost with the touch bar 13 model, the difference is minor:

 

[vddobrev]

I am in clamshell mode when I unplug it. I take it home and try to use it, and the screen has just completely glitches. The mouse will create like 10 clones of itself and the screen flickers and looks glitches if that makes sense. I have to hold the power button to restart. If I have done this 20 times over the past two weeks, it has happened twice.

So it looks like a software/OS bug. Can you open the lid, then unplug, and see if you can reproduce like that.

 

[mattopotamus]

So it looks like a software/OS bug. Can you open the lid, then unplug, and see if you can reproduce like that.

I definitely think it is a bug, and I reported it after it happened. I just tried opening the lid and then unplugging it, but could not replicate the problem.

I have tried to replicate it and cannot. It just seemed totally random when it happened.

 

[hj576]

Ok, now i am rendering the video at 1080p high settings, everything is laggy
[doublepost=1479144999][/doublepost]Ok, its kinda back to normal now, still rendering

 

[Saturn1217]

Not sure if this has been posted already but CNET provides at least one estimate of what the battery life difference is between the 13" MBP with touchbar vs without.

Using a streaming video loop battery test (not sure what the screen brightness was but it should be the same for the 2 MBP models)
13" MBP without touchbar: 11:36 hr
13" MBP with touchbar: 10:07 hr

What I can't really tell is how well CNET's estimates correlate with actual use (streaming video continuously is pretty atypical use and may be very different from long stretches of web browsing for example).

But I think this is a good relative comparison. For me personally over an hour of extra battery life is more important to me than the touch bar. If anyone finds other good comparisons please post them!

https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-macbook-pro-with-touch-bar-13-inch-2016/review/2/

 

[mattopotamus]

Not sure if this has been posted already but CNET provides at least one estimate of what the battery life difference is between the 13" MBP with touchbar vs without.

Using a streaming video loop battery test (not sure what the screen brightness was but it should be the same for the 2 MBP models)
13" MBP without touchbar: 11:36 hr
13" MBP with touchbar: 10:07 hr

What I can't really tell is how well CNET's estimates correlate with actual use (streaming video continuously is pretty atypical use and may be very different from long stretches of web browsing for example).

But I think this is a good relative comparison. For me personally over an hour of extra battery life is more important to me than the touch bar. If anyone finds other good comparisons please post them!

https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-macbook-pro-with-touch-bar-13-inch-2016/review/2/

not even an hour, an hour and a half. That is a pretty significant difference. That would also mean the TB would be off since they were not actually using the laptop. Real world usage could be even more drastic.

 

[David58117]

I am in clamshell mode when I unplug it. I take it home and try to use it, and the screen has just completely glitches. The mouse will create like 10 clones of itself and the screen flickers and looks glitches if that makes sense. I have to hold the power button to restart. If I have done this 20 times over the past two weeks, it has happened twice.

Mine did this!!

Had to restart to get it working again.

 

[IndigoDesign]

Will getting the i7 over the i5 on this model hit my battery life? Will it heat up and throttle more than the i5? Or will it just be MARGINALLY faster in certain situations (which would be fine for me) I just want to future proof as good as possible with those limited options and make sure it's not actually worse with the i7!!

Thanks for your input!

 

[hj576]

The Unboxing Video I just did
I know its not all that good, But I am learning, Do like and subscribe as I plan to do more videos

 

[Beau10]

not even an hour, an hour and a half. That is a pretty significant difference. That would also mean the TB would be off since they were not actually using the laptop. Real world usage could be even more drastic.

Check out the review on The Verge -- the author could only get 5:30-6 hrs with fairly basic use. It was so poor that Apple sent another laptop for further evaluation, but it was the same. Other reviews seem to be a bit better, but my impression from what I've seen is that the difference is more around 3hrs with normal use.

 

[mattopotamus]

Check out the review on The Verge -- the author could only get 5:30-6 hrs with fairly basic use. It was so poor that Apple sent another laptop for further evaluation, but it was the same. Other reviews seem to be a bit better, but my impression from what I've seen is that the difference is more around 3hrs with normal use.

oh my. I may just stick to the no TB version then. That kinda makes sense though. The battery is smaller, the processor uses more energy, and you also have the TB.

 

[Beau10]

oh my. I may just stick to the no TB version then. That kinda makes sense though. The battery is smaller, the processor uses more energy, and you also have the TB.

Right. It's unfortunate as each model here has 'issues' that you could probably chock up to a 1st gen release

1) The noTB 13" is using 15W processors.

2) The TB 13" takes big hits to battery life

3) The 15" has a slow iGPU which is likely laggy in normal tasks. The dGPU takes a huge hit to battery life.


I believe Ars mentioned for #1 that throttling only really happens in tasks that have a significant GPU bound component. At least for me as a software dev, I'm not too concerned. I think I'm just going to get the base 13", skip all options with an eye to resell in a couple years once we have clearly better options from Apple. Fortunately that base processor actually has decent performance, about 15% better Geekbench than my 2014 2.6 13" with a GPU and SSD that's much faster, smaller footprint, better screen, etc.... to me $1500 is a worthwhile upgrade for all this.

 

[ascender]

Graphics look good and no speed issues at all. I think I'm running four full

I have had some really weird behavior happen when disconnecting an external monitor. The laptop screen would flicker and I had to restart the machine. I never had that happen once with the rMB, and it has happened twice on the 13" pro.

With mine, the lid is closed when I unplug it.... I then open it but the screen is blank and the keyboard is on and responsive (caps lock key works) but nothing happens although occasionally the most pointer is on the screen. I have to just hold down the power button to get it to go off and then power it back on.

 

[mattopotamus]

Graphics look good and no speed issues at all. I think I'm running four full


With mine, the lid is closed when I unplug it.... I then open it but the screen is blank and the keyboard is on and responsive (caps lock key works) but nothing happens although occasionally the most pointer is on the screen. I have to just hold down the power button to get it to go off and then power it back on.

I had that happen with the rMB, but oddly enough has not happened yet with the pro.

 

[Hyloba]

Right. It's unfortunate as each model here has 'issues' that you could probably chock up to a 1st gen release

1) The noTB 13" is using 15W processors.

2) The TB 13" takes big hits to battery life

3) The 15" has a slow iGPU which is likely laggy in normal tasks. The dGPU takes a huge hit to battery life.


I believe Ars mentioned for #1 that throttling only really happens in tasks that have a significant GPU bound component. At least for me as a software dev, I'm not too concerned. I think I'm just going to get the base 13", skip all options with an eye to resell in a couple years once we have clearly better options from Apple. Fortunately that base processor actually has decent performance, about 15% better Geekbench than my 2014 2.6 13" with a GPU and SSD that's much faster, smaller footprint, better screen, etc.... to me $1500 is a worthwhile upgrade for all this.

I more or less feel the same, except for the fact that 2 ports really isn't much, considering 1 is taken up by power. Too bad there always seem to be compromises.
But 1500$ would also be my maximum, still, I'm not sure if I would need 8gb of ram or 16, and there is no way of knowing without testing.

 

[Beau10]

I more or less feel the same, except for the fact that 2 ports really isn't much, considering 1 is taken up by power. Too bad there always seem to be compromises.
But 1500$ would also be my maximum, still, I'm not sure if I would need 8gb of ram or 16, and there is no way of knowing without testing.

If you're not sure then 8GB is probably okay. The SSD on these are quite fast, read speeds >2GB and write ~1.5GB, so paging will be that much quicker if it does happen. That said, if I were to keep the machine for more than a couple years I'd go to 16 on the RAM, but most won't need it.

 

[Macalway]

Hello

I'm back. I Had one, returned it, ordered touch, cancelled after I read the reviews today, and am back again.

I think this time i'll try to save tax. Sounds like a plan, no?

Frankly, this time out thing is what did it, with no option to change it. Unbelievable.