A bigger, better beast of a MacBook
Apple gives the MacBook Pro incredible audio performance, a stunning 16-inch screen, and dumps the butterfly switch keyboard, writes David Court.
For the second time in three weeks, Apple has launched a new piece of hardware without a big Cupertinobased media event.
First, the company launched the excellent new AirPods Pro with a simple update to its website and press release sent to technology journalists like me.
This time, Apple has given one of its most important products, the MacBook Pro, a sizeable overhaul with an uncharacteristic lack of showbiz flair.
Does that suggest it’s a device not worthy of fanfare? Not at all.
I was one of a handful of journalists who was able to spend some time with the device in New York City, ahead of its launch.
And I want to tell you this: it’s a beast.
The (non-butterfly switch) keyboard
The most noticeable changes are the reinstatement of the physical Esc key and the removal of the butterfly switch keyboard from the MacBook Pro.
This is the first time since 2015 that a MacBook has launched without the controversial keyboard.
Why? Apple has taken a bit of a hammering on the back of the butterfly switch keyboard’s reliability. Users regularly complained about sticky keys and letters repeating unexpectedly while typing.
The scale of the problem was so bad that Apple launched the ‘‘Keyboard Service Program for MacBook’’ where users could have their MacBook keyboards fixed or replaced free of charge – providing they featured the butterfly switch keyboards sold since 2015.
So what is the new Magic keyboard like? Well, that’s subjective. I quite liked the feel of the butterfly switch keyboard, despite the problems I had with it (sticky keys).
The feel of the new MacBook Pro’s Magic Keyboard is noticeably different in that there’s a lot more travel on the downpress. It’s not a bad thing. Just different.
I’m sure given more time with it, I’ll learn to love it. But I can’t help feeling a bit upset that the butterfly switch keyboard failed. It was lovely to type on (when it worked). That said, the butterfly had to die.
Speakers (that will blow your mind)
Anyway, enough nerdiness about the keyboard. Let’s move on to an area that Apple really has nailed here. The speakers inside this laptop are ridiculously good.
Apple has equipped the Pro with a high-fidelity six-speaker soundsystem featuring a patented woofer design that mounts two speaker drivers back-to-back.
Apple says the positioning of the woofers cancel out each other’s physical force when they emit sound and this dramatically reduces unwanted vibrations that would otherwise distort the sound.
What does all that mean? Well, this is the first laptop with sound that has shocked me.
It’s rich, clear and the bass is so, so powerful.
I urge you to visit your local consumer electronics shop to try out these speakers for yourself – I guarantee that you’ll be shocked too. That’s how good they are.
Sitting neatly alongside the powerful new speakers is a studioquality three-microphone array that Apple says produces 40 per cent less ‘‘hiss’’ than before.
Apple is also so confident in this new technology that it says the clarity is good enough to rival popular professional-grade standalone digital microphones. Big progress here.
Size and weight
It wasn’t the standard hardware upgrade from Apple where devices get a decent performance boost, while the overall size and weight of the device slims down a touch.
No, the 2019 MacBook Pro is the product where Apple’s engineers seem to have been given the green light to go nuts and create the best laptop they can, regardless of size and weight (within reason). And I’m all for it.
A quick look at the new dimension numbers – H16.2mm weight W35.79mm and D24.59mm – confirms that Apple is (currently) less worried about what the numbers say and is more focused on what the new notebook can do.
To put those numbers into perspective, they’re 5 per cent,
2 per cent and 2 per cent bigger, respectively, than the previous
15-inch MacBook Pro. And weighing in at 2kg, the new Pro is also 9 per cent heavier too.
But those numbers are a little unfair as they’re not comparing like for like. The 16-inch MacBook Pro’s screen is an inch bigger than its predecessor and that obviously skews the numbers.
Display
Speaking of the display. Wow! It looks fantastic. The extra inch makes the 3072x1920 (226ppi), 500-nit display screen even more immersive when you’re using it on your desk or lap. You won’t be disappointed.
Performance
There are some serious gains under the hood, too. The MacBook Pro comes with either 6-core Core i7 or 8-core Core i9 Intel processors that can be paired with
16GB to 64GB of DDR4 memory. Apple has also focused on the thermal architecture (cooling) a lot too, equipping the 16-inch Pro with fans that feature larger impellers and with more blades. These combine to improve airflow by
28 per cent.
Also, an optimised heat pipe and redesigned heat sink with a 35 per cent bigger surface area, mean the new MacBook Pro will sustain up to 12 more watts of power during intensive workloads. Graphics performance also gets a big boost, with the introduction of new Radeon Pro
5000M Series graphics processors. Graphics are paired with GDDR6 memory that enables increased memory bandwidth of 189GB/s.
To put this into real-world terms, the base 16-inch MacBook Pro configuration with Radeon Pro 5500M graphics and 4GB of
GDDR6 will see up to 2.1 times faster performance on the previous-generation MacBook Pro. Similarly, video editors who choose the 8-core model can now edit 11 multi-cam streams of 4K video simultaneously (using Final Cut Pro X) compared to the four the quad-core 15-inch MacBook Pro could handle.
Apple has also given the Pro a
100Wh battery, 16 more watthours than before. Apple says this will give users up to
11 hours of battery life (a onehour improvement).
Why only 100Wh? This is the limit the FAA (the United States’ Federal Aviation Administration) puts on lithium-ion batteries.
Summary
The MacBook Pro has always been the pinnacle when it comes to highend laptops. The 16-inch Pro is no different. In fact, it’s as big of a jump towards performance over portability as I’ve seen from Apple. And I love it.
The result is a laptop that’s insane because of what it can do. Both in terms of its base-line specs and the crazy 2.4GHz 8-core Intel Core i9, 64GB of 2666MHz DDR4 memory and 8TB SSD internal specs that it can be configured to.
Its non-butterfly switch keyboard, and mind-blowing audio performance are sure to be universal crowd-pleasers, too.
Starting at NZ$4299, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is now available through apple.com/nz, the Apple Store app, and in select Apple Authorised Resellers later this week.