Return of the MacBook with a magic keyboard
It has been years in the making, but Apple has officially launched its all-new MacBook Pro. The device boasts a brilliant 16- inch Retina Display, the latest 8-core processors, 64GB of memory and a new advanced thermal design.
The new laptop has a similar price tag to its predecessor, but has an overhauled design – it features a brand-new keyboard, a higher resolution display and a separate Touch ID button. Apple also announced its ' most powerful computer ever', the Mac Pro, will be available to purchase in December with a starting price of $5,999. Rumors of the new MacBook Pro first surfaced earlier this year in February, but Apple has not released a new model since 2016.
The computing device starts at $2,399 -a similar price to the MacBook 15, which it has now replaced.
Tom Boger, Apple's senior director of Mac and iPad Product Marketing, said, 'Our pro customers tell us they want their next MacBook Pro to have a larger display, blazing-fast performance, the biggest battery possible, the best notebook keyboard ever, awesome speakers and massive amounts of storage, and the 16- inch MacBook Pro delivers all of that and more.'
'With its brilliant 16-inch Retina display, 8- core processors, nextgen pro graphics, even better thermal design, new Magic Keyboard, six-speaker sound system, 100Wh battery, up to 8TB of storage and 64GB of fast memory, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is the world's best pro notebook.'
The redesign features a new Magic Keyboard with a scissor mechanism, the MacBook 15 was built with ' butterfly mechanism' that, although was thinner, was prone to breaking. However, the revamped keyboard is still as thin, but fixes the issues that made the previous model flimsy.
' Incorporating extensive research and user studies focused on human factors and key design, the 16-inch MacBook Pro delivers a keyboard with a comfortable, satisfying and quiet typing experience,' Apple explained in a statement.
The MacBook Pro is complete with an advanced thermal architecture that allows the system to run at higher power for a longer period of time. The thermal technology includes extended blades along with larger air vents that allow for a 28 percent increase in airflow. Apple said it overhauled the MacBook specifically for ' developers, photographers, filmmakers, scientists, music producers and anyone who relies on a Mac to create their life's best work' and included new AMD Radeon Pro 5000M series graphics.
This is 'the first 7nm mobile discrete GPUs for pro users. Paired with GDDR6 video memory and with an 8GB VRAM option for the first time, pro users will be able to tackle GPUintensive tasks faster than ever,' explained Apple.
'Customers who choose the standard configuration will see 2.1 times faster graphics performance than the previous standard configuration. Those who opt for the highest-end graphics options will see up to 80 percent faster performance than the previous high-end configuration.'
Starting at $2,399, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is available today through apple.com and the Apple Store app.
Apple also announced that its all- new Mac Pro will be available sometime next month - just in time for the holiday season. It will boast 28 core processors, a high-performance memory system with a massive 1.5TB capacity, eight PCIe expansion slots and a graphics architecture featuring the world’s most powerful graphics card. The Mac Pro is designed with a 32-inch Retina 6K display with P3 wide and 10-bit color, 1,600 nits of peak brightness, 1,000,000: 1 contrast ratio and a superwide viewing angle - and it will start at $5,999.