Stuck between a rock and a hard placem: An explanation of Apple’s new MBP | Hacker News Reader

Stuck between a rock and a hard placem: An explanation of Apple’s new MBP

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52 pointsclumsysmurf58 comments

Stop defending Apple using the RAM myths floating around. If Dell XPS 15 with 32GB DDR4 ram that's also thin and light can manage 5 hours battery life with a 56Whr battery, Windows, and HQ series intel processors, there's no reason Apple couldn't manage more.

Also, the 1.2v SO-DIMM DDR4 ram vs 1.2v LPDDR3 they used have close power consumption.

Maybe 5h is enough for you, but Apple fans are used to a 10h minimum, likely more. And very thin hardware.

Then go up to 99Wh, and stop with the "thin" thing. I have the 2014 MBP and it's plenty thin. No need at all to get thinner than that.

So if it's thin enough for you, it's thin enough for everyone?! Really? People fail to understand that there are pro users with different needs...

I didn't say that. They could make the 32GB version thicker.

You think 3 pounds + 16 GBs and as thin as possible is a much more common set of requirements than 4 pounds + 32 GBs and still really thin?

I really would like to know what need you could have that is solved by making a laptop 3mm thinner.

I personally think their whole obsession by making these laptops thin is contra productive if you think off al the things (non solderable RAM for example) we need to give up for it in return.

Or maybe they should just give the user a choice.

For me this is a big part of the problem. Most "pros' that complain of lack of more power also are ok with shorter battery life because they work mostly plugged. Apparently, for them it's unconceivable that some "pros" do most of their work unplugged and for that battery life and size/weight are a major issue (and compared to other OSs the usability of the macOS is still a huge advantage over any other laptop).

At some point Apple had three line of MacBooks (Pro, regular and Air). That seemed to make perfect sense. People who want light, long battery life go for Air, people who want processing power go for Pro.

The strange thing is that Apple killed processing power in favour of more Air like features. That doesn't seem to make much sense in a 15" laptop.

Except for those who were frustrated with the limitations of the Air (no retina, weak processors, etc.). Still, I agree about the 15". It does risk being in no man's land.

I have an embarrassingly old air and I've been waiting for these slim pros to upgrade and rely less on my desktop. I was always only thinking of the 13", but the 15" is so small that I'm almost pondering going for it instead. All I'm worried about is whether or not the extra 500g will make it too heavy for my taste. So it does risk still being too heavy for someone who wants something super small and not powerful enough for those who don't care about portability as much.

But, the thing everyone is overlooking is that the new GPU is 82% more performant than the last model, so it's not like they're reducing the specs. They just haven't increased the specs to the level of some of the other big notebooks.

I personally think that thinning the frame out while also increasing specs and keeping the battery life high was a smarter move than trying to cram in more RAM and keeping the 99.5 watt-hour battery that, with 32GB of RAM and a better GPU would have resulted in a ~5 hour battery life.

However, what I wish Apple would have done, instead of making the new Macbook (the little 12" notebook), was to make the MacBook Pro thin like they have, with the same specs they have added, and then have the only other offering be a larger, more pro notebook (maybe on par with the 2011 level of thickness / weight) with 64GB max RAM and with one of these great GPUs everyone is talking about. They could have done with a ~5 hour battery life on the main battery, keeping the 99.5 battery for airline regulations, with an extra 50+ watt-hour battery that slides into a slot for use when not getting on a plane. This would have given Apple 2 choices, 1) an awesome MacBook Pro for most of us, and 2) an awesome MacBook Super for the power users who don't mind a 5lb notebook.

There is not too much value in an even lighter / smaller notebook than the 13" MacBook Pro, which is why the Macbook 12" hasn't been flying off the shelf. Most people who can't do with an iPad (or iPad Pro) need a full notebook, not a 12" device that is slow.

The problem with the Pro line is while professionals have diverse requirements the line only seems to cater to the groups that travels a lot.

Some people need beefy CPUs, some people need beefy GPUs, some people need lots of memory, some people need lots of connectors to avoid a dongle mess.

And instead of offering at least one model that can be fitted with all of that, either as standard or as option, Apple decided that the only group that matter is those that travel a lot and favour light laptops with long battery life.

Well, I think they did a reasonable job at finding a compromise (referring back to my comment about an 82% increase in GPU performance, etc.).

But, yes, if they were to offer something like what I referred to as a MacBook Super and get rid of all other offerings besides this "Super" and the current Pro, that would satisfy both users.

There is also a model with 84Whr battery which takes the battery life to 7-8 hours

"Very thin" is not a professional criterion. There is no context in which an extra millimetre of bulk means that you're unable to get the job done.

Apple no longer has a truly professional mobile workstation. By focussing obsessively on size and weight, the whole product line has shifted downwards in relative performance, leaving a gaping void at the top end. The most powerful machine in the Apple lineup competes with mid-range PC laptops.

A Windows user can choose from some extraordinarily powerful mobile workstations. If you need it, you can have 64gb of RAM, a desktop-class CPU, two desktop-class GPUs and quad M.2 RAID. You have the choice of ultimate performance or light weight. Apple offers no such choice.

It may be a perfectly rational business decision, but Apple has decided to abandon the high-end. It has been nearly three years since the Mac Pro was updated; even on their supposedly high-end desktop workstation, Apple have traded performance for compactness.

As we have seen on HN, Apple is risking an exodus of professional users. This exodus has already happened in many fields; I know a great many people in video and audio post-production who could not tolerate Apple's indifference towards the needs of media professionals. The abandonment of Final Cut Pro 7 and the inadequacies of FCPX were the icing on the cake. These users were Apple's mainstay in the difficult pre-iPhone years, but Apple seem happy to let them go.

"Very thin" is not a professional criterion. There is no context in which an extra millimetre of bulk means that you're unable to get the job done.

To argue that thin-and-light is never a valid criteria for professionals is a bit out of touch.

Many professional designers/developers work from coffee shops, workspaces, the couch, the airplane, the client's office and so on. Remote workers and digital nomadism (I hate that phrase) is a huge thing right now. And growing.

The question is whether they've gone too-far in this respect and I agree that they have. But, that doesn't mean that thin-and-light isn't a perfectly valid criteria for many professionals.

Just to clarify, that wasn't the point I was trying to make. The point is that Dell is using a much smaller battery, Windows (uses more battery in comparison to MacOS), a high-end / high TDP CPU and still managing 5 hours. Apple would be able to manage the 10 hours. Using SO-DIMM DDR4 (1.2v) would sacrifice a few mm of thinness and a few minutes of battery life at best.

What was the author smoking?

"This is also why the only laptops currently available which support >16GB RAM are huge, like this one which weighs 17 pounds (8KG). "

Except that ThinkPad T460 can be ordered with 32 GB memory and weights something like 3.8 lbs (1.7 kg)

(of course the upside of the specs being essentially the same as the old one is that you can use the old MBP until USB-C is widespread enough to make it worth switching)

I haven't been able to find out what the battery life is with 32 Gb, but the T460 is 40% thicker than the 13" MBP due to battery, it doesn't have a Retina display and it has a slower intel graphics.

I don't think there is a conspiracy here. Intel couldn't deliver the processor to be low power and use 32Gb, Apple prioritised size. I'm not happy, but I'll wait to the next version for the price drop and 32Gb.

The big mistake was raising the price. That is shitty.

What is the battery life of the TP460?

This page claims 17 hours (with the test described as "Laptop Mag Battery test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits of brightness")

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-t46...

With the extended battery you easily get > 12 hours in real world usage.

That comes with this CPU [1] which is not appropriate for the MBP

http://ark.intel.com/products/88190

The article gets some stuff wrong.

1. Though macbook pro battery capacity has been reduced to 76Wh, he still attributes not adding more RAM to 100Wh ceiling by FAA

2. States that only laptops with 32GB is as heavy as 17 pounds and bulky. But Dell XPS 15 comes with 32 GB and weighs only 4.5 pounds. https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Dell-XP...

3. Dell XPS 15 comes with 1 USB-C, 2 USB-3.0 ports, HDMI and SD card reader and thus don't need dongles and is reasonably slim.

Seriously, if Apple had released something like XPS-15 in features, there would have been no criticism.

1. I believe you got the first point wrong. The claim is that they needed more than 100W to go to 32GB, and not going for 16GB, they didn't need the extra 26W. 2. You are partially right. Yes, 4.5 pounds is very different from 18kg, but if you care about portability, it is still a big different from 3 pounds. 3. The argument he presents is that you need dongles for now, but in the long term, you will need less dongles. So a bit different from what you are arguing.

Doubling the RAM, increases the energy consumption of the equipment, but it obviously doesn't double the energy consumption of the equipment.

Sure. I'm not in position to say whether the claim that the RAM increase would require more than 26W. I'm just arguing that the previous comment was missing the point of what the article was claiming.

I'm not missing the point. The author is purely speculating and has no data to backup his claims.

Also RAM does not use much power. See here - http://www.buildcomputers.net/power-consumption-of-pc-compon... This is very old data. Newer RAM will use even less

4.4 _pounds_ for xps 15 vs the macbook's 4.02 pounds (15" version). (and if you want a smaller battery for portability on the xps 15, you can get one at 3.9 pounds)

Looks like the article author was either blinded by fandom or intentionally misleading.

https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ (choose 15") http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/xps-15-9550-la...

I will be suspicious of any opinion in a website with the word mac or apple in it's url. First, the mbp is 3 pounds (from your own link). Second, I looked up the xps 15 also. Not only it is 50% heavier, but it is also much thicker and in bigger in general. Finally, battery life seems to be 5h vs 10h of the mbp. These are different compromises that will please different people and not be acceptable for others.

The 13" is 3 pounds. The 15" is 4, kbutler even reminded you to look at the right one.

Check the link. The MBP 15" is 4.02 pounds. 13" is 3.02 pounds. Also the dimensions are roughly the same

  +-----------+------------------+--------------------+
  | Dimension |     MBP 15"      |      XPS 15"       |
  +-----------+------------------+--------------------+
  | Height    | 0.61"            | 0.45-0.66"         |
  | Width     | 13.75"           | 14.06"             |
  | Depth     | 9.48"            | 9.27"              |
  | Weight    | 4.02 lbs/1.83 kg | 4.50 lbs (2.04 kg) |
  +-----------+------------------+--------------------+

And the battery life is 7 hours for the 84Whr model. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10116/the-dell-xps-15-9550-rev...

In another review it was 8 hours for playing video. Less than MBP at 10 hrs.

You forgot the "choose 15 inch" on the apple site:

MBP13: 3.02 pounds (1.37 kg) MBP15: 4.02 pounds (1.83 kg) XPS15: 4.4 pounds (or 3.9 pounds with smaller battery)

MBP15: 15.5mm 349.3mm 240.7mm XPS15: 17mm 357mm 235mm

But I agree - if you're wanting maximum portability, go with the smaller 13" device, which is 33% lighter.

But then you may want to compare the XPS13, which is smaller, lighter, newer CPU, has a larger battery (dell mentions 18h, reviewers tested 10h+, but actual battery life comparisons TBD), and is also limited to 16gb.

Yes, different compromises.

My bad. I got mixed up with kilos and pounds. Thought 3 pounds was 1.8kg. 4 pounds. I stand corrected.

The thing is. I'm really not an apple fan boy. I've only had one mac. I've had one iphone and moved back to android. I would never have a desktop mac. However, the usability, portability and reliability of the mac laptop has made a huge difference for me. All the little details from the os to the hardware make it the only laptop that I've had that has been great from my productivity, even when I was doing physiotherapy twice a day for 6 months and carrying my laptop between hospital beds.

The Dell XPS13 does have numbers that are interesting, however, if I've learned something from my experience with a mac laptop is that numbers are only part of the story. I wouldn't want a windows os and despite still enjoying linux I really enjoy that I don't need to worry about anything working properly on the mac, it just does, and I can focus on my work. Then it's the trackpad (in conjunction with the os)... Minor things, that make a world of difference.

So...I really really would like to buy something other than a mac, but I just can't see it.

Same here. I don't like windows at all though to be fair I haven't used Windows 10 at all.

But the new MBP is not for me. I really need the USB port and SD card reader. I'm using a 2010 MBP and I think I will buy the 2015 MBP. It's cheaper, has all the ports I need and I like the older keyboard. So I will be happier with it than the latest MBP

> 2. States that only laptops with 32GB is as heavy as 17 pounds and bulky. But Dell XPS 15 comes with 32 GB and weighs only 4.5 pounds.

That point blew my mind, too. I have 32 GB RAM in a 6 pound laptop (a third of that 8 kg beast presented by the author)... and it's from 2011! If somebody rewrite some BIOS parts, it would even take 64 GB (4x16 GB modules). Yes, not many laptops have four slots, and certainly not the ultrathin ones, but even with two slots, 32 GB is easily possible as 2x16 GB (available both in DDR3 and DDR4) and no 17 pound gaming monster is needed at all.

The battery capacity also seems moot. More memory modules draw more power, that is sure, but in terms of laptops with 74 Wh batteries, it is a negligible decrease of battery life, especially if people who need and would order 32 GB RAM would easily sacrifice some battery life (at load) if they can get more of their work done significantly faster without swapping.

Also, does the new MacBook Pro actually use only a single module? Because you get the power consumption increases when you add modules. If it internally uses two modules of 8 GB to get 16 GB, then using two 16 GB modules instead would use the same power, unless I'm missing something (the memory is soldered on, so the entire thing may work differently than typical SO-DIMMs).

At the end if the day, people are expecting too much from a slab of aluminum. If Apple also announced 64Gb RAM iMacs with all the bells and whistles, perhaps the MacBook Pro backlash would have been less.

I for one will be getting the new MBP. I love MacOS. I love the multi touch pad. I love the vibrant screen.

If I want to train a neural net, I spin up my Core i7 leaf blower next to my desk and drink coffee at home.

I'm a Python developer, and I've been worried about upgrading to MacOS Sierra, after hearing a few anecdotes about bugs, etc.

Are you a coder, and have you noticed any things that you wish they'd fix; things that hamper you as a coder?

I love El Capitan, esp how they've finally absolutely perfected full screen mode / swipe to switch, half-screen, etc. at this point. Is that all still great?

I use macOS Sierra on my old Macbook Pro and I've had no Python development issues. I'm using a fairly standard setup with Python versions from Homebrew and virtualenvs.

I've been running Sierra for the last month or so and think it's on par with prior macOS releases. There's been no standout feature that's wowed me, but there haven't been outstanding bugs driving me crazy either.

Since I don't use the new Siri integration, I couldn't tell you a single difference between this and El Cap (maybe dark mode?)

I'm a .net developer running vs code and docker most of the time, for reference. I'm running on a late '13 rMBP.

Running Python and virtualenv, using Python 2.7 and 3.5 and Macports. No issues whatsoever.

I use the Homebrew Python2 and 3, and have had no issues. AFAIK not using the Apple Python helps. I actually jumped from Mountain Lion to Sierra and couldn't be happier software-wise.

Last summer I thought about getting the new (2015) Macbook. Everything I read online said it was underpowered, overpriced, and if you really want it wait. I took a bet, walked to the Apple store and bought one. After a year of using it, I have zero regrets.

Prior I had a Windows desktop, Surface Pro 2, & 3. The desktop got many years of use but sat in one place. The Pro 2 & 3 were very cool, at least initially. Both had issues with randomly shutting down or overheating. The 3 gave me insane eye strain and I had to get rid of it quickly. Going back further, all of the other major PC laptop makers had their shares of weight, clunkiness, and quirks. They devices were not enjoyable to either travel with or use.

After a few weeks of use, some keys on the butterfly keyboard started behaving poorly and I thought for sure the thing was toast. Magically the keys unstuck themselves and I haven't had a problem since.

Is the 2015 Macbook underpowered? I use Illustrator, Photoshop for design work, Tableau & Excel for data analysis. Commonly I have at least 3 running at once. All of the server work is remote so that doesn't put any recognizable strain on the device. If I need massive computational power for some reason I can spin up an ec2 instance. An occasional website with heavy JS show signs of strain. This makes me wonder more about the sites' developers than the Macbook.

Expectations for Apple to come up with radically new innovations each year are like movie fans demanding a totally new and completely unexpected ending from a film. Maybe bloggers, newspapers, and viral news sites should be upset when Apple fails to produce a jaw dropping headline for them - but end users should not.

I don't want entertainment from the computing device I work with -- I want something that works so well I forget about it. I don't miss the days of low-resolution, loud fan blowing, heavy, crash prone laptops one bit.

My initial skepticism of Tim Cook has faded. I think Apple is doing a great job. And yeah, I already ordered the new Macbook Pro.

I'm glad someone is being a bit more positive about this. I was a little disappointed at first, but all of the compromises on this machine are fully explained by lead time, battery life and pushing industry standards forward. The first I can't control, the second I don't want to sacrifice, and the third I'm fully in support of.

The only real issue for me with this laptop is the price increases in the UK. We're paying about $500 more at current conversion rates than the US price.

Apple's trying to limit it's currency downside risk. Clearly they think the pound has further to slide.

You're a little off with the UK prices.

The US price, pre-tax, for the base 15" model is $2399. At whatever Google thinks is the current exchange rate, that's £1948.43 GBP. Add 20% VAT and it's on the shelf at £2338.12.

The UK price for this model is £10.88 more than the direct exchange rate.

You are correct, I was not accounting for VAT, I guess as the US price does _not_ include sales tax. Thanks!

They almost never do - US sales taxes vary by state, often city, and sometimes county. The combination of these is basically a list of tax by zipcode, so publishing them has more in common with calculating shipping than it does for us.

I know it doesn't really help (I'm facing the same problem @ 21%!), but the current conversion is a lot fairer than they've been in the past.

The fourth reason for compromise is their continued insistence on 'adding thinness', which apparently resulted in a significant reduction in battery capacity and hence forced the compromise on RAM type.

I've yet to meet a 'pro' who would consider reducing a laptop battery from 10397 mAh to 7600 to be sane, let alone considering any compromises that follow.

Please understand that there are very different types of 'pros'. Some "pros" need to be on the road continuously and portability is a huge advantage for which the performance hit is acceptable. For others, they only to unplug to go for meetings and rather have something more powerful and heavy/big.

Don't forget that the UK prices also include 20% VAT, the US prices don't.

For me the GPU (even the 460) is the biggest disappointment. Doesn't look like it's good enough to support the VR hardware by Oculus or HTC. Maybe that was just a pipedream but I seem to recall Apple saying something along the lines of the next MBP will be "VR ready"

I'll probably still get a 15" MBP as my development machine but I'm not pre-ordering as initially planned and waiting on some reviews first.

Edit: I just remembered that the Razer Core external GPU adapter has USB-C so maybe getting one of these to get around this problem could be an option. A pricey option though.

My main skepticism on the touch bar is the fact that Apple is not making it a standard component across the board (ahem).

When a user-interface device is non-standard, it tends to not be supported very well, because companies/developers don't have time to spend designing and testing the interaction, much less the actual code, for the relatively few users who have the device.

Apple may have more success with this, because MacOS developers will be more likely to have it and may want to play with their new toy...

> In the long term it’s doing the exact opposite: It’s finally setting USB-C/thunderbolt as the standard.

It's not going to set a new standard if it doesn't sell.

Do you realistically think it won't sell? Between fanboys and those for which the portability (and usability of macos) beats the absolute top performance you could get...it will still sell enough.

You may well be right. I guess we'll see how much of the MacBook Pro market is made up by actual professionals.

When I saw the limit on battery size my head screamed "citation needed", so I went out and found it for myself: https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/hazmat_safety/more_inf...

Is this something new? Have laptop batteries always been less than 100Wh?

Meanwhile, Apple is vertically integrating the whole semiconductor industry for production of iPhones. If this continues, I'm guessing the price for non-Apple hardware will go up. What will this mean for general purpose computing?

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