2020 13-inch MacBook Pro review: The standard macOS workhorse | Hacker News Reader

2020 13-inch MacBook Pro review: The standard macOS workhorse

arstechnica.com

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Yesterday, I priced out the 13-inch MBP and the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition (Ubuntu 18.04). The config was:

- 32GB of RAM

- 1TB SSD

- 10th generation i7

- 3 year extended warranty with accident protection.

With taxes, the MBP came to just about $3.1k, and the XPS 13 was just under $2500. The XPS 13 also came with an UHD 4k touch screen (higher res than the MBP). The price difference was nearly $600. If you drop the 4k touch screen on the XPS and opt for the 1080p screen, the price difference is almost $900.

The other thing the XPS comes with that the MBP does not is physical function keys.

I'm having a tough time justifying the Apple premium here. I love the polish of macOS and the MBP's build quality/industrial design, but how much is that premium worth?

I'm curious if choosing the MBP and paying the premium is worth it for other people.

Since you pointed out the screen options, this is one of the biggest thing stopping me from getting a non-MacBook: 4K is way too high-res and sucking too much battery and FHD is to coarse for a 13-14" screen. Apple hit a sweet spot with their Retina displays.

I completely agree re: Retina. All laptop manufacturers should take a cue from apple and focus on DPI rather than resolution. Ideally, DPI should be fixed across screen sizes.

Ugh. The keyboard still has only 1mm of travel.

My other gripes are things Apple's pretty committed to. My work laptop is a Macbook Pro, but my personal one is an X1 Carbon. When I was looking for a new laptop a year and a half ago, I thought about a Macbook Pro, but realized the non-removable HDD was a dealbreaker. I'm also not a fan of the aluminum body; the edges can be uncomfortable, and as Louis Rossmann (watch his Youtube channel before getting a Mac) points out, you actually want some flex in a computer frame, and you don't get it with an aluminum unibody.

> as Louis Rossmann (watch his Youtube channel before getting a Mac) points out, you actually want some flex in a computer frame, and you don't get it with an aluminum unibody.

You do?

Would you be willing to share why that is?

I know you cited a source, but depending on how many videos the channel creator has, and how long they are, it might take me a while to find exactly what you are referring to.

It's like structures in earthquakes and crumble zones in cars. Flexing helps absorb impacts. That said, I've had issues with BGA chips and flexing, so it comes with problems, too.

I couldn't find him talking about flexing, but here's Rossman's take on a lot of Apple's mistakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8

The $1799 config with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD is actually a good deal IMO.

But I am a bit disappointed that it seems to have the same 58Wh battery as the 2016 models. I know the consumption side has gotten more efficient, but I'm surprised that the battery capacity hasn't improved.

I don't know about a good deal. That seems to be $200-300 higher than most similarly spec'd machines on the market. While the CPU base clock isn't great on the LG Gram (https://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-14z90n-u.aas7u1-ultra-slim-...), it's $200 cheaper, nearly a pound lighter, and gets a full work day more of battery. And it still has a full USB-A port, Thunderbolt, and full HDMI. I also imagine that the thermals are probably better too.

I really can't get over how important it is that Apple's entire line of laptops cannot readily plug into a standard monitor without some sort of adapter. USB-C adapters are terrible. Thunderbolt adapters are insanely expensive. There's still an argument to be made for "dumb" display protocols/connectors.

My girlfriend is on a 2018 15" MBP for work and we went through multiple USB-C adapters to try to get something to work with a 1440p 144hz display or a 32" 4k 60hz display. We ended up finding one that worked with the 4k display, but by default only ran at 30hz. We had to option-click the "scaled" setting in preferences to force it to display at 60hz. For a company built around the "it just works" model, the current state of trying to just get up and running on standard equipment is painful at best.

Not entirely sure what the difference is between the top speced 13" pro and air, the air is 1k cheaper and the parts are the same, aside from the touchbar and better cooling.

There's a comparator on apple.com: https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/

Thanks! Looks like the differences are: - Iris graphics 645 on the pro vs iris graphics on the air - i7 cpus are clocked a little higher on the pro, which according to this benchmark is about 12% faster (https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/05/04/compared-2020-13-...) .

The big question on Air vs Pro is what the thermal budget is. Generally, I've found that Airs will down-clock pretty quickly when running computationally intensive work for more than a minute or two. Pros have more ability to dissipate heat, which lets them run faster for longer.

16 inch FTW.

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