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Hi I currently have a 2012 laptop and am looking into buying a mac book but the price is pretty steep. do you have and recommendations besides the xps and blade that will last for a while

Hey guys, I'm into Music Production & gaming. I need to know if the Asus PG278QR is able to run a MacBook Pro Touch 2016 & a gaming PC at the same time, while having the best connection between MacBook Pro and Monitor and not loosing the function of G-Sync between Monitor and Gaming PC.? If this setup should work, will I still be able to plug the Samsung T3 SSD into the Monitor and use it as an external storage for the MacBook Pro?

Source 1: https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/2016-macbook-pro-ssd/ Source 2: https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/the-late-2016-entry-level-13-macbook-pro-has-a-ridiculously-fast-ssd/ A report from Computer World noted that if Apple was anywhere close to its claimed SSD performance, it will offer the fastest drive read and write speeds of any stock computer available – and that Apple is around two years ahead of most of its competition. For reference, the Retina MacBook Pro (2015) could pin at 1.4Gb/ps writes and 1.3Gb/ps reads. The new MBPs smokes its predecessor IDC VP Jeff Janukowicz says that Apple has led the industry not just in the switch from hard drives to SSD, but in choosing the fastest SSD available. This doesn't surprise me as Apple was also the first one to adopt NVMe on the iPhone 6S making it the fastest phone, only beaten by the new iPhone 7 Most users are likely to see the benefit of the even faster SSDs in the new MacBook Pro only in boot times and loading apps, but professional users working with large files should notice a significant boost in performance. In light of this report 9to5mac ran some benchmark tests on the entry level 13" MBP (without Touchbar) and.... Apple is claiming read speeds up to 3.1 GB/s for both the 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pro, and 2.1 GB/s write speed. A quick look at the QuickBench test shows that the hardware performs right in step (divide by 1,000) with these expectations. My thoughts: This is definitely one of the reasons why MacBooks have always been great tasks like video editing compared to the competition despite being more powerful. Sure getting a better processor might give you 10 min reduced render time but it doesn't matter if video editing experience is very rough. This follows one of the things I noticed in Apple in past year or so, they've been making great strides (like an obsession) in color accuracy, speakers system and SSD performance across their entire lineup, topping charts every now and then Sworn Apple haters Inb4 SSD performance doesn't matter anymore Inb4 They removed all legacy ports Inb4 <some random device in some lab> had it before

Phil Schiller, senior VP of Apple's worldwide marketing, had an interview with the Independent regarding Apple's latest product the Macbook Pro. The product has received criticism for the use of Thunderbolt ports as a replacement for...everything He was asked why the SD Card slot, commonly used by photographers, was absent The Independent then questioned Schiller as to why they kept the headphone jack A port that was removed from their flagship phone yet remains present in their latest Macbook Pro iteration It seems kind of weird to see the company that took out the headphone jack to defend why they kept it on another device It seems "inconsistent" as The Independent stated Apple has taken many risks lately though I'm not quite sure they're all worth taking Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/apple-macbook-pro-new-philip-schiller-interview-phil-iphone-ios-criticism-a7393156.html

So I know I'm probably one of the few people here who use a MacBook as a daily driver, but I was just as dismayed as linus was perplexed at the new MacBook Pro. Now, we're still waiting on his review, and while we do, I found a really interesting perspective on the whole "all USB C all the time" thing that is so controversial, and I figured LTT would be the community to give some interesting perspective/discussion on the issue. The article in question is titled "The new MacBook Pro is kind of great for hackers." https://medium.com/@ageitgey/the-new-macbook-pro-is-kind-of-great-for-hackers-64c1c577a4d2#.wgp9kurrz So, even though this has been talked half to death recently, how do you guys feel about any computer being pure USB C? I'll put my own opinion in the thread below. I debated putting this thread under laptops, peripherals, and news, but the issue really spans the gamut.

Is there any good wireless mouse for macbook pro??? Any suggestions??? I don't really have a budget in mind right now. It has to have good driver for OS X though. Some mouse has terrible driver when it comes to os x. The scrolling wheel never works as intended. If you are using a macbook, and a wireless mouse , comment below.

Hi everybody. I am in desperate need of help as I am selling my 2012 Macbook Pro. I had already wiped the hdd and had prepared an install dvd with os x lion (being imo the least intensive and still modern looking osx variant). I tested the dvd by booting the mac to it once and saw it worked perfectly. After wiping the HDD however, the mac will no longer boot to the dvd. It shows the apple logo and the spinning grey ball. It will stay like this forever until i force it to shut down. I don't understand why it does this. The Hitachi drive in the mac has 1 large empty partition with the mac os extended (journaled) format. I can't install Lion from the web as i have had to delete the email linked to the itunes account on which I purchased the os. Really a bummer. I have tried doing the same with the dmg file on a guid partitioned usb to get the same result again. Thanks for your help.

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10799/apple-announces-4th-generation-macbook-pro-family-thinner-lighter-with-thunderbolt-3-touch-bar The rumored Macbook Pros are finally here, and with them, most of the rumored features. There's an OLED Touch Bar, Touch ID, and much, much more. 4th GenMacBook Pro Lineup Model 2015 15" 2016 13" (basic) 2016 13" (touch) 2016 15" Dimensions 1.8 cm x 35.89 cm x 24.71 cm 1.49 cm x 30.41 cm x 21.24 cm 1.55 cm x 34.93 cm x 24.07 cm Weight 4.49 lbs (2.04 kg) 3.02 lbs (1.37 kg) 4.02 lbs (1.83 kg) CPU 2.2GHz Core i7-4770HQ (Haswell) 2.0GHz Core i5-6360U (Skylake) 2.9GHz Core i5-6267U (Skylake) 2.0GHz Core i7-6700HQ (Skylake) GPU Intel Iris Pro 5200 Intel Iris Graphics 540 Intel Iris Graphics 550 Intel HD Graphics 530 + Radeon Pro 450 (2GB) Display 15" 2880 x 1800 IPS LCD sRGB Gamut 13" 2560 x 1600 IPS LCD P3 Gamut 15" 2880 x 1800 IPS LCD P3 Gamut Memory 16GB DDR3L-1600 8GB LPDDR3-1866 8GB LPDDR3-2133 16GB LPDDR3-2133 SSD 256GB PCIe SSD (PCIe x2) 256GB PCIe SSD Toucb Bar No No Yes I/O 2x Thunderbolt 2 (supports DP1.2), 1x HDMI 1.4, 2x USB 3.0 (Type-A), 3.5mm Audio, SDXC Slot 2x Thunderbolt 3 (supports DP1.2 & USB 3.1 Gen 2 modes), 3.5mm Audio 4x Thunderbolt 3 (supports DP1.2 & USB 3.1 Gen 2 modes), 3.5mm Audio Battery Capacity 99.5 Wh 54.5 Wh 49.2 Wh 76 Wh Battery Life 9 Hours 10 Hours Price $1999 $1499 $1799 $2399 The new Macbook Pros are packed full of new features, but along with the new features comes a huge increase in price. Even the "basic" Macbook Pro's base offering is even more expensive than last year's base Macbook Pro. Granted, it contains double the storage, but even then the "basic" Macbook Pro costs the same as last year. That's not even mentioning the "fancy" Macbook Pros, which cost a few hundred dollars more than last years. Still though, there's some cool new features in the new 2016 models that should be mentioned. We're getting a new thinner and lighter Macbook Pro this year, that also has some other changes. Among this is a bigger trackpad, a butterfly switch keyboard (basically the same as the one on the Macbook), and Thunderbolt 3 ports on the side. The only I/O on this year's Macbook Pros is Thunderbolt 3 and a headphone jack. This offers a huge amount of bandwidth and the ports can be used for charging, too, but this also means a lot of your peripherals will need adapters now. We also get upgraded internals, in the form of Skylake, Polaris GPUs on the 15" Macbook Pro, and a new, faster SSD. As well, it has been said that the new displays have "variable refresh rate," so it'll be interesting if the new Macs come with freesync. OLED Touch Bar The new Macs also have the largely rumored OLED Touch Bar on the top above the keyboard. The bar is only present on the more expensive "fancy" Macbook Pros, and replaces the function keys. The program running can change what's displayed on the bar which gives many different things that can be done with it. This is pretty cool IMO, and how much it can really be used in the real world will remain to be seen. Touch ID Also rumored and true, the new Macs have a Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the side of the OLED Bar. It's a physical button that also functions as the power button. This seems cool, as signing in will be a lot simpler. That's pretty much everything we know about the new Macs. We didn't get a new Macbook Air or Macbook; the "basic" Macbook Pro is supposed to replace the Air (though I'm not sure how that'll work if it's around 50% more expensive). They seem pretty cool and have a lot of cool features though the price is pretty expensive. What are your thoughts? I personally find them as really cool, neat laptops, but the price really ruins it. Note: I have a feeling someone's gonna come and be like "Repost!" No, it's not a repost. There are no posts about the new Macbook Pros in this sub-forum, only ones about the live event, which is different.

So apple announced their new MacBook Pro line up this week. I have read quiet a lot of article about it here on this forum and just wanted to share my views of the hole thing. I personally like the move away form USB type A, it will hopefully increase the number of USB C devices out there. And let's be honest, do you really need USB Type A on your Laptop? I mean, every display today features a USB Type A hub, so you only need a cable to your monitor for your peripherals. This is what I already do since years and really never understood why some people use a keyboard and mouse with a Laptop without a Monitor. Now, I still use a 4 years old macbook pro and my question is: Does raw horsepower really make the difference for a (pro) Laptop? I think, NO and this is what apple showed us with those products. @LinusSebastian said in the WAN Show yesterday, that most apple users aren't doing intense video-editing and other power-hungry stuff. I totally agree. I think we reached a point, where the performance is increasing very slowly, I mean I can still do all my work on my 4 years old machine. Lets for example take a look at the surface Studio (Great device in my eyes), it features a GTX 980M for powering a 4.5 K display. You may now think, way underpowered... but who cares, as long as the user experience is good, it doesn't really matter to most of the people out there who will buy one. The same applies to the MacBook Pro's. The Hardware jumps in the last couple of years where just really small. I just want to give you an example here: What does an architect, a designer... need from a Laptop? A decently powerful, reliable computer, which works and is portable. Does he need the bleeding edge performance? No, but he will care about convenience like the TouchBar or the surface Dial (just as non apple example, tho not for a Laptop). But he could totally work on a 3 Years old machine really well. I think, we see the same movement on professional devices everywhere. Professional no longer means the bleeding edge performance but rather more convenience which ultimately increases productivity. I hope, to have a constructive discussion about the future of Laptops and Portable devices here and not an Apple bash.

Now i know i had already asked questions about the whether the Macbook pro 15inches 2016 model is worth the buy. But then after they launched and announced the price, I cannot afford it at all. My question now is that is the 13 inches MacBook pro worth buying even though it is soo costly and will i be able to use graphic intensive apps ? And when will apple reduce the price of their 2016 models of MacBook pro ? (I feel it will be next year but will it still be worth getting one) Because till then other windows manufacturers will be updated with the latest intel 8gen processor and updated graphics(maybe 1080) and it would still be cheaper than the apple Macbooks.

So this is mostly about the wan show, but I have seen several other people also just hate on apple without actually understanding why the macbook pro has (what I would call) the best I/O on a device ever made. 1) First of all, some people said they can't plug their UBS devices into it without an adapter. This is not true. The ports are still USB ports, just with the new C connector. All USB devices can be plugged in without any active adapters. Devices with a removable cable can just have a cable replaced with a USB-C to whatever, instead of the regular USB-A to whatever. Stuff like USB drives with a fixed connector will need an adapter, but in the future all USB devices will use the C connector anyway. 2) They are more than just USB ports. This is a combination of power delivery + USB 3.1 + displayport + hdmi +thunderbolt. THIS is what I call progress. ONE type of connector which can do everything. Why have 10 different types of ports and 10 different types of cables when you can combine them all into one? Having the same cable and connector for all devices will make everything easier in the future. This may seem like a stretch right now, since few devices have USB-C and you have to use USB-C to DP, or USB-C to HDMI, but the only way to switch everything to USB-C is by starting off with a product like this one. It's not hard to imagine 3 years from now where everything is connected using USB-C cables and you don't need to worry about where you left your extra HDMI or whatever. Remember serial cables and printer cables and gameport cables? Well those got replaced by USB-A. Now USB-C will also be replacing power and display cables. 3) USB-C is the BEST connection to support today and in the future. I'm sure everyone can see the billions of devices with USB-A on it, well USB-C is better, and the best way to make it widespread is by forcibly switching to it. Only a handful of PC cases, phones, motherboards, etc. have USB-C. By putting it on what is one of the highest selling laptops in the world, millions more people will begin switching too USB-C. Yes it is forced. In case you haven't noticed, this is the only way to get people to switch quickly, especially with majority of old people who resist change like it's life or death. 4) It might have been sarcasm, but why was @LinusTech complaining about 4 ports being too many?? Hypocritical much? Complain about the macbook not having enough, then 4 is too many? I think 4 is more than enough, considering the daisy chaining capabilities of Thunderbolt 3, which will make it so most of the time you only need 1-2 connectors for everything. 5) @Slick mentioned laptop docks. If you watch the conference, they show that you can easily connect everything that most people need through a single connector. External displays, external storage, power, peripherals, etc.... Nobody needs a laptop dock if you can literally plug in one cable and have everything connected 6) Power can be supplied from any connector or either side. Yes, the magsafe connector is gone, but hey look, more hypocritical people. First complain about apple using proprietary stuff, and when they switch to a global standard like USB, then complain that the proprietary connector is no longer there. Seriously, USB-C is the future whether you like it or not, and it is already becoming popular on phones. Having the same connectivity on a laptop again benefits the "only one type of cable" reason. 7) Progress, again requires the use of a lot of force. More people buying macbook pros = more people using USB-C = more manufacturers adding USB-C to their devices. USB drives, monitors, external storage, peripherals, etc... This benefits EVERYBODY, since we will all be using USB-C in a few years. Again, USB-C is the global standard, not a proprietary macbook connector. It will be on your PC case and you might even have a motherboard with some USB-C already. 8) Please watch the conference or read some articles about the Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports before ranting about the macbook pro. USB-C is soon to replace almost every type of port on the back of your PC, and this is a great jump-start to get the industry into production. TL;DR 1) the ports on the macbook are still USB, all you need is a new USB-C cable, no active adapters or stuff 2) they can also do hdmi, thunderbolt, displayport, and power 3) the USB-C connector is the future, and soon everything will use it 4) 4 ports is enough because most of the time you can connect everything through 1-2 with the use of daisy chaining 5) connecting an entire setup by plugging in 1 connector is what people have wanted for decades 6) yes magsafe is gone, but replaced by a non-proprietary global standard, USB-C. You will be able to use the same cable on all your devices, not just apple. 7) forcing people to use USB-C is the fastest way to push the industry into more USB-C on devices/accessories, which benefits everyone, not just apple users 8) hopefully you learnt something today about why USB-C is a great way of pulling the future towards us at an accelerated rate. 9) gnight, I'll reply to everyone tomorrow

So after watching the WAN show this week I was interested about how much more the new MacBook Pro would cost is Sweden. Usually tech is a bit more expensive here but not to ludicrous extents, well Apple surprised me this time! ^Here we go already, the cheapest option is already more expensive then the middle of the road 13 inch but not quite but almost up there with the "Top of the Line 13 Inch"!^ ^Alright, the middle of the road option is 286 dolleridos more then the best 13 inch model they have available in the US!^ ^Top of the line 13 incher, this is more expensive then the cheaper of the 15 inchers!^ ^The cheaper one of the 15 inch models here. The more astute amongst you might have noted it is more expensive then the better 15 inch one in the US!^ BOOM SHAKALAKA! HERE WE GO! 3494 UNITED STATES GREEN CASH SWAGGER MONEYZ! LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN! 3494 AMERICAN SHEKELS! THAT IS ALMOST 1000 MORE OF THAT GREEN 'MURICAN DOUGH THEN WHAT THEY COST TO BUY IN THE GREAT UNION OF STATES! Cooling of a bit, I find it hard to come up with any reasonable explanation for the seeming price gouging going one here. So if you are in sweden and for some reason shopping for these machines I would just recommend shopping straight from the US site, they even have free shipping so why pay the extra for the device? I hope you got a laugh out of this and if you did not at least you have seen the ludicrous stuff going on with some products in sweden! Edit: As Sakkura pointed out VAT is 25% in sweden so the pricing does make a bit of sense. I totally forgot about this as it is 01:45 in the morning.

I am deciding between the new 13inch touch bar macbook pro vs the 2015 15inch refurbished macbook pro

Hi everyone! I need your help to choose between two computers one is the new Asus Zenbook 3 and MacBook Pro. What's your opinion? I would buy both with the highest configuration so... Which one would you choose? I need an answer please. Thanks!

Good Morning All, I am getting a set of DBrand skins for my newly ordered laptop (Macbook Pro) (Before you say anything, that is the platform they use at work, and they are paying or it, so I have no choice... they did let me spec it out, so there's that :-) ). Anyway, I want it to look a little more representative of my personality, with a little protection from scratches, so I am ordering a DBand skin. Here is my question, have any of you ha experience with the trackpad skin, particularly with the force touch trackpads? I think it would add an element of color to the face of the laptop, but I only want to get one if the function is not affected. Thanks! Samuel

Jonathan Morrison (from TLD) released a new MacBook Pro video titled "The truth about the MacBook Pro" where he shows the Final Cut Pro X rendering performance on a baseline MBP with i5 version with an i7 decked up HP specter running premier pro It starts about 12 sec into the video My thoughts: Another reason why @LinusTech should fully evaluate his MacBook Pro and do some kind of long-term testing rather than talking about short term complaints what everybody already knows about And, yes I agree on the naming with Jonathan. No idea why they named this the MacBook Pro when it is clearly more different from the actual Pro's to the non-Pro version And btw, this is exactly the reason why many people like MKBHD, Austin Evans, TLD, etc use Macs instead of Windows with dreaded Premier Pro which FYI Taran has a YouTube channel about

Now that my PC can basically do all the things I want it to, I want to try out Apple's Operating system. I really like the idea of a powerful desktop for gaming and a very sleek, minimalist, and "walled garden" experience for writing and business applications. To that end, I've found a 15" Macbook Pro i5 for $300. I believe it has a dual core 520 that boosts to 3.1, 8gb ddr3, and 500 hdd. Honestly, the only thing I want to replace is the HDD and maybe battery and I think this device will be able to navigate the OS very smoothly. Since I've heard many people say that newer Macbook Pros are just thinner, slightly more powerful, do you think I made a wise choice?

Hello, So I recently got a MacBook Pro 2012 Mid i5 13.3", I brought it as I want to develop IOS apps natively, I also wanted to see what the apple eco system is like. My MacBook has 2 USB ports and 1 thunderbolt 2 port, so I was thinking would I be able to use the 2 USB ports, with USB to VGA adapters and the do the same with thunderbolt but with a HDMI adapter to thunderbolt. Thanks Steven

This laptop is about a month old. According to Apple the laptop can be turned on by opening the lid. The problem is I often find the laptop doesn't turn on when I open the lid. I encountered this 4/5 times. So, it's not that frequent. Each time this happened, I plugged in the charger and immediately opened the lid, the laptop didn't turn on. To turn it on, either I had to press the touch ID/power button or close the lid and open it again. I was just wondering if others have encountered it. Googled it, couldn't find anything on it.

Hello, I'm new here and that's my first post, anyhow, I have a YouTube channel and I use Adobe premiere, Photoshop, etc as graphic designer college student. I have an Asus ROG gx551gl Ram 16GB (I don't know how to overock) Gtx 950m 2GB Core i7 4720HQ 1TB HDD 265 SSD 6 pounds around 3kg A quite heavy laptop that has issues with sound, (goes higher by it self after pausing a video or music or anything) - help if you know how solve it! Anyhow, aside from that I want to upgrade, and I really loved the surface product, Because they're high end, and built well, but! (Linus voice tune) I had a very bad windows experince so far and issues with my machine. I don't game, I have Xbox for that but I do work and design and create... So I want your advice on my next device A surface product with the horrible windows (I'm afraid) or Going to be on the apple side with a MacBook Pro? (It's stable my friends says) And I'm concerned about the consumer reports as well for the surface product. Budget $2000 max Goal: light powerful laptop, with good build quality. Suit a student and graphic designer that works 27/789 days a week. I'm all ears ,, and thanks. - Aorex.

Hey everyone, I'm currently in the market for a new laptop and I'm having trouble deciding between these two machines I see pros and cons for each but I want to here what y'all think I should do. I'm considering in between the 15 inch macbook pro and the 4k razer blade. Here are the specs of the two I'm considering: 15 inch Macbook Pro Razer Blade Macbook Pro Pros: 1. I like macOS 2. I'm already in the apple ecosystem with my phone, and my air. 3. I love the way it looks and the touch bar. 4. I love how it has future proof ports. 5. My school is mainly on Macs, so it works well with that. 6. Great support, I can just take it to my local apple store. Cons: 1. Expensive for hardware 2. Lesser graphics 3. Not a variety of ports 4. Thermal Throttles 5. Not touch screen 6. Price Razer Blade Pros: 1. Better graphics 2. Touchscreen 3. Looks very nice 4. More than one type of port. 5. Runs windows which means greater program compatibility. 6. Works with external graphics cards. 7. RGB Cons: 1. Not as tightly integrated with my phone. 2. Only one thunderbolt three port. 3. Not as good of support 4. No imessage or any other apple service.

If there is anyone who can answer this question knowledgeably, it would be you guys. I just bought a MacBook Pro 2017 base model with Kaby lake intel 7th gen, and I am going to upgrade to more graphics memory (+$90) and double my soldiered on storage (256 to 512gb +$180). This leads to an upgrade cost of $270 on a $2,250 machine which to me is worth it. The question comes in, that I can upgrade just the memory and GPU for $270 or just go for the top spec for an additional $90 (~$350). So the processor upgrade itself, due to being the only difference after updating memory and GPU is $90. I will post the processor name value and specs below. Basically the only difference in CPU is that it has a 100Mb clock difference and a higher L3 cache memory. The model I have now is a L3 cache size of 6mb, paying the extra amount would give me a 8mb L3 cache size. I don't know how important L3 cache is, I do know that L3 is designated for inter core functions. cpu benchmark rates that the higher spec cpu has an effectively faster processing rate of 6%. and other cinebench tests gave it a higher multicore score something like 13,000 to 15,000. Which I imagine would help if I am running a bunch of apps, some in the background. Needs: I am a computer engineering undergrad student, and use professional software like Multism to test and design circuits (of course I will dual boot a windows OS on my Mac which is the main reason for my memory upgrade). I also do a lot, and I mean a lot of coding. My main reason for wanting the $90 processor is that I will have many many tabs, folders and codes open across different programs running, sometimes simultaneously throughout the day. Which I would imagine a higher multicore speed would aide. Taking into consideration how much I have already spent on this machine (as an investment/future proofing/performance needs), would it be wise to just go balls to the wall and spend another $90 on the higher cpu with more L3 cache and just go to a top common model MacBook Pro? Is 2mb more cache and a slightly higher clock worth it? Secondly when my cpu is under heavy stress how much will I notice having the slightly more clock and L3 cache? Is there any user perceived difference (especially under max load). Ultimately this determines whether the upgrade is worth $90 to me. Data to peruse: The base model CPU: I7-7700HQ specs: Processor Number i7-7700HQ Status Launched Launch Date Q1'17 Lithography 14 nm Recommended Customer Price $378.00 Performance # of Cores 4 # of Threads 8 Processor Base Frequency 2.80 GHz Max Turbo Frequency 3.80 GHz Cache 6 MB Bus Speed 8 GT/s DMI TDP 45 W Configurable TDP-down 35 W And finally the upgraded CPU that would cost me $90: I7 - 7820HQ. specs i7-7820HQ Status Launched Launch Date Q1'17 Lithography 14 nm Recommended Customer Price $378.00 Performance # of Cores 4 # of Threads 8 Processor Base Frequency 2.90 GHz Max Turbo Frequency 3.90 GHz Cache 8 MB TDP 45 W Configurable TDP-down 35 W Really curious as to why the Intel stated price is exactly the same, the info above bring from Intel's ARK spec pages. Leads me to believe the extra $90 could be a apple easy cash grab. Here is the line to the cpu benchmark comparison Url for the two processors. http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7820HQ-vs-Intel-Core-i7-7700HQ/m185229vsm211019 Thank you for letting me pick your guys' brains. I appreciate the time you took to read and respond!! Bests, Luxon

Operating System: I love Mac OS's convenient transparent interface, lack of malware/driver issues/other problems and some of its exclusive software. I believe it comes with El Capitan but it is immediately upgradable to Sierra. Price: ~$500 used and plus ~$100 with upgrades. Pricy for an older laptop. However, for Mac standards, its the best value you will find for a Mac computer. Size/Weight: I have the 13" model. It's very compact in width/length. Average in height. The weight is light by 2012's standards, but average by today's standards. Overall portable. Resolution: 800p display is really outdated. My biggest gripe. But as a partial fix, with an HDMI/Thunderbolt adapter, it can be displayed on a television in 1080p. Chassis: The aluminum on the top accrues light scratches over time, but the interior aluminum is flawless (and feels premium). Since, we only interact with the interior, it's a positive overall. Battery: For basic tasks, it lasts 5-7 hours. However, with turbo boost, the power drains quick (about under 3 hours). Ration carefully. Processing: It handles almost all everyday tasks with ease such as MS Office, browsing and so on. It starts to chug if browsing 10+ tabs and other apps, but at least it can. It can run Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro well enough for light to medium editing/mixing. Not to a professional degree, but at least it can run them. Gaming: Skyrim is barely playable at absolute lowest settings. It can handle older games and emulation of classic consoles, but it's not for gaming. Storage: Comes with 500 GB HDD and a DVD player. However, you can upgrade either to an SSD, which is the best way to boost this machine's performance. RAM: Only comes with 4GB but can be upgraded. 16 GB is possible perhaps, but 8GB is plenty for a laptop. Ports: 2 USB3's, Ethernet, Thunderbolt, SD card reader. A good option for those who disagreed with Apple's removal of ports in recent years. Keyboard: Excellent. Backlighting is a plus. Keys are raised but thin. Smooth. Firmly adhered, easy to press but offers a perfect amount of tactile feedback. Trackpad: The soft aluminum texture, firm always responsive click. I never thought I'd like a trackpad better than an external mouse, but I love this trackpad. As a 5 year old laptop, it is very dated in some aspects. However, at the end of the day, in spite of the flaws, it's been one of the best laptops I've ever owned. It's great for school/work, browsing and some creative applications, with great notebook-like qualities and capability to perform more powerful tasks when needed. The keyboard, trackpad, UI and build quality all make my experience for reading/typing and using a wide variety of applications enjoyable and hassle free. 8/10

If you had about $1700 for a laptop, would you consider a manufacturer refurbished late 2016 razer blade w/ 512gb SSD, or a used late 2016 mbp 15 w/ more SSD capacity on it? I’m currently in the architecture faculty therefore will need it to perform tasks in programmes such as Vectorworks, rhino etc -beautifully- if I may ask. Im used to both systems and I have a desktop pc setup at home, so I’m opting for a considerably powerful laptop with great portability to work on my stuffs anywhere i go, while having potentials to last for another 2 or so years in the future. I dont plan to game on it as i dont game that often anymore. I do realise that i have quite a tight budget considering the specs im opting for.

Hello, I recently ordered the Sennheiser HD600 headphones for casual music listening. I was just wondering if my 2015 Macbook Pro would be powerful enough to push these headphones for the time being while I wait to order a Schiit Audio Fulla 2 AMP/DAC? I did previously have a pair of Sennheiser HD8 DJs but there was a fault with them so I exchanged them for the HD600s. The HD8 DJs would get super loud (at half way) on my Macbook from the motherboard audio. So I was just wondering if I would be okay with the HD600s on my Macbook until I order an AMP?