New Macbook pro announced with new dimensions

[Belgarathian]

48 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

 

If that was indeed recorded using the microphone on the MBP colour me impressed!

 

Definitely contemplating buying the entry 16" MBP as my next laptop... Spec wise it ticks all my boxes. Last MBP upgrade was the late 2015. 

[vanished]

Good to see improved cooling and keyboard.  Time will tell if those changes are sufficient, and if anything else has been designed and/or built incorrectly.  Interested to see reviews when ready.

 

The size really throws me off though.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised Apple of all people would make a non-standard format that no one else has ever dealt with, thus making everyone buy new bags, but still, why?

[Drak3]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

The size really throws me off though.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised Apple of all people would make a non-standard format that no one else has ever dealt with, thus making everyone buy new bags, but still, why?

The physical body is roughly the same size, they reduced the bezels to make the screen bigger.

[vanished]

2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

The physical body is roughly the same size, they reduced the bezels to make the screen bigger.

Are laptops not rated by physical size though?  I'm pretty sure they are, and not by the screen on them.

Edit: hm, just checked both of mine and I think you might be right.  That's very odd to me though for two reasons.  One, I know I've seen in the past ad material that talks about "15" class screen in a 13" class body", and the like, which, if they were talking about the screen directly they wouldn't have to do, they'd just say "15" screen" or whatever.  Two, that could create compatibility issues... you think you're getting a certain size but really it's much larger, and different models will not be consistent.

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Are laptops not rated by physical size though?  I'm pretty sure they are, and not by the screen on them.

Laptops are rated by screen size. Hence why Dell markets the XPS15 as being the size of conventional 14" laptops.

 

 

And why the Area51M is a 17" laptop despite it dwarfing my 17" MSI GS75 Stealth.

[vanished]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

Laptops are rated by screen size. Hence why Dell markets the XPS15 as being the size of conventional 14" laptops.

 

 

And why the Area51M is a 17" laptop despite it dwarfing my 17" MSI GS75 Stealth.

Edit above

 

Unrelated, I had another thought about that 8 TB of storage.   That's a ton, and that's impressive.  I'm not sure any other laptops offer something like that.  No doubt it will (deservedly) cost an arm and a leg.  But my concern is that knowing how the T2 chip and apple's encryption in general works, will people know how to use it properly?  It's easy for me to sit here and assume anyone buying a machine that expensive knows what they're doing and will have proper backups, etc. but there's always that fringe case, and with ever more data held in an irretrievable fashion and a higher than otherwise risk of failure, I think it's more important than ever that they change the default to be opt-in encryption rather than opt-out.  The majority of people are clueless and will be far more likely to screw themselves over with it than to be protected by it against a third party.

[Drak3]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

I'm not sure any other laptops offer something like that. 

Not out of the box, but the GS Stealth 17" laptops have 3 M.2 slots,2 NVMe and 1 SATA, so one can get up there. The Alienware Area 51M has 2 NVMe M.2 slots and a standard SATA slot.

 

11 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

if they were talking about the screen directly they wouldn't have to do, they'd just say "15" screen" or whatever.  Two, that could create compatibility issues... you think you're getting a certain size but really it's much larger, and different models will not be consistent.

Ignoring full on desktop replacements like the Area 51M, most 17" laptops are roughly the same size, same for 15" laptops (except the XPS15), and third party cases will either be model specific or ensure the case/bag fits most laptops of the class in the market.

 

But yes, laptop sizes are classified by their screens. Not their bodies. Hence why the XPS15 and MacBook Pro 15" both have 15" screens but different body dimensions compared to most other 15" laptops.

[Belgarathian]

2 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Edit above

 

Unrelated, I had another thought about that 8 TB of storage.   That's a ton, and that's impressive.  I'm not sure any other laptops offer something like that.  No doubt it will (deservedly) cost an arm and a leg.  But my concern is that knowing how the T2 chip and apple's encryption in general works, will people know how to use it properly?  It's easy for me to sit here and assume anyone buying a machine that expensive knows what they're doing and will have proper backups, etc. but there's always that fringe case, and with ever more data held in an irretrievable fashion and a higher than otherwise risk of failure, I think it's more important than ever that they change the default to be opt-in encryption rather than opt-out.  The majority of people are clueless and will be far more likely to screw themselves over with it than to be protected by it against a third party.

Reading Anandtech's opening remarks it looks like it's something to do with Apple flexing it's engineering muscle on their custom SSD controller design within the T2 enabling 8TB of storage. Other manufacturers have to deal with RAID and 3rd party controllers. 

 

Re T2 encryption concerns, they could add it as part of the beautiful setup experience the first time you open your Macbook, and if you choose 'No' you could also have a setting to encrypt your drive later on under 'Privacy' in settings. 

 

[vanished]

2 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

Reading Anandtech's opening remarks it looks like it's something to do with Apple flexing it's engineering muscle on their custom SSD controller design within the T2 enabling 8TB of storage. 

 

Other manufacturers have to deal with RAID and 3rd party controllers. 

I mean they may as well.  If they can do it and no one else can, at least not as cleanly, that's the kind of thing that any company would want to show off, and rightly so.

[D13H4RD]

7 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Which the professionals who work with MacBook Pros do not. The Mac was built with creators in mind, people who work with spreadsheets are rarely content creators. 

I think you underestimate how useful the numpad can be. 

 

It's used for far more than just entering numbers in a spreadsheet. Since learning about it, I might actually incorporate them in my Lightroom workflow. 

[Soppro]

This literally should have been the MacBook Pro they launched back in 2016. I guess the next best time to launch it is now  Huuuge upgrade but I wonder what was the point of releasing the 2019 15" MBP if they were going to redesign it just 6 months later?

[captain_to_fire]

55 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

Reading Anandtech's opening remarks it looks like it's something to do with Apple flexing it's engineering muscle on their custom SSD controller design within the T2 enabling 8TB of storage. Other manufacturers have to deal with RAID and 3rd party controllers. 

Why would Apple need T2 for the SSD controller when in fact, it’s a couple of NVME drives in RAID0? 

[RedRound2]

11 hours ago, yolosnail said:

I use the numpad far too much to even consider getting a MacBook. 

 

Real pros don't care if it looks horrible, they care about efficiency, and not having a numpad is a major hit to efficiency (assuming you work with numbers that is)

If you want some spreadsheet capabilities, you're much better off with a those 300 dollar 15inch laptops with numpads.

 

Macs, especially this one was never intended to be sued for Excel. Also adding numpad makes the keyboard off center, and Apple wouldn't have room for those awesome speakers that they cramped into this thing (which matters a lot more to the target audience (and for casual purposes) than the numpad

[DrMacintosh]

2 hours ago, Soppro said:

This literally should have been the MacBook Pro they launched back in 2016.

That would have literally been impossible tho. 7nm wasn’t a thing in 2016 and the performance wouldn’t have been possible in this form factor. 

[Commodus]

3 hours ago, Soppro said:

This literally should have been the MacBook Pro they launched back in 2016. I guess the next best time to launch it is now  Huuuge upgrade but I wonder what was the point of releasing the 2019 15" MBP if they were going to redesign it just 6 months later?

Apple does occasionally revise systems that quickly.  Usually it's because a system has already gone without updates for a while and could use a refresh to keep it competitive.  This was relatively common back in the '00s, but that was also because the CPUs were changing fairly rapidly and would make a significant difference (if not always tangible) in performance in just half a year.

[avg123]

12 hours ago, dizmo said:

All that room for a numpad and yet...nothing...

Some people actually hate the numpad because it offsets the keyboard and trackpad. 

[kokakolia]

12 hours ago, yolosnail said:

I use the numpad far too much to even consider getting a MacBook. 

 

Real pros don't care if it looks horrible, they care about efficiency, and not having a numpad is a major hit to efficiency (assuming you work with numbers that is)

I know you already made up your mind about this Macbook, but an external numbpad isn't such a bad idea. It's less than $10, easily fits in a laptop bag and is actually more ergonomic than a built-in numbpad. And you're probably not gonna crunch numbers and do serious work while the compter is on your lap. The major flaw is that it takes up a full port and that it's yet another dongle to carry in the arsenal of dongles for the MAC. 

 

But overall, you have a point: calling a 16 inch laptop without a numbpad "PRO" is pretty absurd. I can't live without a numbpad and all I do is basic CAD work and even more basic Excel. 

[hishnash]

4 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

Why would Apple need T2 for the SSD controller when in fact, it’s a couple of NVME drives in RAID0? 

T2 provides a few things, not just SSD controller. It is basically an iphone chip, so it provides security for touchID the webcam, booting and other kernel tasks that would otherwise use up CPU time (and heat).

 

its role as an SSD controller is the speed it can provide with full disk encryption it still gets the full 3.2GB/s read/write speed. 

[Soppro]

2 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

That would have literally been impossible tho. 7nm wasn’t a thing in 2016 and the performance wouldn’t have been possible in this form factor. 

I wasn't referring to the silicon exactly, more the keyboard  I don't know what they were trying to achieve with the butterfly keyboard (thinness?) and how they thought it was a good idea when they could've done this instead 

[amdorintel]

19 hours ago, GenericFanboy said:

I mean, i've been wanting a new heater for a while. 

for the cold wintery months right

[GenericFanboy]

8 minutes ago, amdorintel said:

for the cold wintery months right

Ofcourse ofcourse, nice and toasty

[captain_to_fire]

2 hours ago, hishnash said:

its role as an SSD controller is the speed it can provide with full disk encryption it still gets the full 3.2GB/s read/write speed. 

I know that T2 provides data encryption at rest but I think they don’t need a T2 for a couple of NVME SSDs in RAID0, which I think is the reason for its extremely fast read/write speeds.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

16 hours ago, dizmo said:

All that room for a numpad and yet...nothing...

that comes down to personal preference. I hate having a numbed on a laptop because then my right wrist is always at an angle when typing, and I find that really annoying. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

14 hours ago, EarthWormJM2 said:

...And I'm sure I'll hear the MAC OS argument... it's just an OS, not worth all that premium, especially when Apple won't support it at all after ~5 years.

I have a 2012 MacBook Pro, which last time I checked is older than 5 years, and still runs very well, with official support from apple. 

 

it's definitely worth a premium considering all the stuff you get for free. an office suite, video editor, photo editor, music production software, etc. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

10 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

The size really throws me off though.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised Apple of all people would make a non-standard format that no one else has ever dealt with, thus making everyone buy new bags, but still, why?

that's not necessarily true. the 12" MacBook is smaller than the old 11" MacBook Air, even though the screen is bigger. it depends on the total footprint.