Yesterday I became the owner of a new MBP. This is the 13" model in maximum configuration and yes, with the touch bar. Before buying I read a lot of different things written both by those who already tried this laptop, and by those who are for/against based on various theoretical assumptions.
Traditionally, everyone who writes about this machine unanimously recognizes the aesthetics, solid build quality and general pleasantness of this thing in hands / on table / on lap. I have nothing new to say here, everything is as it is - this laptop is extremely pleasant and you want to open it and program something on it.
If we move away from the external and tactile initial wow factor, then essentially I can report the following:
About what everyone (many) recognize as successful:
- It really sounds surprisingly good for such a small thing. You can actually listen to music on it without ear pain. Of course, not for audiophiles, but for music-while-working it’s very, very decent.
- the display is good, very good. Visually better than on my previous MBPr 2015. Both there and here it’s retina, but on the new one somehow differently, somehow brighter, livelier and more pleasant.
- you can charge through any of the 4 ports, this is convenient in practice.
- It’s more compact than the previous model in all directions.
- Opening by fingerprint works quickly and reliably, like on iphone
Now about what many curse and criticize:
- Battery life seemed quite decent to me. Of course, 24 hours is insufficient time for deep conclusions, but yesterday it worked for 8 hours and about 15% remained. I used it in normal work mode, i.e. wrote/read code, searched the internet, built containers, debugged programs, wrote tickets.
- The keyboard with low travel and wide keys caused no problems and I even liked it. At first there was a feeling that it’s noisy, but that’s because I was hitting the keys hard out of habit.
- The new arrow key block wasn’t a novelty for me. I’ve had such on my external keyboard for a long time, so no problems arose at all here.
- The absence of all familiar connectors didn’t seem like a problem at all (I thought I didn’t need to connect anything) until I remembered:
- need to connect external drive for initial transfer and subsequent backups
- sometimes need to charge phone from computer
- sometimes (at work) need to connect TV panel
- Had to acquire a small hub and a cable for the phone, without this it would be difficult
- Inserting these USB-C, and especially removing, is somehow… inconsistent. Sometimes everything is easy, sometimes you need to apply force.
- The absence of ESC really strained me for the first few hours. Won’t say I’ve already trained instincts for Caps instead of Esc, but things are clearly moving in this direction and there are fewer and fewer problems. But they exist and I’m not sure I’ll be able to fully adapt to this.
- The absence of Fn keys was first felt on the shortcut for alfred (it’s on CMD-F2 for me), and then hit full force on mc (yes, I use it and love it dearly).
- Softened the problem with the help of the priceless utility BetterTouchTool. Now, if I’m in the terminal, FN “keys” are always shown
- With surprise I discovered that F4 either doesn’t work at all, or works differently. I didn’t go into details, but I’m not the first to be surprised by this.
- The large touchpad caused no problems. Some complained that there’s nowhere to hold hands now, maybe they have bigger hands than mine :) But no special new convenience was added by this size either, and the previous one was sufficiently large and sufficiently convenient for me.
Other observations:
- The touch bar isn’t such a useless thing as it seemed to me. For atom I configured useful buttons for things I do infrequently and haven’t learned shortcuts for. Indeed, this can be used in real life.
- The absence of Fn scared me most of all. However, as it seems to me, this can be survived without particular pain.
- Overall, the machine feels fast, definitely faster than the maxed out 2015 model I had before.
- Not that the previous one made a lot of noise with fans, but this one is absolutely silent even under serious load. At the same time it heats up a bit where the hands rest and noticeably more in the upper part (above the keyboard, under the display)
- For some reason it comes with not the freshest OS version, and you need to update it immediately.
Perhaps I missed something important in this micro-review. If so - let me know in comments, we’ll fix/add
This post was translated from the Russian original with AI assistance and reviewed by a human.