New MBP 13"

manic111

manic111

manic111

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The new 13" MBP has been announced and is (to me) a bit underwhelming in view of rumours of things like a 14" screen, and also because the lower end machines have stuck with 8th gen Intel processors which are pretty outdated. I don't need to spend £1,800 on a laptop and, if I were to do so, I'd spend the extra 10% or so and get a refurbished 16" MBP. But I'm not in a position to wait another year, my 2011 MBP is really on its last legs.

Is anyone in a similar position? Do we think there's likely to be another addition to the Macbook lineup, and that they'll sit a 14" alongside the new 13"? That would be surprising to me. I'm inclined to look at Windows machines (the XPS series is obviously nice, and the new Asus Zephyrus G14 range looks lovely), but the OS winds me up incessantly.

Edit: Or do I go rogue, try to find a cheap 2018 iPad Pro and get that and a Magic Keyboard, and go from there...
 
Yeah I'm tempted to go the iPad route as well, if I can do that cheaply then I can buy a desktop to play the few games I'd run on a laptop
 
WJA96 said:
The main benefit for me (Apart from the fact they’re just gorgeous) is how Apple computers retain their value over time. I will happily pay £350 more for the MacBook Pro over the XPS (and take the AppleCare) because in 3 years I can sell it for more than the difference in the price over the equivalent Dell. A 3-year-old Dell is generally not regarded very well as a used purchase, even if it has been looked after. A used MacBook Pro is still seen as a good investment. And the constant evolution of MacOS just supports that premise.
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I agree, but I think they're both overpriced for what they are. Or rather (and perhaps more fairly) their lower end offerings have unnecessary compromises making them untenable. If Dell offered a lower end machine with 16gb RAM, or Apple with a gen 10 chip, I'd take it, but they don't and there's no good reason for that save for driving people up to their more expensive machines which are largely overkill for my needs
 
silvagti said:
Looks like the review embargo has lifted for the 13" Macbook Pro :-

https://www.macworld.com/article/35...book-pro-delivers-a-big-graphics-upgrade.html

https://www.engadget.com/apple-macbook-pro-review-13-inch-2020-123043115.html

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/7/2...-keyboard-performance-video-premiere-affinity

https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/05/07/13-inch-macbook-pro-2020-review/

On first impressions I can see why Apple still offer the 8th generation CPU's on the entry level MBP's as there isn't that clear a jump with the 10th generation models. Maybe only around 25% which is quite disappointing really. It's not actually any quicker than the new Air on single threaded apps and only around 30% better on multi-core stuff. Makes you wonder just how much closer these benchmarks would have been had Apple fitted better cooling to the Macbook Air as it's performance is clearly constrained by the thermals.

On paper the new 13" Macbook Pro appears to be far closer to the Macbook Air 13" in terms of performance than it is to the Macbook Pro 16" model..........

Edit: Just watched the latest MKBHD video and that seems to be the main takeaway in that as he puts it the 13" Macbook is the awkward middle child sandwiched between the 13" Air and 16" Pro. If you care about performance in a laptop it probably makes more sense to go for the 16" model and if you don't the 13" Air would likely do everything you need.

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Yeah that's pretty much where I'm sitting atm, in all likelihood I'll plump for the i5 Air
 
MacRS4 said:
Here you go.

I now want this instead of my XPS. Dammit.
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Thanks! Haha I think that's what my choice has boiled down to, unless the new Zephyrus G14 actually releases soon and reviews really well, in which case I'll probably save myself £500 and go with that.

My biggest concern on the MBP is that it lacks WiFi 6, and I tend to keep my laptops for 5 years plus...
 
MacRS4 said:
It's weird how they must have turned that off isn't it? With the 10th gen I mean?
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Yeah very, that (and the price tag, but I'm learning to deal with that!) are the last things putting me off. I'm half considering getting the £1299 model, keeping it for 2-3 years and then upgrading again
 
silvagti said:
The G14 did look very tempting but it's not quite on par in a lot of areas which I considered pretty important even if you're happy to switch between MacOS/Windows. The screen isn't as good, the trackpad won't be on a par with Apple's, slightly larger/heavier, slightly slower single core performance, no thunderbolt support, poorer battery life and it lacks a webcam completely which is annoying given how dependent everyone is on video calls just now!

However, if you're doing a lot of video editing, rendering, multi-core workloads, gaming or GPU accelerated tasks then with it having twice as many CPU cores and an RTX 2060 on board it's going to be orders of magnitude quicker than the MBP13 for those tasks. I can see why it would appeal to a lot of folk!

I considered the Dell XPS but, whilst the specs look good (OLED display, WiFI6, cheaper SSD/RAM upgrades) and are better than the Mac for the money, I've had issues in the past with Dell hardware failing after 4-5 years of ownership so it's put me off the brand honestly.
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I completely agree with all of those points, but then the £1200 Zephyrus is as much power as I need, so it's a question of whether £600 is worth those things. The biggest pain for me will be Windows and the trackpad, which have always been the reasons I keep coming back to Macs. I think I'm going to wait until the Zephyrus is in the wild and see what people say before taking the plunge either way.

Realistically, the £1299 MBP probably ticks the most boxes for me but it just sticks in the throat spending that much on a laptop with an outdated processor, plus I'd probably want to upgrade the storage.
 
Think I've made the decision to get the base model for now. I don't need the extra performance of the 10th Gen, much as it would be nice to have. The most taxing thing I generally do is some editing of holiday pictures and a bit of Civ 6, and that doesn't require an £1800 laptop. I also won't begrudge having to sell it on and take a bit of a loss if Apple release a 14 inch model in a year or two.

Debating whether to upgrade the RAM for £100, but I think even that's unnecessary, particularly as I'd then have to buy direct from Apple, whereas if I buy the £1299 model from John Lewis I get a 2 year warranty. I've managed for this long on a 2011 machine with 4gb RAM so it'll still be a huge upgrade!

Boring option, but hey, it saves me £500!
 
mjt said:
For £100 upgrade the RAM. Seriously.
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I'm considering it, but I'd argue it's not £100, it's £100 plus the loss of an extra year's warranty (or £100 plus the cost of Applecare). At that point I'm better off getting the £1800 machine from John Lewis with a 2 year warranty

Edit: And the £1800 one is still so tempting!
 
Vita said:
I’m torn between the MacBook Air 2020 with an i3/i5/i7.

The base MBP 2020 with last years 8 gen.

Or a 2019 MBP 13 with a 2.4ghz processor.

My alternative would be the older 6 core dell XPS 13 from I think it’s 2018.

I plan to keep the machine 5 years at least and I’m by no means a heavy user. Just need something to do generals tasks, learn coding and light photoshop work.
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I've had this debate with myself and came to decide on this year's base MBP. I can't really see a real world benefit to getting the MBA over it, unless you get the i3 and save a few hundred £. In practice, the MBP sounds like it performs as well as the MBA for most tasks - the MBA may be marginally snappier for really straightforward stuff, but the MBP isn't going to struggle with that, and for anything more intensive such as Photoshop I'd much rather have the MBP's cooling than having the MBA's fans spinning up.

I can't see any benefit in getting last year's MBP over this year's base model (except, again, saving a bit of cash).
 
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