Compared to a five year old 17"? More like double the power. And unbelievably faster SSD (even if you have an aftermarket SSD on your 17", it will be nowhere near as fast as the ones in current MPBr unless you pay top dollar).

>has a smaller screen

Smaller but hi-dpi, and with far greater color accuracy and brightness. Also, you can hook up an external monitor, apparently lugging 17" beasts around wasn't popular enough to carry the models forward.

>and less I/O functionality

Actually way way more. Less varied ports (basically 2 types: 4 USB-C and 1 headphone), but way way more I/O power and connectivity.

>and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I daisy-chain multiple adapters to get Firewire.

Or just get a USB-C to Firewire adapter of hub. Daisy chain multiple adapters? Huh?

That and all 8 cores (I am counting the HT threads as cores) in the system monitor are fully saturated on both machines until the the linking stage of the build. I have a great deal of confidence the newer CPUs are significantly for at least building C++ code when disk bandwidth is not an issue.

But really I am building C++, all the parsing and re-parsing is stupidly CPU intensive. most 5400 rpm drives can feed the compiler fast enough to keep them saturated.

I doubt this will change anything, (because the compilation time decreased as CPU time was added) but the information could be helpful in other situations.

2860QM: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2860QM...

6700HQ: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-6700HQ...

6920HQ: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-6920HQ...

MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011, i7-2860QM): 3180 / 9593

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2016, i7-6700HQ): 3968 (+24%) / 12189 (+27%)

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2016, i7-6820HQ): 4093 (+29%) / 12883 (+26%)

> I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it.

but didn't mention it in your retort to the rest of that paragraph.

You can't upgrade the new macbooks. I am typing this from a 2015 Macbook Pro Retina, I bought it with the biggest hard drive they offered at the time, and am currently doing development off a thunderbolt hard drive. Do you know how much that sucks?

I would do anything to be able to just open up my computer and pop in more RAM or a bigger SSD, like I used to do with my matte 15" macbook. That macbook lasted me so long, and so many RAM upgrades / network card installations (for Bluetooth 4.0) / etc etc.

I've been using this computer for almost three years, I have have to go through a lot of trouble to do my work on it (I work at a .NET shop), and I'm strongly considering just getting a Windows 10 laptop instead of dealing with this mess. It sucks to have to carry around a hard drive for my SQL back-ups because I can't upgrade the hard drive in my computer.

If you work at a .NET shop, why would you NOT use Windows 10? Seems like you're swimming against the current.

Most of the developers at the company either get a Macbook Pro and use Parallels for Windows (Boot Camp leads to headaches because you can't resize the partitions later on without deleting everything and reformatting, or paying for Paragon NTFS for Mac, which might still crash and lose all your data!), or build their own Windows desktop.

I'd rather continue using a laptop, since sometimes I work from an office sometimes I work from home and sometimes (like right now) I work from random locations while visiting family.

At home I mostly use a Linux desktop, I've been looking at System76 laptops but nothing grabs my eye.

None of the Win10 laptops have grabbed my eye either, it seems that Windows laptops that are performant are either massive gaming "laptops" or severely lacking in some other way (although maybe now that the new Dell XPS has the newest discrete GPUs, maybe).

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Disp...

The newer Macbook Pros you can't upograde the storage, and yeah, that really sucks. I get that most people don't upgrade anyway, but I spend a lot of time showing people how much faster systems can be with a few hundred bucks of upgrades when those same upgrades would have cost them a thousand or more at purchase time.

Now if I want something future-proof I efectively have to max it out even if I don't need those specs now, so I have to pay $3500 instead of $2500 because in five years I'll need that extra oomph and it's technically still cost-effective over the long term even if it's ridiculous now (and in a year or so these laptops will come down in price anyway).

It's still current. I can also rip CDs with it (it is handy children) :)

I've even found a VERY simple way to dual boot Windows 10 on it after trying to get the instructions I found everywhere to work (after Apple made sure it was indeed difficult).

I even play games on it.

To me it was the reference developer laptop and still is.

I would pay as much as $5000 for a 17 inches Retina Matte MBP, the same SSD speed as the TouchBar models, the Pascal chipset, an 8 core i7 and 64GB of RAM and I do not think I am alone in that category.

"It's like an old-fashioned CD."

"What's a CD?"

Even with top dollar you cannot squeeze more than ~550 MB/s out of SATA3, compared to the ostensibly 2+ GB/s in the new MBPrs with NVMe.

Anything is better than the 5200rpm Toshiba drive my MacBook came with, that's for sure!!

i'm surprised Apple even offers mechanical hard drives in their Macs any more. they're soooooooo slow. they make the whole machine feel like a wet sponge.

Apple still gives users the option to buy the slow system drive (i.e. shoot themselves in the foot) rather than forcing them to ante up for (at least a 256GB) flash system drive.

But, given it's Apple we're talking about, I find it really, really weird. Historically, Apple is notorious for denying the user these kinds of choices (e.g. a floppy disk drive, optical drive, user upgradeable RAM ...)

But slow system drives? Apple lets people buy those all day long. I don't get it.

Size on the screen does matter, I'd rather the screen do the work than my eyes.

With a 17 inches I don't need to hook up an external monitor. I am able to work at full proficiency anywhere.

>Actually way way more. Less varied ports (basically 2 types: 4 USB-C and 1 headphone), but way way more I/O power and connectivity.

If you don't mind paying for and carrying around a dozen dongles. Also no ethernet port. And you're forgetting about the ExpressCard slot...

It's a bit pricey at $300, but will also get you a power supply (so you can leave the original in your bag), displayport, gigabit ethernet, S/PDIF, and a bunch of USB-A all over a single cable.

(Yes, sarcasm. That protocol is called Ethernet. And basically every high-speed interface we currently have is a bad reimplementation of it for political reasons.)

However, HDMI (which is primarily four pairs of high speed serial--just like Ethernet) and later Displayport became the "solution" because of all the people pushing HDCP.

Thunderbolt was the "solution" to the fact that USB 3.0 wasn't coming down the pipe fast enough. And that drivers were just too complicated. Why solve the simple problem of loading a driver at boot time when you can just give the peripheral complete control over a system bus? What could possibly go wrong?

USB 3.0 is an "evolution" over 2.0 in the way that a jackalope is an evolution--splicing two completely unrelated things together (USB 2.0 spliced with 4 high speed pairs--just like Ethernet). But you can't charge a licensing fee for Ethernet ...

(And yes, I'm assuming bare ethernet frames, not IP or such)

However, Ethernet IS cheaper than USB 3.0. And Ethernet is significantly less complex. Look at carnage from all the audio interface people trying to come to grips with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. Whereas, people implement gigabit Ethernet interfaces all the time.

And this dovetails with USB 2.0. In terms of complexity, I have found that Ethernet wins. I have started removing USB 2.0 from anything I can and replacing it with Ethernet when possible. USB 2.0 is such a pain to handle in terms of drivers while Ethernet "just works".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Sensitive_Networking

(Yes, sarcasm. Two can play.)

ethernet is a wire protocol upon which a TCP/IP stack runs on top of. if USB looked a lot more like ethernet, it would be far easier to write drivers for devices.

> it would be far easier to write drivers for devices

I can only assume this comes from a place of "I know a bit about ethernet and would like to transfer that knowledge to the embedded space." It certainly doesn't come from a place of "I write drivers for the USB and PCIe stacks and think ethernet would make my job easier."

There's also the matter of what HW/FW likes, which probably has greater bearing on the situation than what SW likes, and I can assure you that they'd be even less enthusiastic about the replacement than I am. Proof: they've got a choice! If they wanted to use ethernet, they could just do it. They don't. For good reason.

And I'm not an outlier case. There are a lot of audio professionals and semi-pros that depend on old Firewire interfaces. These were Apple's market for selling high-end laptops! This is basically just disregard for your oldest and frankly most profitable customers. If I didn't feel like a new MBP would actually be sacrificing functionality, I'd probably have upgraded already. Instead, I'm considering a platform switch. That's bad.

btw, as someone who didn't use firewire, i hated that port. waste of space, could have used an extra usb port instead. and it wasn't like there was a lot of gear that used it, unlike e.g. ethernet or vga which sometimes came in handy (i also loath vga).

USB2 was more competitive, but Firewire stuck around due to its lower latency for audio applications.

And actually you aren't Apple's most profitable customer since you are still clamouring for old technologies. It's early adopters that upgrade every year that are the most valuable to Apple.

If it were up to the luddites and their obsession with compatibility, a laptop would have a dvd drive, firewire, usb-a, usb-c, thunderbolt, hdmi, dvi, vga, sd, microsd,vga, and display port all in one laptop chassis.

Having one single port, that can do all those things and do them just as well, is a far preferable alternative. Couple that with the future transition to wireless-only technology, and we're on our way to the future.

Any recording interface more substantial than a headphone jack is wired. It's going to remain that way for a while. Audio is a quasi-realtime problem with a lot of bandwidth. Neither Bluetooth nor 802.11 are really reliable enough for the task, and won't be for some time to come.

Preserving investment in hardware that works, rather than making a risky expenditure on hardware that may or many not work (and will change process), isn't "Luddite". It's realist. We have the same problem with much more static tech, like ATMs and voting machines. The "one single port" dream you're spouting? I've heard that dream before. It was called "Firewire" back then. Another decade or so, and we'll be digging Lightning connectors out of our junk drawer and saying "Hey, remember this? Do we even need to keep this anymore?"

But this is where I get pragmatic. I know I have compatibility issues, so I'm looking at semi-retiring the MBP just for the heavy lifting and compatibility of audio, and maybe looking at what else can be done about photo editing. And a Chromebook for web browsing and other not-hard-work sounds better and better all the time.

It's all part of change. It's inconvenient(change) when done well, and absolutely show-stopping when done poorly. Apple took a ham-fisted approach to this, and decided you should go through that right now. Not a lot of choice left to people like you(those with significant hardware investments) beyond using refurb gear, or spending a large sum on a brand new set of hardware and accessories(which will go through this same cycle again in the future).

It kind of all stinks, but there isn't a terrible lot us little people can do about it.

They're still putting that crap* in interfaces!

*Note, I say "crap" only because I'm not cool enough to have any ADAT interfaces.

What is that interface? And it's not supported through the USB-C interface?

It's like if we had no common way of measuring things. Imagine having to walk around with like 10 different tape measures because there was no standard. It's stupid. All of these different port interfaces are just like that.

Your view is short-sighted. You're saying "What about me? What about right now?".

Suppose I bite the bullet and switch to Windows? Apple's lost me then. They're not going to win me back. And that's not just the Mac. That's maybe my next phone. My next pad. My next router (oh wait, they're getting out of the wireless router game too).

Losing customers who have been with them for decades, who have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on their products and will stop? That fucking well matters.

As for losing customers, well, then we will look at the sales numbers.

I wasn't "happy" with the new MacBook Pro lineup, but I personally love the direction they're going. The only bad thing is the price increase, but they will drop the price.

But for your "I'm a customer I matter" comment. No you don't. Apple isn't going to let people who want a gigantic laptop with a million different ports get in the way of a wireless or standardized port world. I hate the fact that my work monitors have all these connections. You have all these cords coming out, different port types that do the same thing, and how many times has somebody gone to a meeting only to have to bring some dongle or find out that they have hdmi and the conference room is vga only or something? All of that is stupid. It's 2016. We can do better. I don't want to be tethered to the wall or a some device like a slave.

Wasn't that my original argument?

Out of pure curiosity, when's the last time Apple lowered the price of an existing product?

http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/29/total-nightmare-usb-c-th...

I'm not opposed on principle to a Macbook with a touchbar but I'm not buying, why? Because it has plus or minus the same specs as my current model which also connects to my monitors and everything else I use. Why would I impose that cost and pain on myself? Just to have the latest and greatest for the sake of it? Screw that, I'd rather be a luddite than a lemming.

Wires are great, honestly. Easy to debug and use. The original zero config.

I lived in a house with several roomates for a year or so, and I never ever had a problem with the internet because I used an ethernet cable. My roomates went through 3 wireless routers and a wireless repeater and they were never able to completely solve the myriad of issues that comes with wireless technology on a congested spectrum.

It really boggles my mind that they'd allow themselves to be frustrated, waste many combined hours of their life troubleshooting, and spend hundreds of dollars on network hardware when the solution is SO SIMPLE and dates back to 1970s.

This is what we're moving to. It sucks that people can't see that.

So this wireless dream future? It's just a dream, for those who have more demanding needs than surfing the web.

That way I'd have a chance to actually pick up any USBC devices whatsoever before moving to a laptop that can only connect to USBC without dongles. 'Cuz right now I have zero, and so does my Mac-only office. Even the couple of USBC Android testing phones floating around come with a to-A USB cable, so I'd have to buy a new cable for them.

This time round Apple has replaced every port with a USB-C port, which means I don't need to transition only 1 interface. I need to transition all.

And the most painful part about this move is they are doing it to the product line that in the past was loved because it came with USB + FW400 + FW800 + Video + Magsafe. IOW, a design goal for the Pro line used to be easy compatibility so professionals could end up in any situation and have a great chance of getting their computers to work with their environment without any adapters.

What? That's not even close to true. The iMac replaced all of Apple's then-standard ports with USB. ADB: gone. Serial: gone. SCSI: gone.

More or less back on topic ... I bought a HP Probook for my on-the-road studies/work last cycle because I needed a portable that I could do _work_ with and repairability, matte screen, mouse buttons, VGA, HDMI, and whole lot of other things were much more important to me than width or mass or shiny. It came with Windows and it's well supported.

I would like to get another 17" macbook pro someday (mine is pretty old and 80% retired), and this move and the messaging around it suggests that Apple doesn't care to make one. It's no surprise, but it still stings a bit, and as noted else where it is breathtakingly clumsy for their remaining mac business (as is that press conference).

USB-C was a great idea taken one step too far. USB-C would be perfect if it hadn't been saddled with the requirement to handle 100 Watts of power. That's an overkill requirement for a feature that wasn't demanded by anyone aside from OEMs looking to cut an additional charging port off the bill of materials.

It works well. I just miss a 4rt USB port.

Personally I dont use anything wireless apart from WiFi, and even then only on my laptop

(Well traces anyway, but you know what I mean.)

Wireless technology needs to get a whole lot more reliable to get its foot in my door.

To be honest, I really found myself using the keyboard and touchpad the most on the Surface and when you think about it, the MacBook Pro has the best touch pad. I think Apple needs to do some minor things to get the MacBook Pro back on track:

- Fix the battery issue. They really need to fix that from a hardware perspective. Also, the OS needs to be optimized to preserve battery. The burden can't be fully on hardware.

- Put magsafe back or some sort of USB-C magsafe solution.

- Bump the specs. The whole point of the Pro is it is leap years ahead of everyone on processor, HD, and RAM.

- The keyboard is getting better, but I still think it needs more travel time.

- The screen could be further to the edges a bit for a more modern look.

- The ports. Look, I get it, you want to embrace the future but then please include free cables to help in the transition. A power extension cable was not even included in this MacBook pro release, that is just sad.

And seriously, if web browsing is your main use-case, a MBP is overkill.

I don't understand why someone using a laptop would want to scroll by lifting their arm up to the screen, rather than just moving two fingers on the touchpad where their hand is already resting.

Not to mention, having the option to use both certainly doesn't harm anyone.

Isn't that uncomfortable?

Merely taking my hands off the keyboard is enough for them to move out and away, since I have to "swing" them in to use the keyboard to begin with. This leaves them inches from the screen in the best case, and nowhere near the computer in the worse case.

Hmm… if you did that on a new MacBook Pro, wouldn't drifting up the side leave your thumbs somewhere near the Touch Bar? Maybe Apple should add support for scrolling on its edges. Of course, that'd still be a much smaller target than the screen... on the other hand, it would work regardless of window positioning and even with an external monitor.

I'm only speculating, since I don't think I've gotten into that habit myself (not having a touchscreen).

My hands tend to rest on the mouse or table when reading. It's actually quicker and less conscious to 'flick' the screen when reading than to break focus to find a trackpad and scroll that way.

Shrug, not my experience.

> Secondly, I found the touch screen very gimmicky. I tried using it for a week and found that my hand just hurt lifting it up repeatedly and also hated switching context from the keyboard to the screen.

Don't force the touchscreen. Just use it when it makes sense. I've found it's a very natural way to press buttons (because you can just... press the button), particularly when I'm using the keyboard (e.g. filling in a multi-page form, or writing generally) - must nicer than pushing a pointer around to the right place. And it's nice when dragging and dropping, and there are a few games that play nicely that way. And being able to draw/write on it is very nice occasionally. But sure, most of the time I don't use the touchscreen. But even if you ignore the touch aspect, it's a beautiful screen. I've also fallen in love with 3:2 - it seems to strike the right balance between vertical space for development and rectangular enough for watching movies on. At least for me.

> Not to mention, the screen was full of smudge marks after awhile.

That seems like something that shouldn't be happening, assuming your hands were clean? It doesn't happen on mine.

This is like saying "Don't force the new touch bar on macbook pro. Just use it when it makes sense.". A lot of people are pissed about how useless the touch bar is. You can make the same argument about this but the thing is, they could have done better. There's nothing wrong with people criticizing something that's bad. Sure you can just "NOT use it". But these are features designed to be used, and when it doesn't make sense in many cases, it probably means it's badly thought out.

>That seems like something that shouldn't be happening, assuming your hands were clean? It doesn't happen on mine.

Good for you for having the most sanitary hand in the world. For the rest of actual human beings, everyone knows that touching any glass surface leaves smudge, not just computers. I'm fine with logical arguments but please don't deny what everyone knows as fact, because that doesn't fly, and brings credibility of the rest of your arguments down to zero.

I own an SP3 and the touchscreen is a blessing. Ironically, even more so because the touchpad on the sp3 is crap, but either way, I seem to know my fingers more than mouse pointers on the screen and prefer to touch the screen as often as possible.

It's not for everyone, but for me, I can dual boot Linux on it, write code, still keep MagSafe charging, have a USB port, AND disconnect the keyboard at the end of the way to watch a movie on a kickstand tablet, AND throw it in my bag and forget it's there, for much less money than a macbook. I love the thing to death.

Also, the screen can be cleaned with a cloth or the bottom of your shirt, like most of us do with our phones. That might be annoying but doesn't sound like a deal breaker.

The touch capability is interesting in that I've found that I've begun using it along with the pen more and more over time. The pen has really grown on me as I've discovered more ways to put it to use. For the first year that I owned my SP3 I rarely used the pen, but now I use it almost every day. Being able to switch from full on tablet and pen back to keyboard and mouse mode is pretty killer and I plan to continue using this form factor for the foreseeable future.

it takes away "thinness". I wanted a thinner screen and when the computer MUST have a touchscreen, then I lose the thinnness.

I think people are more annoyed about losing the physical function keys. Honestly the touchscreen is niche functionality unless you're an artist or something, and if it were a choice between a brighter/sharper/clearer non-touch screen and a touchscreen I would absolutely go for the former. But like I said, the surface book screen is really good even if you ignore the touch aspect - at which point the touch really does just become an enhancement, and the little enhancements add up.

> For the rest of actual human beings, everyone knows that touching any glass surface leaves smudge, not just computers.

Indeed, which is why I was very surprised when it didn't happen (it did on previous laptops I've used). But it doesn't seem to. I figured the anti-grease coatings or whatever they use must've got a lot better. (Modern phones are the same - whatever it is that makes the screens smudge they seem to have found some way to deal with it. So it's not like this is magical technology).

I hate to say it, but this post definitely has the ring of fanboyism.

The build quality of the Surface is "nowhere near a MacBook Pro" ... without specifying anything that's actually worse.

The point of the MBP is "always to be leap years ahead" on specs, but in reality, they never really are; they're usually comparable to other high-end laptops, although they are normally the priciest by about $1k and among the least repairable/extensible.

Speaking of gimmicks, you've apparently seriously suggested that Apple just need to make even thinner edges.

Maybe I'm just a tasteless philistine like all the other non-Mac users, but personally I think you may've had a bit too much kool-aid.

I used a 2007 MBP as my main computer for a while (and it was my only laptop for years), and I've also used a work-issued 2013 MBP for extended periods of time. There are certainly nice things about Macs (I ended up loving the Retina display much more than I expected to), but they're not the end-all be-all.

The build quality on MacBooks is well-known in the industry and, if you go to a Microsoft Store (or own one), it's readily visible that the build quality isn't on par. Don't get me wrong, it's really good, but it's not MacBook good. This isn't the greatest example because I don't own one, but look at this shot (https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-QM003_MSFTst_P...) and compare even the fit and finish of the cutouts.

As for the specs, I don't know where you got that the point of the MBP is to be leap years ahead on specs and I'm pretty sure this is a straw man that you set up just to argue against it. Apple has never been about pushing specs but only the overall experience of using their machines. In fact, in a lot of benchmarks, Apple devices outperform similarly (or even better) spec'd PCs simply because of Apple's ecosystem advantage.

You're right that they're not the end-all be-all, but you should probably make sure you're being objective yourself before suggesting that someone else has had too much kool-aid.

Do you have any evidence regarding the fit and finish of the Surface Pro (which was what the original question was about) wrt Macbook Pros?

Again, not saying you're wrong, just the picture you linked doesn't say that.

Edit: changed Surface Book to Surface Pro

It may not even be a fair comparison since the Surface has to accommodate the screen going in either direction and the design plays a big part in the visual appeal for the Macbooks, but it just doesn't look as polished to me. Again, I think the only way to really see and feel the difference is to go to a Microsoft Store and check it out for yourself. If you're lucky enough to have an Apple Store and a Microsoft Store near each other, it'll be even more obvious, in my opinion.

I happen to live in the Bay Area, and there's a mall here where there are an Apple Store and a MS store literally opposite each other. I've fondled both laptops (MBP, Surface Book -- never was a big fan of the Surface Pro) and my impressions about the hardware were as follows:

1) The new MBP is really just that, the new MBP. The touch strip novelty factor wore off for me very quickly. The build quality is nice (to be expected of MBPs, surely) although I did feel like sometimes the screen didn't want to close all the way in. I think the fact that it only has USB-C ports is going to bug me, a lot.

2) I didn't really know what to expect for the Surface Book. I was pleasantly surprised by the hinge -- it's very solid. Weight distribution is a concern; the laptop is definitely top heavy due to its motherboard placement behind the screen. The screen latch is cool but I have concerns about longevity, although it felt /really/ solid. I tried to separate the screen without unlatching it and there was no give.

To my untrained eyes, I'd say the new MBP and the Surface Book are about on par, build quality wise. Admittedly I didn't take a good look at the port cutouts on the Surface Book to see if they line up.

WRT Surface Pro, I just don't feel like I'm the target audience. I type very quickly and very loudly, and I would probably break the type cover in short order. The touch pad is too small for me. For these reasons I never gave it a fair shake, so I don't have much to say about its build quality.

The post I replied to says:

"- Bump the specs. The whole point of the Pro is it is leap years ahead of everyone on processor, HD, and RAM."

I agree, but on the other hand, I'm yet to find something that requires the use of the touchscreen. So I don't use it. Unless I'm carrying it around like a tablet, in which case it's a great feature to have.

I'd have happily paid less for the same resolution but longer battery life (low power for driving the touch sensor and more for driving the display to a greater brightness to support the same display brightness).

I figure I should have put up with a lower resolution display tbh, which is sad.

What I really wanted was a non-touch FHD Developer Edition with Rose Gold, but c'est la vie. It's been one of my favorite laptops.

It's a, very natural, quarter inch movement of your thumb while your arm rests comfortably on the table. Not unlike having your hand on your coffee mug.

Conversely, scrolling up and down this text box using the trackpad is tiny, cramped, constrained motions of my finger on the touchpad.

If you never do prolonged reading on your devices, then yes, it's not a scenario for you specifically. But many people find it quite useful.

This is true if you are the only one using it. If people are standing around you or over your shoulder, and you are all interacting with the screen - then a touchable screen is more quickly usable than shuffling who-has-the-keyboard-mouse. Not saying you are wrong, but there are scenarios where a touch screen is the "best" of the available IO options.

Seriously though, I'd probably prefer a touchscreen and normal keyboard to the touch bar -- at least I'm already looking at the screen.

Now I'm used to it though and really appreciate the extra size. Granted, I use BetterTouchTool a lot with lots of custom gestures.

I don't think there is any hardware/software issues for the poor battery performance in latest MacBook Pro. The TouchBar uses AppleWatch CPU under the hood, and anything with a screen will suck up battery rather badly. They might be able to squeeze some more juice by software update. Its likely noticeable improvement will come with the refresh next year. The one thing Apple needs to do is the price. Many are pissed that they pay so much premium but get worst battery performance than last year model.

They actually have been doing this for the past few years—for instance, when you ask the OS for a timer, the timer you get will be ±10% of what you requested so that a bunch of timers can go off all at once. This way the CPU can sleep, wake up, take care of all of them, and then go back to sleep. (You can say 'no really it needs to be exactly this time', but most of the time you don't need that). Other things as well, but that's the one that's stuck in my brain.

The OS has done quite well to optimise battery I thought - App Nap has been great. If I reboot my MBP into Windows (so same hardware, different OS), I get worse battery life.

Agree with the ports - the Surface Pro I use at work has 1 USB port so plug in a wired mouse and you can't plug in your USB key. Despite the love of wifi, ports are a great way to keep your device useful.

I have the new MBP 13" (love it), but the one thing that annoys me slightly is the smudges on the edge of the screen from opening it, or adjusting the screen angle.

It's impossible not to get marks on the screen. As it is, they're in the thin bezel area and not on the actual screen. I'm not sure I'd want the screen to go all the way to the edge...

I wish Apple would use the same keys that they use on the new Magic Keyboard. Definitely less travel than outgoing MacBook Pros but still clicky and usable.

This! I can't even get to the other complaints myself because this one triggers my OCD almost immediately into the experience.

Examples:

Dual Xeon E5-2690 + 64GB RAM + 1TB HDD = $1250

http://www.ebay.com/itm/391654102568

Dual Xeon X5670 + 128GB RAM + 2TB HDD = $1600

http://www.ebay.com/itm/361745717969

Dual Xeon E5-2670 + 128GB RAM + 8TB HDD = $1900

http://www.ebay.com/itm/172218395641

I really like building my own systems, so buying one prebuilt would be strange, but that's some serious hardware for pretty nice prices.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7773/intels-three-versions-of-...

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GsX88K

The other advantages of your setup are power efficiency and NVMe.

Oh, and btw, you will save yourself a ton of money if you just bid on the components on eBay. Take, for instance the CPU. You're going to pay $325 for it. Now check how much they auction for:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_sop=15&LH...

As always, depends on usage.

1) If you're processing huge files, you need a very fast internet, which very few people have.

2) Lots of software doesn't exist in the cloud version.

3) It's actually quite expensive to rent something with such specs.

It's amazing how much of a good quality machine with great battery life you get today for $299, especially compared to what you used to get with a netbook just a few years ago - my son was using my old laptop and installing things left and right on it including adware some times and I let him go crazy because I don't want him growing up just knowing about the web and the browser. I still let him use that as a tinkering machine after a bit of security 101 but I got him a Acer 14" Chromebook recently and I was seriously blown away how good it felt, how decent the screen was and just how long it lasts!

This makes quickly using another computer so easy.

ChomeOS is also noticeably faster than the same hardware with MacOS or Windows.

I primarily run https://galliumos.org, but keep ChromeOS around for casual use. I'd highly recommend GalliumOS to people interested in putting linux on it: it makes things like the custom keyboard layout work out of the box.

The other is to replace ChromeOS with Linux. No different from buying a Windows laptop and replacing Windows with Linux.

To be fair, with the new Macs you still get to daisy chain adapters...

Here's the thing, nobody can take away how great the Macs we have now were when they came out. The fact that it was so well built and so powerful that you're still using it after 5 years speaks exactly to what we loved about them.

But the new MBPs aren't the same. They're just as expensive as they always were, but they don't have forward-looking specs. Unlike the old ones, we don't see the new ones being machines we can keep around for the next 5 years.

I've got a 2013 MBP and it's got virtually identical specs as the new 2016s. (Used similarly upgraded from base units both times -- with Apple care this cost ~$3,300 then and would cost ~$3,300 now.)

--- 2013 MBP

16 GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB memory

2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

512 GB SSD

Apple Build Quality

vs

--- 2016 MBP ($2,800)

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MLH42L...

16 GB RAM

Radeon Pro 455 with 2GB memory

2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

512 GB SSD

Apple Build Quality

vs

--- 2016 Razer Blade ($2,200)

http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade-gtx970m

16 GB RAM

NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 970M with 6GB memory

2.6GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

512 GB SSD

Razer Build Quality

If you can wait until February, AMD Zen is coming out, so no matter which camp (amd/intel) you are in, all prices should go down for the given level of performance.

16 GB System Memory (DDR4, 2133 MHz)

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5 VRAM)

Intel® Core i7-6700HQ Quad-Core Processor (2.6GHz / 3.5GHz)

256GB (PCIe M.2) options for 512/1024

14.0-in. IGZO QHD+, 3200x1800, capacitive multi-touch

http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade#QHD+%20-%20256GB

What you linked to isn't 2016 Blade.

16:9 is kinda crappy, but 3200x1800 is resolution that works nicely at @2x. Seems better than both the MBP (too low for @2x) and 4K (too high for @2x, too low for @3x).

What's the battery and noise/heat level like on those?

If you have to ask this question, a gaming laptop is not for you.

I am very unsatisfied with my replacement options.

its a scam

The sad reality is there doesnt exist a reliable source of _real_ new replacement GPU chips. Almost every single chip from china is either a pull from dead laptop or old stock(1). Chinese counterfeit markings, clean them up and sell as new.

The absolute best case scenario is you get really new old stock and it will survive at least 2 years, but in reality it will most probably be a pull from recycled trash with week-month lifespan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OogV7pbqEGQ

1- Nvidia chips were ALL factory defective (bad underfill between die and bga carrier), every single GPU at least up to FERMI has a limited life span dependent on thermal stress. Nvidia had to issue huge recall and restart manufacturing of ancient chips with fixed underfill formula - they only did a limited run for select partners (Dell, Apple) and those chips are pretty much _gone_ from the market.

Laptop was okay, though. Much rather have something that doesn't need that.

The lack of a new 17" is blocking my upgrade entirely and has me shopping for Linux laptops at the point that it finally dies. I use my laptop as a second screen when I work and a screen smaller than 17 makes it less functional in terms of readability from a distance.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13344566/razer-blade-pro-...

http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro

4K, 32 GB DDR4, dual PCIe SSDs, i7-6700HQ, GTX 1080 (a real desktop one apparently), SDXC reader, Thunderbolt 3, plus a full compliment of legacy ports.

Doesn't come cheap at $3,699, but you can save $10 if you sign up for their newsletter ;)

I will patiently await Linux reviews of it...but that looks awesome.

Regardless of the justifications Apple may have to continue on their current path, it personally (and very subjectively) makes me sad. They used to be a tent pole in my digital life, but now I feel we've lost touch with each other...

[1]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-s...

Turns out moving to the cloud for developer work and not playing videogames on my laptop really cuts down on my computer needs. (Also, saving that much money justifies more cell data to tether with, so it's actually more convenient at times.)

YMMV though, because I worked in ML, and so had to make the cloud move because no laptop was going to be a 4GPU, 32core machine, much less a cluster of them. Once that's your workflow anyway, the switch in hardware is pretty seamless.

It's not fabulous, and most of the criticisms are correct, but it was $500-600 when I was looking to buy, and has done reasonably well.

Mostly, it was just a choice to save $1-2k on a laptop (every 1-2 years) and spend the money on cellphone data and lattes.

The build quality of the Surface have gotten better with each iteration but they are still far below the Macbooks. I have had 3 of them, and I have a lot of friends that use the Surface due to work. I believe one guy is on his 4 Surface 3 now, due to repeated quality problems in hardware.

I am on my 2 Surface 3 now.

The list of hardware issues for Surface 2 and Surface 3 is long and painful.

I dont have insight into 4 yet, but I am told it is better.

If you want to replace it, maybe you should get a MS Surface Pro, and let us know how that works out for you.

BTW did Apple hold a press conference? I thought it was just an internal memo type thing for the employees, no?

This is tricky, the vagrant part. Virtualization extensions aren't compiled for the chromeos kernel. You can do it, but it requires downloading the chromeos kernel source, configuring the modules to be compiled, recompiling and booting with that. This means substantially more work if you want to upgrade the software, since each upgrade means you have to repeat the kernel compilation step.

The development side of it is simpler though - you can load whatever you want on it once you put it into development mode.

tldr; it's possible, but not without some time and effort, and it may not be worth your time. When I need to vagrant on a chromebook, it starts and ends with SSH'ing to a linux machine that can run vagrant.

I've bought Acer R11 to myself, and gave my MBPr to my wife. Of course it is a huge downgrade, but my idea is to relax from writing code in the evenings for a few months, and then later install some linux on it.

It is very portable, and tablet mode is nice, but performance in web apps is pretty bad (so I even use MBP to use for stuff like AirBnB) – they work, but with quite frustrating experience. I am fine with it, but if someone will decide to go with it, be careful that it is really slow machine.

I still think though that for linux that would be more than enough.

I picked up a Chromebook so I'd have a smaller (11") device to work on. I did a bunch of research and ended up with an Acer C720-3404 (a specific model that has 4GB of RAM, when most only have 2GB, and has a legit Core i3 CPU instead of a Celeron, so it actually had great horsepower. And I managed to find one with an upgraded 128GB SSD for $150 on craigslist. I spent a bunch of time messing around with it and ended up with an EFI boot system, Clover bootloader, and a triple boot setup with Windows 10, Ubuntu 16.10 & Mac OS X El Capitan. Sounds great, but it has its downsides. Win10 has to run in some test mode so the custom drivers will work, OSX wifi is flakey and stops working periodically, Linux would randomly crash and I was never able to get the trackpad setup juuuuuuust right so I can use the smaller keyboard without my palms causing issues. I was able to get some work done with it, but eventually it turned into me spending more time maintaining the system than being productive.

So I'm selling the Chromebook and I bought a 2013 MacBook Air to replace it. I spent probably 4x as much on the Air, but it just works, I can triple boot it the same way if I want, and it has a Core i7 and 8GB of RAM, and the battery life is like 10+ hours. That and the overall quality is just better.

The Chromebook was fun to mess around with, but I'm more productive with a Mac.

Even going up to the 13" form-factor that appears to be all the rage these days, it's tough when I hold one up next to one of the 27" monitors attached to my desktop, and notice that it is only one quarter of the screen area. And I've got four of those arranged 2x2 at my desk.

I love that I can open this one up and upgrade the hell out of it. It's got a better SSD than Apple ever sold for it, and more memory than Apple claims is possible. I doubt a processor upgrade is possible, but if it was, I'd be in the market for one.

ThunderBolt 3 is certainly not less IO functionality. It provides the highest performing / most versatile IO that's ever been available in a laptop before. I get your point that it's not exactly the physical connector you need but that's a small price to pay for what is pretty close to desktop level expansion on a laptop.

> maybe I'll just start paying for a cloud-based dev environment

That's really the best option for developers in most cases. I can't imagine ever going back to being limited by the resources of any individual computer (much less a laptop) when cloud resources are so inexpensive and offer so many other advantages.

I'd have long ago just settled on a linux laptop if I wasn't dependent on the media apps on the mac(Logic Pro & FCPX).

I might look at Windows a little more seriously depending on how Bash for Windows development comes a long. Currently it is not feasible to develop in my stack on Windows though without a VM.

It might be usable for some stuff, but if you don't devmode it (mine's a school computer, so I can't), it's really insufficient for a wide variety of tasks. It does (credit to Google) have a very good SSH client, and (credit to the mosh team) have a very good Mosh client, so if you've got a fast network and you're an emacs/vi/vim user, it's okay for dev work, but it's not ideal.

And it's rubbish for games.

Yeah, no kidding. I have a $160 Toshiba Chromebook that is great for most tasks.

Apple's risk in dropping the Premiere/FCP crowd is that the mass audience they are seeking will discover how good Chromebooks are, and the price tradeoff, and use them with Google cloud services for pretty much everything.

Chromebooks are probably more secure than Macs.

What make/model is that Chromebook, out of interest?

The CPUs and GPUs from 5 years ago were good but the current generation of intel cpus are much faster and the video cards are in an entirely different realm.

Source: owned 2011 MacBook Pro that was decked out, own current MacBook Pro

Wouldn't Apple have to do that first so that someone can then tell them?

I'm running Arch on a Chromebook (an Acer one).

You could ssh into another computer.

I've never understood the obsession with having a ton of internal storage in your laptop. I'd rather buy external storage since it allows me to upgrade my laptop independent of my data and makes migrations easier. It also saves money given how much cheaper external storage is and becomes over the life of the laptop.

To wit:

"It would cost $150,000 to replace my Porsche!" You don't argue that one can buy a Nissan Leaf to replace it for $9k.

What else could I run Logic on btw?

The replacement for that I am looking at costs $3500-$4200.

I'm in the middle of producing a 17 song concept album. If I switch platforms, I have to completely redo all my mixes and learn a whole lot of new tooling. What's the cost of that? Dozens of hours of my time...

You responded to a different point.

Which is irrelevant. I don't a "gamer system". I want thin, light, excellent construction, and good battery life, great trackpad, and a good enough CPU/GPU to achieve all that.

Comparable Mac and PC systems for that cost $2000 and way up...