Doubtful. Apple does crazy stuff like custom ACPI for Thunderbolt controllers so they can be very efficient. Or having each of the fins on a fan be at a different angle so they have a different pitch and fan noise is distributed across the sound spectrum (reducing total perceived noise). They were also the first (not sure if the only one) with terraced batteries.
> It's fine. Everything works and looks good. Sometimes you use legacy apps (which is a feature of Windows -- legacy apps still work) that don't handle scaling well, but the OS helps resolve those issues.
It's universally known that display scaling is the forté of macOS, and has been for a long time
> Reviewers, people on this thread, and I have all reported Windows being much snappier than OS X. I actually switched to Windows for performance alone. I hate not having a bash terminal, but it's better than using buggy, slow OS X.
Final Cut Pro works fine (read: smooth) on the anemic Macbook 2016. Try running Premiere on a Netbook and see how that goes. This is the power of macOS/Apple: they only have a handful of devices in each category, so they can hand-optimize every single one of them. So, wrong.
I have to interject here. Apple was the first one to have actually working and non-horrible implementation.
But the way they went about it has big performance cost. They can only render 2x versions. So if you use the physical resolution, the one that is "as big" as 1280x800 on 2560x1600 13" rMBP, they render it in 12802x800x2 and everything is fine.
But if you use scaled resolution, say "as big" as 1400x900 on 13" rMBP, they render it in 14402x9002 and rescale it to 25601600, and this gets laggy on bigger resolutions or on older devices or devices without dedicated GPU.
Meanwhile, other operating systems can do non-2x scaling and have no problem with resolutions like that.
(Personally I don't can what Windows can do - I'm not using that if I can help it. I just wanted to note that there's this issue with how Apple decided to do scaling.)
I have the original 2012 rMBP, which by all accounts has far too wimpy a GPU for retina, and I've been running it in the max scaled resolution (the 1900x1200@2x mode) since the day I bought it.
On first few versions of OS X after it was released, yes, the graphics often got very choppy (especially stuff like Expose), but Apple has really optimized the hell out of those drivers, and by now on Sierra, I never run into any noticeable 2D graphic lag. I'm sure it's terrible for 3D though.
It might be different but my 2013 13" is definitely laggy on max resolution.
Interesting that later hardware was actually laggier. I even keep my machine stuck on the Intel 4000 graphics 99% of the time.
Honestly, it depends on what you're looking at.
In graphics power for example ALL macs suck. Even when you spend 5000$ on a workstation you barely get something that can hold even with top-of-the-line pc hardware.
MBP: 2977 - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+Pro+450...
iMac: 5714 - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+R9+M395...
Mac Pro: 5178 - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=FirePro+W9000&... (in D700 variant)
Mind, the last one is a high-accuracy cad work graphics card, but if you're looking for raw graphics performance for 3d development for example, all of those are easily outperformed by a piece of kit costing 190$:
Any PC: 8508 - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+10...
And thanks to Apple being Apple, upgrading is not an option.
In general I feel that no one (for now) can touch Apple in the laptop market, although half of the reason is macOS working so damn well on MacBooks. But other companies have other markets on lockdown.. Windows is best for the desktop. Linux (or BSD) for servers. Android for phones.
Not trying to take away from the innovation of that idea, but IMO ventilation is one of the few areas where I think Macbooks are strictly worse than the PC laptops I've used. The Macbook I was given for work (13" Pro, 2015) constantly overheats, as there isn't really any vent for the fan to push the air out of. I'm sure it's a conscious design decision not to have a vent (either because it "looks bad" or because blowing out hot air is considered worse than overheating the laptop itself), but I'd personally have trouble counting the way that my Macbook ventilates as a net win in "hardware quality".
That being said, it's still awful ventilation. I tried playing video games on it through Windows and Apple's drivers left the laptop more hot to the touch than I would like. I ended up using a fan curve controller application to fix that.
Yeah, my girlfriend's MacBook would beg to differ, as it stutters on a couple of heavy websites in Safari tabs.
even 4k is workable, although not quite as smooth.
Desktop Safari is also notorious for not being as smooth and fast as other browser because its primarily built for (battery) efficiency, not performance.
It's odd that this is a discussion point. I have a MBP 17' circa 2011 or so. I have both OSes installed. They are both really snappy. I am not quite sure what all the fuss is about.
> I get the slickest hardware, great battery life, the best touchpad and keyboard, and a hi-resolution screen that doesn't have battery life, flicker, tint, or scaling issues.
None of these things are universal among Windows machines. I can't remember which model, but a Verge review recently said that a Windows laptop had surpassed the best Mac (in terms of hardware quality).
> display scaling is a joke
It's fine. Everything works and looks good. Sometimes you use legacy apps (which is a feature of Windows -- legacy apps still work) that don't handle scaling well, but the OS helps resolve those issues.
> Performance is terrible
Reviewers, people on this thread, and I have all reported Windows being much snappier than OS X. I actually switched to Windows for performance alone. I hate not having a bash terminal, but it's better than using buggy, slow OS X.