We’re well into an effort by Apple to win over pro Mac users who have been dissatisfied with recent design and technology choices. But even as many of those users have expressed frustration, MacBook Pro sales have been relatively strong. Part of that disconnect comes down to parsing what Apple means when it adds the “Pro” label to a piece of hardware. Naturally, the term means different things to different people depending on what exactly they’re professionals at doing. Then there’s the fact that the MacBook Pro has lived a double life not just as a pro workstation but as the high-end consumer Mac. Lots of people buy MacBook Pros who aren’t professionals—at least, not professionals at doing the sorts of things they might actually need a $3,000 computer for. These users buy it because it’s simply the best-performing Mac laptop. So what kinds of professionals are the newly revised MacBook Pros for? Is it a worthwhile investment for consumers? We recently spent a week with the top spec of the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro to find out. Specifications Let’s start with the 13-inch model's specs. The entry-level specification is priced at $1,299 (though the one with the Touch Bar starts at $1,799). The screen is unchanged compared to the previous one. It’s a 13.3-inch LED-backlit IPS display with a resolution of 2,560×1,600 pixels—that’s 227 pixels per inch. It maxes out at 500 nits of brightness and supports P3 Wide Color and Apple’s True Tone feature. Specs at a glance: 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro Screen 2880×1800 at 15.4-inches and 500 nits OS macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 CPU 2.9GHz 6-core Intel Core i9 (4.8GHz Turbo) with 12MB shared L3 cache RAM 32GB 2400MHz DDR4 GPU Radeon Pro 560X 4GB GDDR5 HDD 4TB SSD Networking 802.11ac Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n; Bluetooth 5.0 Ports 4x Thunderbolt 3, 3.5mm headphone Size 0.61-inch×13.75-inch×9.48-inch (1.55cm×34.93cm×24.07cm) Weight 4.02lbs (1.83kg) Warranty 1 year, or 3 years with AppleCare+ ($379) Price as reviewed $6,699 Other perks 720p FaceTime HD camera, stereo speakers, three microphones Apple MacBook Pro (2018) Buy Now (Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs .) There are two CPU options in the 13-inch model: a 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 quad-core processor and a 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 for an additional $300. RAM is LPDDR3 (so the same as last year) at 2133MHz. The base spec is 8GB, but it can be upgraded to 16GB for $200. Solid-state storage starts at 256GB, with more expensive 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB options. Those chipsets bring Intel Iris Plus 650 graphics—this time with 128MB of eDRAM, twice as much as before. For reference, last year’s models only had two cores and less maximum storage. For connectivity, you get four Thunderbolt 3 ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack. And then there’s the 15-inch, which we’re reviewing today. It starts at $2,399. Once again, the display is the same: a 15.4-inch, 500-nit LED-backlit IPS display with a 2,880×1,800 resolution at 220ppi, with P3 Wide Color and True Tone support. There are three Intel CPU options, all Coffee Lake/8th generation: a 2.2GHz Core i7 processor with six cores and with Intel’s Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz; a 2.6GHz Core i7 with 4.3GHz Turbo Boost, and a 2.9GHz Core i9—also with six cores, and with Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz. The base spec has 16GB of 2400MHz DDR4 memory—that’s compared to LPDDR3 last year, and there is now an upgrade option to 32GB for $400. The base GPU is a Radeon Pro 555X with 4GB of GDDR5, and you can upgrade to the 560X with the same amount of memory for an additional $100. All 15-inch models additionally have Intel's integrated UHD Graphics 630. Things get really wild price-wise when we factor in the SSD. The options start at 256GB, but you can upgrade to 512GB (for an additional $200 over the base spec), 1TB ($600), 2TB ($1,400), or for the first time, 4TB ($3,400). For connectivity, we’re again looking at four Thunderbolt 3 ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Advertisement Some notes on configurations and pricing Our review unit is a maxed-out 15-inch model with the 6-core Intel Core i9 CPU (8950HK). It also means 32GB of 2400Mhz DDR4 memory, a Radeon Pro 560X discrete GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 memory, and a whopping 4TB of flash storage. To buy a MacBook Pro with the same specs from Apple’s store, you’d have to spend $6,699. That’s obviously outrageous territory for most consumers (though not necessarily for all pros) but note that the storage upgrade accounts for about half of that price. Dropping the SSD to a more modest 512GB lowers the price to a still pricey but more normal $3,500. Apart from attaching Thunderbolt peripherals like external SSDs and eGPUs, there is no realistic upgrade path for any component in this computer. So make sure you get what you need in the initial configuration if you buy. Options sans Touch Bar We’re reviewing the Touch Bar-equipped models today, but last year Apple offered Touch Bar-free versions of both the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros—although they were basically just older hardware. This time, Apple offers the same Touch Bar-free option for the 13-inch with lower specs, starting at $1,299. It doesn’t support True Tone, it has a slower CPU, and it offers a 128GB SSD option. It also features slower Intel Iris Plus graphics—the 640 rather than the 655—and only has two Thunderbolt 3 ports to the Touch Bar model’s four. It lacks Bluetooth 5.0 support (it’s Bluetooth 4.2 instead), has two microphones instead of three, and has a slightly lower-watt battery (54.5 instead of 58). The dimensions are the same. If you’re buying a 15-inch MacBook Pro, though, you’re buying a Touch Bar model. The Touch Bar-free, chiclet-keyboard equipped older 15-inch model is no longer available. But do you actually need to spring for those additions? I live in Los Angeles, and many of my friends work in Hollywood in exactly the sorts of creative roles Apple had in mind with this machine. So I reached out to a couple of video editor friends asking if they would spring $3,200 to get 4TB of internal storage. I got different answers; unsurprisingly, needs and priorities vary even within one profession. To be fair, though, they worked in different types of roles. The first works at a major broadcast network producing and editing on-air promos, and the second is a freelance story producer and editor for documentary films and reality series on Netflix and cable networks. The first told me that, while filmed footage takes an enormous amount of hard drive space, video producers and editors are already accustomed to working on an external drive, and the existing connection for that (Thunderbolt 3) is good enough to make that workflow relatively painless. “I don't see a reason to pay extra for the flash storage,” he concluded. But the second friend told me that you can’t put a dollar value on being able to do your work on the fly without extra equipment for certain types of productions—she specifically named big-budget reality shows that do lots of on-location shooting. She said, “that’s a lot of money,” but that she “can imagine some scenarios where that could be useful.” No matter where you settle on that, these are expensive computers, and most consumers don’t need to spend that much. The entry-level spec of the 13-inch MacBook Pro is good enough for most people who want strong performance from a laptop, and the MacBook and aging MacBook Air are still attractive machines for everyone else. And there are the parallel worlds of Windows laptops and two-in-ones, Chromebooks, and even the iPad—all also viable options, depending on your priorities. In my estimation, there are mainly three types of people who would spend $6,699, $3,500, or even $2,699 on this laptop: creative professionals and developers (and the companies that employ them) whose livelihoods depend on performance, core gamers who are married to the Mac platform and have no other viable choices with strong enough video performance, and well-heeled consumers who just want the best computer they can buy, whether they need it or not. Design<doc-sep>I have used more Apple laptops in my life than I can even recall. I owned a second-hand, sticker-encrusted Titanium PowerBook G4 that was stolen during a road trip. I installed Linux on an excruciatingly slow PowerBook G3 for IMDB and Google searches while watching TV. I've upgraded, repaired, purchased, gifted, traded, and tinkered with iBooks and MacBooks galore, both for work and for fun. However, the more recent MacBooks I've used have been a mixed bag. Not only are Apple's last couple MacBook iterations unrepairable and non-upgradeable, but I find that the computing experience has been compromised in some key areas. Apple's laptops used to be so competitive that I'd recommend them just for use with Windows. But then PC manufacturers started upping their game, and since late 2016, it's been extremely hard to recommend the Pros. How did we get to this place? The new 2018 MacBook Pros attempt to atone for some of the line's recent performance missteps by throwing powerful new processors, tweaked graphics cards, a massaged keyboard, more RAM, and bigger SSDs into a product meant for the professionals who consistently rely on these machines. But over the past week that I’ve been using the new, 15-inch MacBook Pro running on a top-of-the-line Intel processor, I’ve found that what Apple's offering has a surprising number of caveats—its eye-watering price tag among them—you’ll have to consider. Cores Aplenty Apple gets complaints from the Mac faithful. Mac fans are a passionate minority who like to kvetch about everything from file systems to UI consistency. The top complaint might be that the Cupertino company just isn't as consistent at updating its products as other PC makers. For instance, the Mac mini continues to feature Intel chips from 2014. And desktop users still wait with bated breath for the triumphant return of the Mac Pro, which was last released in 2013 and…never got better internals. The eighth-generation Intel processors in the absolute newest MacBooks give pro users a big reason to consider upgrading. Mac laptops have been updated more consistently, but as they’ve been updated, they’ve also shed some features (like popular ports) that have forced customers into what feels like laptop limbo where they can't find a computer that meets all their needs. Thankfully, the eighth-generation Intel processors in the absolute newest MacBooks give pro users a big reason to consider upgrading. In every model, you'll get more processor cores, better graphics (be they discrete or integrated) and overall faster performance. This is especially the case with the 15-inch models. Apple pro laptops were capped at four cores for a long time—until now. The new eighth-gen Intel chips in these machines, no matter which 15-inch you pick up, now include two bonus cores. As muscle car fans might say, there's no replacement for displacement, and these tiny silicon engines give you a whopping total of 6 cores and 12 threads, leaving previous Macs in the dust at the drag strip. The 15-inch model I sampled sported 32 GB of RAM and a new Intel processor, the Core i9. Don’t let the confusing naming throw you off, though—this 6-core, 12-thread, $350 upgrade is just a faster i7. I was able to use the new MacBook Pro to encode a video into the demanding H.265 codec 26 percent faster than a previous, quad-core 15-inch Pro. Our video and graphics team, who, let’s face it, are the real pro users at WIRED, put the i9 MacBook Pro through its paces as well. The Cinema4D performance from this laptop was impressive, and they noted a marked improvement in render times of 3-D frames with complex material reflections. Most folks will opt for the cheaper i7-based models. I think that’s reasonable, given the kinds of money you can throw at a spec’d-out Pro. My review unit came with a blisteringly fast 2TB SSD as well, ringing the till at $4,700. If you opt for the 4TB SSD, the price blows beyond the $6K mark quickly, reaching $6,700 if you tick the box for every build-to-order hardware option available. Accompanying the feats of logical strength was the MacBook Pro’s twin fan setup, which made its presence known by hissing like a white noise generator whenever extra power was called upon. It’s worth noting, as well, that my final tests were run after Apple’s performance patch was applied to the review system. After that update, I noticed significantly more consistent speeds with less fluctuation than before.<doc-sep>Photo : Alex Cranz ( Gizmodo ) The newly updated MacBook Pro is good. The battery life is exceptional, the speed is exceptional, the keyboard works, and thanks to Apple embracing the external graphics card concept those 4 USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports are finally good for something. This is an Apple laptop built for work, and it’s about damn time. Advertisement Until recently it seemed Apple has been entirely apathetic about its computer customers. While iPad and iPhone fans have seen nice updates churned out annually like clockwork, laptop and desktop fans have languished, often stuck with aging processors in outmoded and overpriced devices. Laptops & Tablets Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro (2018) What is it? A Coffee Lake update of Apple's top laptop. Price $1,800 Like It's one of the fastest laptops in its category. No Like It's the most expensive laptop in its category. But between Mojave and this new MacBook Pro it feels like there’s change on the wind. Mojave is a gorgeous update to the operating system that could see macOS more productive than it’s been in ages, and this MacBook Pro is easily the fastest laptop available in its category. To be clear this review is exclusively talking about the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. That’s the one I tested and that’s the one that’s left me impressed by its speed and price tag. The 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar has not been updated and is thus still outdated and expensive for what it is. Also I have not had the opportunity to test out the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. While that device sounds good on paper there are currently widespread reports that the processor is too hot for the chassis, leading to unpleasant throttling. That makes it a hard pass. This review is instead focused on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, 16GB of RAM, and a 8th-gen 2.7GHz i7-8559U processor. Such a laptop starts at $2,300 with 256GB of SSD storage (the i5 version starts at $1,800) . It goes up to $2,500 if you actually want some damn room on the SSD and spring for 512GB. That makes the 13-inch MacBook Pro one of the priciest damn laptops available right now. It’s also one of a very few 13-inch laptops with a Coffee Lake CPU inside. Intel did something a little confusing with the 8th generation of Intel CPUs. Usually each generation is limited to one kind of microarchitecture. 6th-gen was Skylake and 7th-gen was Kaby Lake. When Intel launched its 8th-gen last year it started with Kaby Lake R mobile processors. Then came Coffee Lake desktop CPUs, and finally Coffee Lake mobiles CPUs were announced in April 2018. Advertisement Photo : Alex Cranz ( Gizmodo ) Since then few laptop makers have adopted the 4-core Coffee Lake CPUs found in the MacBook Pro. They’d quickly adopted the Kaby Lake R CPUs when announced, so why scramble to redesign for Coffee Lake. Apple, because it took so long to update, has accidentally become the laptop maker embracing the bleeding edge of Intel CPU technology. It really stands out! Apple’s traditional 13-inch laptop competitors (the Dell XPS 13, Lenovo ThinkPad X1 and Yoga 900 series, and HP Envy 13t) are all Kaby Lake R machines that cost an average $500-$1,000 less than the Apple MacBook Pro. Advertisement They’re also going to be slower than the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. In Geekbench 4, a synthetic benchmark, the MBP had a multicore score of 18328 while the Dell XPS 13 had a score of 15516. Which means it should theoretically handle tasks that rely on multiple cores in the CPU faster. That means rendering files in Premiere or Final Cut Pro or processing files in Blender. Thanks to some wicked fast storage the MacBook Pro also screams through Gizmodo’s Photoshop benchmark, which resizes a series of RAW image files and converts them to JPEG. This benchmark tests the speed of the CPU, but the biggest speed differences are always dependent on speed of the storage itself, and the MacBook Pro is fast. The Dell XPS resized and saved all the images 48.49 seconds. The MacBook Pro did it in 26.37 seconds—almost half the time! Photo : Alex Cranz ( Gizmodo ) Advertisement A combination of processor and a lower resolution display helps the MacBook Pro out perform the 4K Dell XPS 13 in other more visual tasks as well. The Dell XPS 13 tested has a 16:9 4K (or 3840 x 2160) resolution display. The Apple MacBook Pro has a less typical 16:10 2560 x 1600 resolution display. Think of it as a half step between the traditional 1080p and the higher resolution 4K. Which is probably why it’s a half step between the battery time of the 4K Dell XPS 13 and the 1080p XPS 13. When it comes to battery life, the latter XPS 13 continues to be one of the best performing laptops we’ve ever seen. When you set the display’s brightness to 200 nits and stream a YouTube video it takes the 1080p Dell XPS 13 hours and 24 minutes to die. It takes the 4K version 9 hours and 28 minutes. The Apple MacBook Pro lasts 10 hours and 35 minutes. That would get you through both seasons of Glow on Netflix with time to spare (it also makes it one of the few laptops we’ve tested that lasts into the double digits). Advertisement There’s no USB-A or HDMI or even an SD card slot, but USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 is getting a lot more useful. Photo : Alex Cranz ( Gizmodo ) Besides a very reasonable battery like the MBP also has a slightly faster integrated GPU than the GPU found in the Dell XPS 13. Which means in our Civilizations VI benchmarks, which measures average time it takes to render frames in the game at 1080p on high the Dell had an average time of 140.9ms and the Apple laptop had an average time of 128.5ms. That doesn’t make it an ideal system for gamers—Macs still have lackluster game support and you’ll still need an external GPU for anything more lag sensitive than Civilizations—but it makes it a less painful option that previous generations of the MacBook Pro. Advertisement And really that’s who this MacBook Pro is intended for—the weary Apple laptop devotee. Apple has made a big deal of the fact that it wants to be taken seriously again as a laptop designer after a few years of lackluster updates and overpriced and underpowered hardware. That’s why it’s put not just new processors into its updated notebooks, but the fastest Intel processors it can theoretically cram inside. It wants to make a statement! Photo : Alex Cranz ( Gizmodo ) Advertisement But so far that has resulted in the wrong kind of statement for the 15-inch MacBook Pro. That system has a 6-core Coffee Lake CPU that’s usually found in laptops that are twice as thick. Currently, according to multiple outlets, it appears that the CPU is being throttled in the 15-inch MacBook Pro (and the Dell XPS 15) because otherwise it would severely damage the internals. It would be irresponsible to recommend it in its current state. But this 13-inch MacBook Pro? This one has me excited for the idea that maybe Apple didn’t just cram in the biggest CPUs for an easy PR move. That maybe it’s actually thinking about its users and trying to provide a laptop that, if still overpriced, is not embarrassingly so. The keyboard feels softer to type on and is less prone to crumb damage. The machine is significantly faster than its predecessors and competition. The battery life doesn’t suck. There’s also a much improved operating system on the horizon. Which means if you’re willing to pay the Apple tax for the 13-inch MacBook Pro you no longer have to feel quite so ashamed. This machine is so good the price almost feels worth it. Advertisement Photo : Alex Cranz ( Gizmodo ) README Average to good battery life. The 8th-gen Coffee Lake CPU is one of the fastest available in a 13-inch laptop.<doc-sep>
Looking at the outside of the computer, it is very easy to think that the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Core i7 processor is unchanged from last year's model. However, there are a surprising amount of improvements beyond just a new and powerful processor that Apple users have been looking for. Different models for different people Even though these machines carry that "Pro" designator appended to the end, that term is little more than a marketing one. It is more than professionals that flock to Apple's more capable portable laptops. Apple has a wide-ranging lineup with a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Function Keys which was not updated this year. Right above it is the newly updated 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, which we've already reviewed. Then there is the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, which comes in a few different configurations with either an i7 or i9 Intel processor. For this review, we will be tackling the base model 15-inch MacBook Pro which comes equipped with 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 2.2GHz six-core i7 Intel processor, a Radeon Pro 555X AMD graphics card and 4GB of VRAM. We expect that this will be Apple's most popular model for users looking for a capable machine with a larger screen than the 13-inch MacBook Pro, rather than the i9. Getting the basics out of the way From the exterior, nothing on the outside has changed from the last two iterations on the current MacBook Pro design. It remains well engineered, largely crafted from that single block of aluminum. That unibody design looks nice, sleek, and remains one of the most portable pro machines we've tested. There are still two Thunderbolt 3 ports on each side, with the right side also keeping the headphone jack. For now. Once opened up, we see the same 15.4-inch Retina display that we've had for a few years. It is an extremely capable display that looks great and supports the P3 wide color gamut for excellent color reproduction. Bezels are still a bit excessive when compared to the rest of the industry, but that seems destined to be changed during a larger design refresh than this iterative spec upgrade. Apple's all-glass trackpad still remains best-in-class, which goes a long way towards getting work done on-the-go. Above that trackpad though, is a keyboard that looks the same as previous models, but has a lot of improvements under the hood. Clickity clack, it's keyboard time We spend a lot of time around here typing away on our MacBook Pro keyboards. Which means, over a few years time, we've become quite accustomed to Apple's super-slim butterfly mechanism. If you love it or hate it, that assessment isn't going to be changed by this new third-generation design. It is essentially the same on the outside that we've seen the past several years with a couple important improvements this time around. As Apple is quick to note, the new keyboard is quieter than the before. Some have said it is a minor change, but personally, I find it more substantial than that. There is a clear audible difference between the two and it was instantly notable. This may be more of a side effect of the other notable change — a silicone barrier meant to prevent the ingress of debris. iFixit discovered this super slim membrane, and since then the internet has been wild with speculation, wondering if this was the primary design change, and the noise suppression only being secondary. After a bit of testing, it appears that this membrane definitely helps prevent the smallest bits of dust from entering the sensitive internal mechanism, but doesn't completely solve it. Only time will tell if it will significantly improve the longevity of the MacBook Pro keyboard. Some teardown establishments feel that it will, but we'll see with time. Typing-wise, it feels nearly the same as last generation, with not too much vertical movement, though they do seem a bit stiffer this time around. That could also be attributed to this being a new machine, and it may soften over time. Obviously, the Touch Bar is still here, which while it has a few neat tricks here and there, has largely gone unfulfilled in its potential. Only in a few situations do we prefer it over a standard set of function keys. Touch ID is still quite useful, but we prefer logging in automatically using our Apple Watch to even using our finger.