Question Is the new 16" Macbook Pro really worth $2,400?

[ultimatebob]

I mean... it looks nice, has a nice keyboard again (finally), and even the base model has decent hardware specs.

But... is it really worth $2,400? I can get a Dell XPS 15 with similar hardware specs for around $1,700.

Has anyone here got one of these yet? If so, what do you think?

 

[Steltek]

Unless I was absolutely desperate, I wouldn't buy a new laptop until the new AMD Ryzen 4000 mobile CPUs are fully released.

What are decent hardware specs now...probably aren't going to be quite as decent compared to what is coming (at least, based upon the consistency of the early reviews, anyway). Intel's next gen are also coming, though it remains to be seen whether or not they either compete with the Ryzen 4000 series or whether Intel can produce enough for widespread availability.

 

[Liisa48]

I think the price is a bit overpriced. In this case you pay "for the name".
But it is not difficult to find laptop with the same functions, but cheaper.

 

[ultimatebob]

My existing Macbook Pro from 2013 is down to about 90 minutes of battery life, so the urge to upgrade is growing.

 

[Muadib]

Do you want to stay with Apple? If so, then get the Macbook Pro. I have a friend who bought the new 16, and he loves it.
If you can go to Windows, then the XPS 15 is very nice.

 

[ultimatebob]

Do you want to stay with Apple? If so, then get the Macbook Pro. I have a friend who bought the new 16, and he loves it.
If you can go to Windows, then the XPS 15 is very nice.

I don't know... I have a Macbook at work, but I also have a Windows 10 gaming PC. They both have their plusses and minuses. I'm about as OS agnostic as it comes.

 

[Muadib]

I don't know... I have a Macbook at work, but I also have a Windows 10 gaming PC. They both have their plusses and minuses. I'm about as OS agnostic as it comes.

I hear ya. Then which has the fewest minuses? I’d go with that one.

 

[Commodus]

I mean... it looks nice, has a nice keyboard again (finally), and even the base model has decent hardware specs.

But... is it really worth $2,400? I can get a Dell XPS 15 with similar hardware specs for around $1,700.

Has anyone here got one of these yet? If so, what do you think?

If you like your MacBook, you'll probably be very happy with the 16-inch MBP. Great screen, great trackpad, fast overall, and finally a good keyboard once again.

I wouldn't say the XPS 15 at $1,700 is as close a match as it looks. Dell's build quality is noticeably worse. The 4K touchscreen you'll get at that price looks nice, but it's going to murder battery life. The trackpad isn't as good as Apple's; and ironically, Dell has CPU throttling issues that Apple seems to have solved. I'm sure Apple does bake extra profit into the MacBook Pro, but it feels like a lot of that money goes toward refinement.

 

[Kaido]

I don't know... I have a Macbook at work, but I also have a Windows 10 gaming PC. They both have their plusses and minuses. I'm about as OS agnostic as it comes.

I hate to say it, but Windows 10 is actually pretty good these days. Throw on a paid copy of Malwarebytes & use Chrome with uBlock Origin & Privacy Badger and you've got yourself a pretty nice setup!

I install a lot of XPS laptops for clients. They are pretty good. Macbook still have the corner on the "metal laptop" market imo, but man, $2,400 is a chunk of dough to drop! The new Surface tablet-laptops are amazing too, I've been rolling a lot of those out recently. Lenovo Yoga's are pretty nice, as are the HP Sceptre x360's. Kind of depends on what you're going for. They have a lot of nice drawing laptops out now too, if you're into that.

I played with a 17" LG Gram laptop at Costco recently & was extremely impressed with it. $1,500 on Amazon:

Amazon.com: LG Gram 17-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) Ultra-Lightweight Laptop Intel Core i7-8565U 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Win 10: Electronics

Amazon.com: LG Gram 17-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) Ultra-Lightweight Laptop Intel Core i7-8565U 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Win 10: Electronics

www.amazon.com

Similar concept to a Macbook Air - thin & crazy light for a 17" model, especially with a ~2.5K screen & IPS display. Has an NVMe SSD inside. Not much in the way of graphics (Intel Iris Plus), but again, depends on what your goals are!

 

[Commodus]

I hate to say it, but Windows 10 is actually pretty good these days. Throw on a paid copy of Malwarebytes & use Chrome with uBlock Origin & Privacy Badger and you've got yourself a pretty nice setup!

I install a lot of XPS laptops for clients. They are pretty good. Macbook still have the corner on the "metal laptop" market imo, but man, $2,400 is a chunk of dough to drop! The new Surface tablet-laptops are amazing too, I've been rolling a lot of those out recently. Lenovo Yoga's are pretty nice, as are the HP Sceptre x360's. Kind of depends on what you're going for. They have a lot of nice drawing laptops out now too, if you're into that.

I played with a 17" LG Gram laptop at Costco recently & was extremely impressed with it. $1,500 on Amazon:

Amazon.com: LG Gram 17-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) Ultra-Lightweight Laptop Intel Core i7-8565U 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Win 10: Electronics

Amazon.com: LG Gram 17-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) Ultra-Lightweight Laptop Intel Core i7-8565U 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Win 10: Electronics

www.amazon.com

Similar concept to a Macbook Air - thin & crazy light for a 17" model, especially with a ~2.5K screen & IPS display. Has an NVMe SSD inside. Not much in the way of graphics (Intel Iris Plus), but again, depends on what your goals are!

I don't know about that Windows 10 recommendation. The UI is fine, but saying "all you have to do is buy anti-malware and install all these privacy tools!" is somewhat terrifying when being reasonably safe on a Mac involves "don't click suspicious links and use the default browser." I'm not under the illusion that macOS is impervious by any means, but it's still true that you don't have to think about security and privacy threats as much as you do on Windows.

My concerns about Windows laptops mainly revolve around the harder-to-quantify things like build quality, support and issues with included software (see: Lenovo). Obviously Surface machines are different (I've heard of reliability issues, but not basic build quality/support/software). I've known more than a few horror stories of people who spend hours on the phone dealing with recurring problems, like a Dell gaming laptop that went in for repair multiple times without an obvious issue being fixed. Not that Apple has never had reliability issues or bad support instances, but it's much easier to recommend now that the butterfly keyboard is going away.

I suspect the OP wouldn't be very happy with the LG Gram 17 between the lower performance and chassis flex. It's really an upsized ultrabook instead of a workhorse!

 

[Kaido]

I don't know about that Windows 10 recommendation. The UI is fine, but saying "all you have to do is buy anti-malware and install all these privacy tools!" is somewhat terrifying when being reasonably safe on a Mac involves "don't click suspicious links and use the default browser." I'm not under the illusion that macOS is impervious by any means, but it's still true that you don't have to think about security and privacy threats as much as you do on Windows.

My concerns about Windows laptops mainly revolve around the harder-to-quantify things like build quality, support and issues with included software (see: Lenovo). Obviously Surface machines are different (I've heard of reliability issues, but not basic build quality/support/software). I've known more than a few horror stories of people who spend hours on the phone dealing with recurring problems, like a Dell gaming laptop that went in for repair multiple times without an obvious issue being fixed. Not that Apple has never had reliability issues or bad support instances, but it's much easier to recommend now that the butterfly keyboard is going away.

I suspect the OP wouldn't be very happy with the LG Gram 17 between the lower performance and chassis flex. It's really an upsized ultrabook instead of a workhorse!

On Windows 10, I use Malwarebytes & Glasswire. On Mac, I use Malwarebytes & Little Snitch. Macs are definitely better from a privacy perspective, for sure, as well as more locked-down against attacks, especially if you're not using pirated software or torrents.

I really want to get a hands-on with the new keyboard - it sounds like it will fix the previous issues. The new Air looks really nice!

The Gram is really more of an upsized Chromebook, lol. But, it depends on what the goals are to use it for. Iris Pro isn't great, but it's not terrible either. I almost bought the 17" on the spot because they had it for $1,299, I was REALLY impressed with it! Unfortunately, my current laptop is fine, #FirstWorldProblems lol.

 

[TheStu]

I know a lot of people with Surface Pros, and all of them (except one that has had theirs in basically an OtterBox style case from day 1) has cracked the glass on it through standard wear and tear (pressing too hard with the pen, setting a large book down on it, 1' drop, tossing it a little carelessly into their bag, that sort of thing). I've had 5 or 6 iPads in my life, and USE but do not ABUSE my electronics (so think standard wear and tear). No cracked glass at all. I envy the kickstand, do not envy the build quality. These were all Surface Pro 5 and 6, so maybe the 7 or X are better?

 

[ultimatebob]

On Windows 10, I use Malwarebytes & Glasswire. On Mac, I use Malwarebytes & Little Snitch. Macs are definitely better from a privacy perspective, for sure, as well as more locked-down against attacks, especially if you're not using pirated software or torrents.

I really want to get a hands-on with the new keyboard - it sounds like it will fix the previous issues. The new Air looks really nice!

The Gram is really more of an upsized Chromebook, lol. But, it depends on what the goals are to use it for. Iris Pro isn't great, but it's not terrible either. I almost bought the 17" on the spot because they had it for $1,299, I was REALLY impressed with it! Unfortunately, my current laptop is fine, #FirstWorldProblems lol.

My existing 2013 Macbook Pro has both Malwarebytes and Sophos Home on it as well. That might be overkill, though.

 

[ultimatebob]

I just realized that I can save $260 on this by using my wife's educator discount and putting it on my Apple Card.

Sure, $2,140 plus tax is still a LOT of money for a laptop, but hey... the comparable Dell XPS 15 went UP in price to $1,949 and that's after putting in the coupon code. I'm willing to pay a 10% "Apple Tax" for something that's probably better built and will hold its resale value better.

 

[quikah]

I think the main motivator for choosing an XPS15 over the macbook would be the Nvidia card in the XPS15. I know a few people working in the machine learning field that need to get a second system because their macbook is somewhat useless for their work since they work with CUDA.

 

[ultimatebob]

I think the main motivator for choosing an XPS15 over the macbook would be the Nvidia card in the XPS15. I know a few people working in the machine learning field that need to get a second system because their macbook is somewhat useless for their work since they work with CUDA.

The new Macbook Pro has some pretty decent AMD Radeon Pro graphics in it. Not that I really care... I'll probably never do any 3D modeling or games with it.

 

[quikah]

The new Macbook Pro has some pretty decent AMD Radeon Pro graphics in it. Not that I really care... I'll probably never do any 3D modeling or games with it.

Yeah, I know, but machine learning is using CUDA, so Nvidia required.

 

[ultimatebob]

My new 16" Macbook Pro arrived today! The "new/old" keyboard is very good, and the new 16" screen is amazing. I got mine in Space Gray, and the whole thing looks pretty stunning. I kinda miss the backlit Apple logo, though. The touch bar is cool as well, but I already find myself missing physical volume up and down buttons. The speakers are much better, too.

I just wish that it had an HDMI port and a full sized USB port. It looks like my dongle collection is going to get bigger soon.

 

[ultimatebob]

Six month update... this is actually a pretty damn good laptop. It's solidly constructed, fast, and the screen is (still) amazing.

One odd thing that I noticed... the bottom of the MacBook Pro case is magnetized because of the larger speakers in it. I found this out when it picked up a paperclip off of my desk! I probably wouldn't want to use this in a metal working shop, because it would likely attract metal particles into its cooling system.

The battery life on it kinda sucks, though. Apple says that the battery lasts "up to" 11 hours. I average 6 hours, and can kill it in 2 by playing a 3D game on it

 

[Commodus]

Six month update... this is actually a pretty damn good laptop. It's solidly constructed, fast, and the screen is (still) amazing.

One odd thing that I noticed... the bottom of the MacBook Pro case is magnetized because of the larger speakers in it. I found this out when it picked up a paperclip off of my desk! I probably wouldn't want to use this in a metal working shop, because it would likely attract metal particles into its cooling system.

Glad to hear it worked out. That's an interesting quirk! I imagine the likelihood of that metal shop incident happening is rather slim, but it's worth remembering.

 

[RichieZ]

i have both a personal 15" MBP touchbar and a 16" MBP for work that is quite maxed out. The screen and keyboard are nice, but it really has some kind of driver problem when plugged into my 4k monitor - the fans just start to spin up fully for no reason.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I mean... it looks nice, has a nice keyboard again (finally), and even the base model has decent hardware specs.

But... is it really worth $2,400? I can get a Dell XPS 15 with similar hardware specs for around $1,700.

Has anyone here got one of these yet? If so, what do you think?

You are obviously friendly with Apple so you are not allowed to complain about Apple. If you do, their PD folks will pay you a no-knock call to your home.

 

[ultimatebob]

You are obviously friendly with Apple so you are not allowed to complain about Apple. If you do, their PD folks will pay you a no-knock call to your home.

What an odd comment. I've actually been pretty hostile towards Apple lately for their price gouging on App Store purchases and iPhone accessories.

That said, this laptop was reasonably priced for what it came with. It only cost me $200 more than a Dell XPS 15 with similar hardware specs.

 

[Commodus]

What an odd comment. I've actually been pretty hostile towards Apple lately for their price gouging on App Store purchases and iPhone accessories.

That said, this laptop was reasonably priced for what it came with. It only cost me $200 more than a Dell XPS 15 with similar hardware specs.

I'd argue that the MBP likely delivers the better screen at that price (even compared to the 4K touchscreen option) as well as a few other minor perks, so it's not quite a one-for-one comparison.

And yeah it's certainly fair to be critical of Apple even as you buy its products. I'm all-in on its gear, but that doesn't mean I like all its design choices and policies. I just prefer it for practical (and sometimes philosophical) reasons over the alternatives.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I would argue for the money you could by a descent 35-43" external monitor for use at home and be even happier.