I thought I’d take a little time to share some first impressions and thoughts on my new MBP. I bought the Space Grey 13 inch w/ Touch Bar, 2.9 i5, 512GB storage, and upgraded the RAM to 16GB. To give some insight, my former MBP was a late 2011 15 incher, upgraded screen resolution, 750GB HDD, and I believe 4GB RAM. Most of my comparisons will be with it.
Just to start off, I love the overall footprint. I keep my MBP on my nightstand next to my bed and having a laptop so small gives me more room to keep my Apple Watch and iPhone 7 Plus there while charging. I do occasionally miss the extra screen real estate, but the smaller footprint is a worthy trade off in my opinion. The machine is really well built with no tolerances, weird creaks, or extraneous detail. The Space Grey color is beautiful, but a true black would’ve been even better. I personally don’t mind the lack of a glowing Apple logo because I never saw my old one lit up anyway. Raising and closing the lid is smooth and flawless. If anything I almost wish the lid were heavier because it feels too easy. The trackpad is better than ever. I love Force Touch and the larger size hasn't caused any problems for me yet. Do I really need the extra real estate it gives? Not really, but it's not a negative either.
The display is something to behold! When viewing my new MBP next to my older one, the colors pop without looking artificial, text is nice and clean, and it is plenty bright. I have mine set on the 1680 X 1050 resolution. There really isn’t much more to say about the display other than it’s great.
Now on to a couple of the more controversial elements: the keyboard and Touch Bar. Some people say they love it, some hate it. I feel fairly indifferent for a lack of a better word. It’s more shallow than my former MBP, but the keys are larger with more stability. It only took a few days for it to be comfortable to type on, but I’m still making more errors than I did on my last MBP. They are getting fewer and fewer however, and my speed is back to normal. I’m honestly surprised how much of a difference the individually lit keys make. There’s no weird light bleed coming from the keys. In a brightly lit room it’s not that noticeable, but in a dim or dark room it’s a much more pleasant experience. The Touch Bar itself looks nice and Touch ID is unbelievable to use on this computer. It’s so fast, and so much more convenient than typing a password. I hope it gets more widely used in the future so I can log into all websites just using my fingerprint. I’ve honestly never been a big user of Function keys so the lack hasn’t been a big deal for me. The new volume and brightness sliders are ridiculously cool to use though. I hope they actually bring the way they work over to iOS. I haven’t really delved to deeply into the rest of the Touch Bar as of yet. I almost forget that it’s there honestly. It took my almost a year to fully embrace 3D Touch on my 6s Plus, so I’m sure I’ll take further advantage of it in the future.
Another controversial bit of hardware is ports, or lack there of. I guess the best way to put it is that it's been a mild irritant. It's not so bad that I've had to go out and buy a hub or a ton of dongles (I really hate that word btw). I will buy some new cables in the future though. A USB-C to Lightning and a USB-C memory card reader is probably all I'll need. I haven't decided yet if I'll buy a new backup drive or get an USB-C to A adapter for my current drive, but it'll just stay plugged into the drive itself either way.
Battery life hasn’t been an issue for me yet. With work being busy, and getting ready for the holidays I haven’t had a ton of time to do any battery tests for myself. Just browsing Safari on the couch and menial things of that nature. I’ve yet to have time to edit any photos or do any heavy lifting to put it to the test. It’s much better than my old MBP, but it’s five years old with a spinning hard drive so that’s to be expected.
The software has been working well for me so far. I haven’t run into any major issues. At first I wasn’t sure if the Bluetooth was having problems whether it be hardware or software related. I couldn’t for the life of me get my iPhone to pair with it. I was worried about Continuity, Handoff, and Universal Clipboard not working because they wouldn’t connect, but I spoke with an Apple Care rep and was assured that they don’t actually need to pair for that. As long as they’re on the same network w/ Bluetooth on they can interact with one another. This little beauty is blazing fast compared to my last MBP as well. The SSD boots in no time, and even just browsing in Safari feels like so much less of a chore than before. This is the first Mac I haven’t even bothered installing Chrome on because Safari is so fast. Siri works just as well as on my iPhone and better than my Apple Watch as far as understanding me, but I’m missing some of the personality of Siri on iPhone.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading!!! If you have any questions, ask away and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Just to start off, I love the overall footprint. I keep my MBP on my nightstand next to my bed and having a laptop so small gives me more room to keep my Apple Watch and iPhone 7 Plus there while charging. I do occasionally miss the extra screen real estate, but the smaller footprint is a worthy trade off in my opinion. The machine is really well built with no tolerances, weird creaks, or extraneous detail. The Space Grey color is beautiful, but a true black would’ve been even better. I personally don’t mind the lack of a glowing Apple logo because I never saw my old one lit up anyway. Raising and closing the lid is smooth and flawless. If anything I almost wish the lid were heavier because it feels too easy. The trackpad is better than ever. I love Force Touch and the larger size hasn't caused any problems for me yet. Do I really need the extra real estate it gives? Not really, but it's not a negative either.
The display is something to behold! When viewing my new MBP next to my older one, the colors pop without looking artificial, text is nice and clean, and it is plenty bright. I have mine set on the 1680 X 1050 resolution. There really isn’t much more to say about the display other than it’s great.
Now on to a couple of the more controversial elements: the keyboard and Touch Bar. Some people say they love it, some hate it. I feel fairly indifferent for a lack of a better word. It’s more shallow than my former MBP, but the keys are larger with more stability. It only took a few days for it to be comfortable to type on, but I’m still making more errors than I did on my last MBP. They are getting fewer and fewer however, and my speed is back to normal. I’m honestly surprised how much of a difference the individually lit keys make. There’s no weird light bleed coming from the keys. In a brightly lit room it’s not that noticeable, but in a dim or dark room it’s a much more pleasant experience. The Touch Bar itself looks nice and Touch ID is unbelievable to use on this computer. It’s so fast, and so much more convenient than typing a password. I hope it gets more widely used in the future so I can log into all websites just using my fingerprint. I’ve honestly never been a big user of Function keys so the lack hasn’t been a big deal for me. The new volume and brightness sliders are ridiculously cool to use though. I hope they actually bring the way they work over to iOS. I haven’t really delved to deeply into the rest of the Touch Bar as of yet. I almost forget that it’s there honestly. It took my almost a year to fully embrace 3D Touch on my 6s Plus, so I’m sure I’ll take further advantage of it in the future.
Another controversial bit of hardware is ports, or lack there of. I guess the best way to put it is that it's been a mild irritant. It's not so bad that I've had to go out and buy a hub or a ton of dongles (I really hate that word btw). I will buy some new cables in the future though. A USB-C to Lightning and a USB-C memory card reader is probably all I'll need. I haven't decided yet if I'll buy a new backup drive or get an USB-C to A adapter for my current drive, but it'll just stay plugged into the drive itself either way.
Battery life hasn’t been an issue for me yet. With work being busy, and getting ready for the holidays I haven’t had a ton of time to do any battery tests for myself. Just browsing Safari on the couch and menial things of that nature. I’ve yet to have time to edit any photos or do any heavy lifting to put it to the test. It’s much better than my old MBP, but it’s five years old with a spinning hard drive so that’s to be expected.
The software has been working well for me so far. I haven’t run into any major issues. At first I wasn’t sure if the Bluetooth was having problems whether it be hardware or software related. I couldn’t for the life of me get my iPhone to pair with it. I was worried about Continuity, Handoff, and Universal Clipboard not working because they wouldn’t connect, but I spoke with an Apple Care rep and was assured that they don’t actually need to pair for that. As long as they’re on the same network w/ Bluetooth on they can interact with one another. This little beauty is blazing fast compared to my last MBP as well. The SSD boots in no time, and even just browsing in Safari feels like so much less of a chore than before. This is the first Mac I haven’t even bothered installing Chrome on because Safari is so fast. Siri works just as well as on my iPhone and better than my Apple Watch as far as understanding me, but I’m missing some of the personality of Siri on iPhone.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading!!! If you have any questions, ask away and I’ll do my best to answer them.
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...Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts on it and have a very Merry Christmas. Take care.
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