It’s fair to say there’s been more than a few negative reactions to Apple’s new MacBook Pro line-up. There’s a school of thought that says this laptop should have been a new MacBook Air, with Apple announcing a workstation-level notebook called the Pro. Naturally, this would have also come in for some criticism. But it’s clear that Apple does not see itself as a mainstream supplier of notebooks. It’s somewhat odd to think of the MacBook Air as old hat, but that’s exactly what it is — the closest thing Apple has to a mid-ranger.
Here we’re looking at the Touch Bar version (which comes in 13- or 15-inch sizes, in Silver or Space Grey), but there’s also a base-level MacBook Pro without Touch Bar and with only two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports that nips Rs. 26,000 off the 13-inch Touch Bar price.
What’s incredible about all the new Pros is that they’re the same thickness as the rear of the MacBook Air, but with a retina display and far more power. Except for a small subset of users, these are do-anything devices.
They borrow the best new features from the 12-inch MacBook, drop all ports (save the headphone jack, which is still needed in PCs and Macs) in favour of four all-purpose USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, boast a massive trackpad and max out at 16GB of memory (this is the maximum of low-power memory allowed by Intel’s Skylake platform).
The retina display continues to astound, especially with the 15-inch version, and in these Macs, it has a wider colour gamut, too. The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s an improved version from that on the 12-inch MacBook.
The 15-incher features quad-core Intel Core i7 chips, the 13-incher a still-speedy 2.9GHz Core i5. The limitation of 16GB of low-power memory isn’t ideal for some people. For most, 16GB will do. And all models are 8GB by default, anyway.
Apple believes that the speedy 256GB or 512GB SSD drives used here means that these Macs can use the drive as extra memory without a performance hit for all but the highest-demand user.
Can’t touch this
Apple has clearly decided that its Macs shouldn’t have touchscreens, and the result of this philosophy is the Touch Bar. That’s all well and good, but Microsoft has finally made touch useful with Windows 10, and more of us expect to be able to touch screens.
One great thing about the Touch Bar is that it is beautifully app-specific — and even more granular within that. If text is selected, it’ll show you text tools — that kind of thing.
You can customise the small section of system controls on the right-hand side of the Touch Bar, known as the Control Strip. This goes some way in dealing with one of the issues of the Touch Bar — you don’t quite know if the feature you need will be there, a bit like using 3D Touch on your iPhone.
Pressing the Fn key brings up the function keys on the Touch Bar, but you can change this to ensure it shows the expanded Control Strip should you wish. The Escape key is pretty much always shown — one in the eye for those who said Apple was losing it because of the physical key’s absence.
If there is a problem with the Touch Bar, it is that it’s not as natural to use (yet) as the trackpad is — or keyboard shortcuts.
But it does put much more at your fingertips — not everything has a simple control, after all. Changing a colour from a colour picker, for example, is way easier when using the Touch Bar.
Touch ID is a very cool feature to have, but you’ll still need your password if your Mac has been reset or has been asleep for a couple of days.
The verdict
So, what do we think about the new MacBook Pros? In a word, stunning. In another word, expensive.
These are supreme notebooks that you won’t mind spending good money on, because they’ll be companions for years.
Want to know the only thing we really don’t like? The Apple logo on the lid no longer lights up. That’s a sadness. But USB-C and the new Touch Bar? That’s welcome progress.
The limitation of 16GB of low-power memory isn’t ideal for some people
