Apple is one of those tech companies that very rarely admits to wrong decisions and even more rarely turns back. That , which the Cupertians put into operation in 2016, cannot be called an engineering or, even more so, a commercial failure, but the fact is that not every poppy driver, especially among professionals, took the changes with enthusiasm. The "retina" models of 2013-2015 are rightly called the most successful MacBook Pro series. For them, a lot of users left Windows and switched to Macs, but then Apple demanded that too many familiar conveniences be sacrificed in order to gain access to next-generation hardware. Moreover, over the MacBook Pro, the problem with the βbutterflyβ keys, which has not been resolved for three whole years, has hung up to the end. But the times are not what they used to be. Once upon a time, the win-win bingo of a quality keyboard, comfortable touchpad, and calibrated screen matrix was found only in Macs, and now at least two points out of three can be found in competitors.
Fortunately, Apple has finally acknowledged that not all of the principles embodied in 2016 laptops are worth fighting for. The keyboard is definitely time to change, and the ultra-slim chassis doesn't help much with cooling when eight CPU cores are the norm in a high-performance laptop. Finally, there is a strong demand for a screen format larger than 15,4 inches. The designers of the fresh MacBook Pro took all this into account and, in addition, dramatically increased the potential performance of the machine, while remaining in the same price coordinates. Well, we have prepared an exhaustive review of the novelty with an emphasis on the tasks for which it was created - professional software for processing visual content.
Specifications, scope of delivery, prices
MacBook Pro 16 inches (this is how the manufacturer's Russian-language website writes the name of the computer) was the result of a bidirectional upgrade. On the one hand, Apple has implemented long overdue changes in the design and mechanics of many workstation components, which we will soon begin a detailed conversation. On the other hand, the time has come for the annual change of the silicon base, during which the Cupertians focused on one main component - the GPU. AMD, the exclusive GPU supplier for Macs, has launched the 7nm Navi family of chips, and Apple has been quick to claim the rights to buy fully functional Navi 14 chips.
We wrote in detail about what this GPU is capable of in the review of desktop accelerators. , but in short, Navi 14 on a discrete board is roughly equivalent to the popular Radeon RX 580. When it comes to laptop components, it's worth making a big allowance for lower clock speeds, but this comparison already makes it clear what AMD has achieved with the release crystals at the progressive 7 nm standard and, of course, using the innovative RDNA architecture. In addition, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is currently the only laptop that got the Navi 14 version with a full set of active computing units (1536 shader ALUs) under the Radeon Pro 5500M brand. This is a huge discrete graphics upgrade over the Radeon Pro 560X (1024 shader ALUs in total) - the base graphics card of the previous generation 15-inch MacBook Pro - without taking into account the difference in clock frequencies and the advantage of RDNA logic in specific performance. The Radeon Pro 5500M stands out even against the background of the Radeon Pro Vega 20 (1280 shader ALUs) that Apple used in higher configurations. In addition, the new GPU, at the request of the buyer, can be equipped with eight gigabytes of GDDR6 local memory instead of the standard four - and you get a mobile Mac with the most high-performance graphics subsystem that can be assembled with a total power reserve along with the CPU - about 100 watts. And why it is exactly like that and what prevents equipping a MacBook Pro with an analogue of the Radeon RX 5600M or even the RX 5700M, we will find out a little later.
| Manufacturer | Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), |
|---|---|
| Model | MacBook Pro 16-inch (Late 2019) |
| Display | 16", 3072 Γ 1920 (60 Hz), IPS |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-9750H (6/12 cores/threads, 2,6-4,5 GHz); Intel Core i9-9980H (8/16 cores/threads, 2,3-4,8 GHz); Intel Core i9-9980HK (8/16 cores/threads, 2,4-5,0 GHz) |
| RAM | DDR4 SDRAM, 2666 MHz, 16-64 GB |
| GPU | AMD Radeon Pro 5300M (4 GB); AMD Radeon Pro 5500M (4 GB); AMD Radeon Pro 5500M (8 GB) |
| Drive | Apple SSD (PCIe 3.0 x4) 512 - 8 GB |
| I/O ports | 4 Γ USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C / Thunderbolt 3; 1 x mini jack |
| Network | WiFi IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac; Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Battery capacity, Wh | 100 |
| Weight, kg | 2 |
| Overall dimensions (L Γ H Γ D), mm | 358 Γ Γ 246 162 |
| Retail price (USA, without tax), $ | 2 β 399 (apple.com) |
| Retail price (Russia), rub. | 199 990 - 501 478 (apple.ru) |
As an economical version of the graphics core, the updated MacBook Pro offers the Radeon Pro 5300M - in fact, a very good compromise between potential performance and cost of the machine. The Navi 14 chip is slashed from a full 1536 to 1408 shader ALUs and only lost 50 MHz of opportunistic clock speed (its Boost Clock is 1205 instead of 1300 MHz), according to the specifications of the lower model, but there is one catch: it does not allow you to expand the amount of RAM from 4 to 8 XNUMX GB. But for professional applications that MacBook Pro is focused on (the same video editing programs), this parameter means even more than for games. On the other hand, the buyer has nothing to lose if their workflow does not create a heavy load on the GPU. Then, most of the time, the discrete chip will rest, and the built-in Intel graphics will take care of rendering the application interface.
As for the repertoire of CPUs available for the 16-inch MacBook Pro, Intel has yet to squeeze a few hundred extra megahertz out of its own mature (and over-ripe) 14nm process for 10th Gen Core chips to make it to the laptop. Apple still only gives you a choice between two six-core CPUs and the flagship eight-core Core i9-9980HK. The benefit is that the redesigned chassis and cooler allow the auto-overclocking algorithms to reach higher clock speeds than the latest 15-inch Apple laptops.
The MacBook Pro's dual-channel DDR4 RAM is now clocked at 2667 MHz, and its capacity reaches an impressive 64 GB. As a drive, the same SSDs on Apple controllers of their own design are used here, the volume is at least 512 GB (finally!), And if desired, up to 8 TB. Finally, to give the device the battery life that Mac users are used to counting on, Apple replaced the 83,6 Wh battery with a "hundredth". You can't do it anymore, otherwise they won't let you on the plane.
Now, before we get to the visual inspection of our 16-inch MacBook Pro sample, it's time to announce the most important numbers. Contrary to our fears, retail prices for new items in the Apple online store start at the same $2 mark as in the previous generation, and how prettier the basic configuration is! But with a full range of optional upgrades, the cost of the car naturally skyrockets - up to $ 399, or 6 rubles. Top 099-inch MacBook Pro costs almost as much as a gaming desktop , which we recently tested, however, by choosing Apple, the buyer sacrifices a good part of the performance (especially in relation to the GPU) for the sake of portability, convenience and more spacious storage.
Appearance and ergonomics
Usually, when a new laptop gets into the editors of 3DNews, and even more so the carrier of major changes in the model range of a well-known manufacturer, you can devote a lot of words to its exterior. Another thing is Apple, a stronghold of conservatism. Here it is customary to act according to a three-five-year plan, and all intermediate upgrades are hidden under the body of the car. We donβt even know what to say about the overall design concept of the MacBook Pro 16-inch from what has not yet been said on the pages of 3DNews in a long-standing review . If you look at the device from behind and without a ruler in your hands, you simply cannot distinguish it from its immediate predecessors.
But when viewed from the front, the tools are useless, because Apple has increased the diagonal of the screen matrix from 15,4 to a full 16 inches, and this immediately catches the eye. Let the screen area increase by only 7,9% in numbers, an observer accustomed to the 15,4-inch standard will immediately notice the difference. On the other hand, a lot of relatively compact laptops with 17,3-inch panels have recently appeared, and Apple's new product is close to them in terms of subjective feelings. It's all about, of course, a good aspect ratio of 16:10. Screens that go up the steps of 16:9 HD format not only have a smaller area with the same diagonal, but, as a rule, are accompanied by high indents from the bottom and top edges of the lid in laptops. And most importantly, the interface of most applications still uses the vertical rather than the horizontal more efficiently. As for the frames of the 16-inch MacBook Pro itself, they have not been disproportionately large before. In fact, Apple even had to increase the dimensions of the laptop from 34,93 Γ 24,07 to 35,79 Γ 24,59 cm. But Mac owners who decide to upgrade from the old 15-inch βretinaβ shine with pure benefit and aesthetic pleasure - that one measures 35,9 Γ 24,7 cm.
We will talk about image quality on the 16-inch MacBook Pro screen separately in the test section of the review, but you should immediately thank Apple for the excellent anti-glare and oleophobic coating. And yet, although the manufacturer has long removed the word Retina from the name of the devices, it is the one before us: in order to maintain the previous pixel density of 220-226 dpi, the full resolution of the matrix had to be increased from 2880 Γ 1800 to 3072 Γ 1920. Thus, that's all not yet the 4K panel that other manufacturers have spoiled us with, and text and graphics look sharper on a denser pixel grid. Alas, Apple has to focus on integer scaling of interface elements and not change this proportion on the go, so that developers of programs with raster graphic elements do not have unnecessary headaches.
The thickness of the laptop has also grown: in numerical terms, significantly - from 1,55 cm with the lid closed to 1,62 - but not very subjectively. Anyway, the car is still much thinner than the notorious 2012-2015 Retina. It is just right to imagine that now there is definitely a place for a card reader inside the case. But again, alas, the set of wired interfaces has not undergone the slightest change: the owner has only four Thunderbolt 3 ports combined with USB 3.1 Gen 2 (and a mini-jack for a headset). Each slot guarantees a full 40 Gb/s bandwidth, but if you rely on this interface for high-speed connection to external storage and eGPUs, then you should keep in mind that four times 40 Gb/s is incorrect arithmetic in light of the topology of Intel mobile systems . The entire communication channel between the chipset, whose client is the Thuderbolt 3 controllers, and the CPU is still limited by the bandwidth of the DMI 3.0 bus. The latter is 3,93 GB / s, which is almost equivalent to four lanes of PCI Express 3.0. But four external monitors with 4K resolution and 10-bit color channels are welcome. In addition, the new MacBook Pro is the first and so far the only Apple mobile workstation that can power two 6K Apple Pro Display XDRs at once, should the need and opportunity arise.
Oh yeah, let's not forget that one of the Thuderobolt 3 connectors needs to be allocated to power the laptop, so only three will remain freely available, and this is even less than the 2012-2015 MacBook Pro had USB (splitters and adapters - still the best friends of the modern poppy). By the way, Apple has increased the power of the bundled charger from 87 to 96 watts. By the standards of modern laptops, especially for gaming, this is not so much, but the fact is that Thunderbolt 100 wires and connectors are simply not designed for power over 3 W. The latter circumstance imposes a direct limitation not only on the speed of charging the battery, but also on the combination of CPU and GPU that Apple has chosen for the new MacBook Pro. Whatever chips you want to see on an apple laptop motherboard, keep this number in mind and it will be immediately clear what Apple can use and what not - regardless of how good the cooling system is. On the other hand, the Thunderbolt 3 interface itself can supply power to peripherals - 15 watts for every two ports. It would be interesting to find out if, in this case, laptop-powered external gadgets take their share from the 100-watt budget, but alas, we did not have such an opportunity while the novelty was still visiting 3DNews.
But enough physics, give ergonomics. The main change in the MacBook Pro, which was probably given with great difficulty to the proud from Cupertino, is related to the keyboard design. It's no secret that the innovative butterfly mechanism that Apple pioneered in the now discontinued 12-inch MacBooks didn't work, so to speak. The convenience of a low-profile keyboard with an extremely short travel is debatable. So, personally, for example, I once discovered that typing blindly on it after a short period of adaptation is faster, and most importantly, the keys almost do not walk at all in their positions.
At the same time, the βbutterflyβ chirps loudly when pressed, and within a few months after the start of sales, requests flew to Apple for repair and replacement of laptops. The delicate mechanism turned out to be extremely vulnerable to dust, and this problem could not be completely solved even after several iterations of the upgrade. Now the flight of the butterfly is finally over - at least in laptops for professionals. Apple has brought together the best features of the old and the new design: the keys of the 16-inch MacBook Pro are tall, have a noticeable travel of about 1 mm, but at the same time they sink into the case evenly, like the same "butterfly". It feels like there is a difference between printing on the old Retina and on the 16-inch MacBook Pro, but only in favor of the new one. The new keyboard even somewhat resembles clothed mechanical switches, and in general typing on it is a sheer tactile delight. As you can see from the iFixit photos, there is no more silicone padding under the keycaps to protect the mechanism from dust, which is an encouraging sign!
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At the same time, the designers of the MacBook Pro made point changes to the planar geometry of the keyboard. In terms of individual area, the keys remained as wide as in previous models of 2016β2019, but the shape of the βarrowsβ was returned to the inverted letter t and, most importantly, the Escape key was cut off from the Touch Bar. Thus, Apple signed that the touchpad will never replace physical keys to perform the most common functions. Looking for the right icon with your eyes in an attempt to change the brightness of the backlight of the keys, the brightness of the screen or the volume of the sound is still not very convenient. But most importantly, we won back Escape, and for displaying "shortcuts" in programs for macOS that can handle the Touch Bar, the panel is really quite a useful thing.
To balance the top of the layout on the opposite side of the Escape key, a groove was also cut between the Touch Bar and the power button. Fortunately, the latter had to be pressed physically before, but now itβs easier to find the biometric sensor built into it by touch. We donβt know about security, but using the scanner in macOS is often necessary, and doing so is much faster than entering a long password each time. But the huge touchpad with the Force Touch function has not undergone the slightest change compared to what was in the previous generation of MacBook Pro. And rightly so - he was already perfect.
Before the virtual opening of the device (we will again use iFixit), it remains only to pay attention to the webcam peephole and listen to the built-in acoustics of the MacBook Pro. Apple still doesn't think that a webcam with a matrix resolution higher than 720p is in demand in laptops, but this is enough for a video call. Another thing is the speaker system, which includes six speakers at once, including two low-frequency drivers. Searching for high-quality sound in laptop acoustics is a thankless task, but we must once again pay tribute to Apple: for its modest dimensions, the MacBook Pro plays music loudly and in a bass voice. The trio of built-in microphones also, although they do not pretend to be studio-quality recordings, perform their task surprisingly conscientiously.
Internal device
Without the bottom bezel, the insides of the 16-inch MacBook Pro look, on the surface, exactly the same as the 15-2016 2019-inch models. But if you look more closely, you will see a lot of qualitative changes. Apple has gone to great lengths to provide the best possible CPU and GPU cooling in what is still a very limited space. To begin with, wider outlets were cut for the fans, and the turbines themselves, due to the modified impellers, should drive 28% more air through the radiators. The radiator area has also been increased by 35% compared to the previous generation.
The only pity is that the GPU memory chips do not serve the general circuit of heat pipes, as is done in some gaming laptops. They are simply covered with a copper cover pressed against the microcircuit case through aluminum thermal pads. Be that as it may, the manufacturer promises that the cooling system is capable of dissipating 12 additional watts of heat. Let's take note of this statement before proceeding with our own measurements of power, temperature and clock speeds. We only briefly note that the battery here still does not pull on the full 100 Wh. There are actually 99,8 of them (yeah, caught!), but it is possible that the battery was cut a little just to be guaranteed to fit into the requirements of the US Federal Aviation Administration, which imposed a limit of 100 Wh on lithium- ion batteries carried in hand luggage.
But the MacBook Pro did not acquire any options for painless replacement of components. There is absolutely nothing for its owner to climb under the hood of the car, except for periodic cleaning of dust. Okay RAM, but the SSD is still soldered right on the motherboard. However, even if this were not the case, it still could not be so easily replaced: the drive is tied to the Apple T2 supervisor chip, and, for example, its upgrade in Mac Pro workstations can only be performed by an authorized Apple service center (to Fortunately, the Mac Pro works fine with non-native SSDs as well.) The power button with a fingerprint scanner is attached to the T2 in the same way. And finally, quite a few MacBook Pro components are glued in place or held in place with rivets⦠In general, this system is best configured for growth, and buying an extended Apple Care warranty for a full three years of service seems like a sound idea, especially in light of the price of the computer itself.
Source: 3dnews.ru