The MacBook Pro is a controversial laptop these days — and that’s unfortunate. Due to some divisive changes Apple made to the functionality of the MacBook Pro, fans are more split than ever on whether it’s worth the purchase. Compared to the wealth of Windows laptops on the market, is the 13-inch MacBook Pro still worth the money?<\/b>
\nThe 2016 MacBook Pro\u2019s redesign was divisive \u2014 to put it lightly. With its fancy new Touch Bar, reduced connectivity, and sticky keyboard, the new model\u2019s reception wasn\u2019t as warm as Apple may have hoped.
The base 13-inch model without the Touch Bar is $1,300, which comes with 128GB of storage and a 7th-gen Intel Core processor. If you want the Touch Bar model we reviewed, you\u2019ll have to shell out $1,800, which now comes stocked with a refreshed 8th-gen processor and new keyboard.
Even so, $1,800 is a lot for a MacBook Pro 13 with a Core i5 processor, even by Apple\u2019s standards. The sharp increase in price means you can only obtain a Core i5 MacBook Pro at prices that used to get you a Core i7, and perhaps a RAM upgrade as well. Does the MacBook Pro match the high expectations set by its premium price?
One look at the MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar is all you need to know it\u2019s a Mac. That\u2019s even more impressive now that Apple has decided to take attention away from its branding, ditching the glowing white apple in favor of a slick, subtle gloss logo similar to what\u2019s on the MacBook, the iPhone, and the iPad.
As before, the MacBook Pro 13 features an all-unibody design lacking any visible seams aside from those on the bottom. But the new version is slimmer and trimmer, shaving weight down to 3.02 pounds from 3.48 pounds, while thickness drops from 0.71 inches to 0.59 inches.
And that\u2019s not all. Apple, like Dell, has aggressively shaved space from the display bezels to reduce the overall footprint. The MacBook Pro 13 remains slightly larger than the Dell XPS 13 overall, although it\u2019s thicker than the newest Dell\u2019s 0.46 inches while being just under four-tenths of a pound heavier. Overall, users with the older Pro model will appreciate the improvement.
The MacBook Pro comes in Space Gray, which seems to be Apple\u2019s new default color, brought over from the iPhone. You can find more color options in the 12-inch MacBook, which come in Silver, Space Gray, Rose Gold, or Gold. Color choices may seem petty, but they add a touch of personality, and we wish Apple brought some of that to the MacBook Pro. Even Dell has expanded the XPS 13\u2019s conservative color scheme to include a new Rose Gold with Alpine White, and HP\u2019s Spectre 13 also has some fancy color options.
But regardless, there\u2019s no arguing with the MacBook Pro\u2019s elegance. The beauty of Apple design has always been subtle, which is why the company is sometimes accused of being safe, or boring. The Pro doesn\u2019t even try to side-step those criticisms. It\u2019s not the smallest 13-inch laptop, nor is the lightest. There\u2019s something to be said for design that works, though, even if it\u2019s not innovative, and the MacBook Pro remains the most luxurious laptop around.
Meanwhile, although the MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar has a headphone jack, it makes another connectivity choice that\u2019s just as controversial and, functionally, more important. Apple decided that USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 is the future and has ditched every other port.
Yes, USB-C is all you get. The MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar has four of these ports, two on each side. Even the card reader is missing. Crazy as it sounds, the decision has it benefits. The simplicity of the port selection is hard to argue with, and every port is a charging port, so you can plug the wall adapter into whichever is more convenient. The ports are quick, too, so you can hook up multiple displays or use fast external SSDs without worry about connectivity bandwidth.
Now, for the bad news: You\u2019re going to need adapters, and you might need lots of them. Do you use an external display? That\u2019s an adapter. External hard drive? Adapter. Wired input of any sort? Adapter. Ethernet? Adapter. SD card? Adapter. At best, you\u2019ll need to purchase one or two dongles. At worst, you\u2019re going to need a dock solution, which can add another $100 to $200 to the price.
The greatest irony? Even Apple\u2019s iPhone can\u2019t plug into any MacBook Pro 13 without purchasing an adapter. However, thanks to Apple\u2019s lead, this has increasingly become the norm for better or worse. Laptops like the HP Spectre 13, the new XPS 13, and the Huawei MateBook X Pro now have similar port options \u2014 and it\u2019ll only continue to be the direction the way things go.
At least it can communicate wirelessly. Speaking of which, the new Pro 13 has the usual 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter, now paired with Bluetooth 5.0 in the 2018 update. It\u2019s good to see the latest version of Bluetooth here, as it\u2019ll help connect with a wireless keyboard and mouse.
The 12-inch MacBook, released in 2015, debuted an all-new \u201cbutterfly\u201d switch that\u2019s much thinner than any used in a laptop keyboard prior. Though Apple touted it as having great feel, we complained that \u201ctyping for more than an hour [left our] fingers with a dull ache,\u201d due to the keyboard\u2019s stiff feel and limited travel.
Now that same keyboard can be found on the MacBook Pro. Well, not exactly the same. When launched, the Pro\u2019s keyboard was a \u201csecond-generation butterfly mechanism,\u201d with slightly more travel than the first. And it is an improvement. If you\u2019re a writer, the MacBook Pro 13 will serve you better than the 12-inch MacBook, especially now that we\u2019ve moved on to the third-generation keyboard in the 2018 update.
That\u2019s not to say it\u2019ll serve you well. While travel has improved, the keyboard continues to suffer a stiff, abrupt bottoming action that can make long typing sessions tiresome. The degree to which this will bother you is a matter of preference. A few Digital Trends writers thought it was perfectly acceptable and most thought they could learn to live with it. No one said they preferred it over the previous MacBook Pro 13.
And it\u2019s not clear why this sacrifice was made. While the new MacBook Pro 13 is thin, it\u2019s as thick or thicker than many competitors with better keyboards, such as the Acer Swift 7, HP Spectre 13, HP Spectre x360, and Dell XPS 13. Whatever the reason, it\u2019s clear Apple had to make a compromise between size, performance, and keyboard quality, with the latter getting the bad end of the bargain. The increased complaints (and lawsuits) about sticking keys doesn\u2019t help either. Even with Apple\u2019s newest keyboard update, it\u2019s been made clear that the keyboard sticking issue has not been resolved.
Below the keyboard is a revised, plus-sized touchpad. Unlike the keyboard, this is an unmitigated plus. The spacious surface improves the ease of using multi-touch gestures, which work consistently well. While the new, larger surface means constant contact between it and your palms, we didn\u2019t notice a single instance of unintended input throughout our testing. Windows touchpads have improved significantly in the last couple of years, but they\u2019re still not as luxurious as Apple\u2019s.
And don\u2019t forget Force Touch. The haptic feedback system, which uses vibration to simulate a click, is so good at emulating real movement that most users never notice a difference. It\u2019s quieter than it used to be too, without sacrificing the satisfying clarity of the click. The touch pad also offers force sensitivity, which can enable special interface functions \u2014 just like the iPhone. The feature isn\u2019t widely embraced, even by Apple\u2019s own software, but it\u2019s great when offered.
In May of 2014, Apple Insider published an article talking about upcoming Macs with \u201cin-key displays,\u201d a rumor that began to snowball in early 2016. After several misses (the rumor mills thought it might appear in early 2016, then in summer), it\u2019s finally here in all its OLED glory.
If nothing else, the Touch Bar is great to look at it. It boasts Retina-equivalent pixel density, which means icons are rendered with crisp, vibrant graphics. And because it\u2019s OLED, blacks look inky black \u2014 so dark it\u2019s often hard to find the Touch Bar\u2019s boundaries.
As a conversation starter, then, it holds up. As a functional tool? Less so. Apple tries to integrate the Touch Bar in a way that makes it relevant even in everyday web browser, note-taking, and photo-viewing. Its display changes constantly as new apps are opened, and old ones closed. It performs well, keeping up no matter how quickly apps are switched, or how many are open.
Yet there\u2019s rarely much use for it. At best, it provides a quick way to scroll through lists, such as your Photo Stream. It can also be useful if you\u2019d like to scroll through a video \u2013 and it\u2019s great at picking up on such content, activating a scroll bar even when browsing YouTube.
In other cases, though, it\u2019s clearly a solution searching for a problem. Take typing, for instant. As you input text in Safari, Word, and other apps, the Touch Bar constantly flashes word suggestions. It\u2019s a feature that works well on the iPhone, where typing is often slow and cumbersome.
On a laptop, it\u2019s not all that convenient. Type in \u201coffice,\u201d for instance, and the Touch Bar will suggest alternatives. Did you mean \u201cofficers?\u201d Or, perhaps \u201coff-season?\u201d This happens whether a word is spelled properly or not. Even if you do slip in a typo, it\u2019s hard to imagine why a user would look to the Touch Bar for help when MacOS already presents a correction on-screen and, in most cases, will correct the spelling automatically.
Since its release, a growing number of apps now feature Touch Bar support \u2014 including Evernote, Microsoft Outlook, and LastPass. But even with more developer support than it had at launch, the Touch bar is still not quite as integral to the MacBook\u2019s user experience as Apple would like it to be.
Even where it might be useful, the Touch Bar is limited by its size. It automatically displays open Safari tabs, complete with miniature content previews, a feature that could prove helpful. Yet the previews are so small that it\u2019s often hard to tell the tabs apart, even with just three or four open. If you open six, or eight, or ten tabs, then the previews become smaller still, until they\u2019re so tiny that it\u2019s hard to even tap the right one. Similar problems trouble its photo preview and video preview capabilities. In theory, you can scroll through photo collections. In practice, it\u2019s harder to do than with the touchpad. Asus has come up with a competing idea with the ScreenPad on the ZenBook Pro 15, and while that\u2019s not perfect, it does offer a tantalizing glimpse of something better than the Touch Bar.
In short, the Touch Bar isn\u2019t great. But giving the function row over to an OLED display does come with an important perk called Touch ID. Yes, you can now log in with your fingerprint, and it works as seamlessly as it does on iPhone. Fast, secure login authentication methods are a great way to improve security for the average user, something that Windows users have enjoyed for a few years thanks to Microsoft\u2019s Hello functionality. And Touch ID integrates with Apple Pay, so you can use it to securely make online purchases \u2014 from stores that accept Apple Pay.
A quick look at the specifications could make you think Apple\u2019s new MacBook Pro 13 had an old display. It\u2019s still Retina, which means the resolution is still 2,560 \u00d7 1,600. That was stunning in 2012, but today it seems mediocre next to QHD+ (3,200 \u00d7 1,800) and 4K (3,840 x 2,160) screens.
But don\u2019t worry, Mac faithful. You can banish any concerns about the display from your mind. It\u2019s fantastic.
We measured a maximum brightness of 548 lux. That\u2019s ridiculously brilliant, and complete overkill for use indoors, but it can help make the screen, which is still very glossy, usable in extreme situations. By comparison, the Dell XPS 13 with QHD+ display only hits 278 lux, and the HP Spectre x360 hits 355 lux. Both those systems can have a problem with glare in bright conditions, though Dell gives you the choice to combat that with a matte display option.
Brightness is only important in a bright room. What\u2019ll stun you, no matter where you use the MacBook Pro 13, is its color. The display can achieve 100 percent of the sRGB gamut, as well as 91 percent of AdobeRGB. It also delivered an average color error value of 0.72 (lower is better). Anything below one is generally unnoticeable to the human eye, and this reading is among the lowest we\u2019ve ever recorded from a laptop. Only Dell\u2019s XPS 15, with its excellent 4K IGZO idsplay, boasted a better average error value of 0.6.
Even the contrast ratio of 1,200:1 is excellent. The Pro can deliver dark blacks next to brilliant colors without trouble.
The only flaw we found is gamma, which came in at a reading of 2.3. The ideal curve is 2.2, and the MacBook Pro 13\u2019s result indicates it portrays content a bit darker than it should. But this is a very minor fluctuation, and plenty of competitors miss it, too.
When the numbers are tallied, the new Retina display comes away a winner. It defeats the Dell XPS 13, Asus Zenbook S, HP Spectre x360, and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, beating them in color gamut, color accuracy, and contrast ratio (except for the ZenBook S, which was slightly better).
That\u2019s not to say it lacks competition, though. Microsoft\u2019s Surface Book 2 can go toe-to-toe with it in a few categories. Our tests found the Surface Book had an even better contrast ratio of 1,460:1 and its gamma curve reading was the proper 2.2. But even still, in terms of color accuracy and brightness, they still don\u2019t quite match up.
There\u2019s also a small handful of Windows systems, like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga, available with OLED displays. These clobber the MacBook Pro 13\u2019s strong contrast ratio, and deliver an even wider color gamut, all with accurate gamma. But they don\u2019t match the Mac\u2019s out-of-the-box color accuracy.
Numbers aside, the display on the MacBook Pro 13 is excellent, and looks it in everyday use. Games and movies are crisp and vibrant, and high-quality photos render with such detail that you might think your display was switched with a canvas print. The Retina display may not be this Pro\u2019s headline feature, but it remains its most attractive trait.
Sound quality is another important multimedia feature, and Apple has always shown an affinity for audio quality rarely found elsewhere. Simply put, the MacBook Pro is no exception. In fact, its speakers are the best we can recall hearing in a 13-inch system. That\u2019s saying a lot, because a few recent laptops in this category, like the Asus Zenbook 3, have surprised us with their quality.
The MacBook Pro 13 offers a wide range of volume and, at maximum, it\u2019s far louder than most people will need in normal use, and capable of filling a large room with tunes. Bass is present and accounted for in minimal but noticeable amounts \u2013 the thump can be felt through the keyboard at higher volumes. High and mid-range sound remains clear and free of distortion.
External speakers will be an improvement, as always, but the audio quality present here is surprising, and may convince you there\u2019s no need to plug anything into the headphone jack.
Specifications have never been Apple\u2019s area of focus, but that used to be a marketing concern rather than an indication of the company\u2019s preference for hardware. Over the last few years, though, that has changed. The MacBook Pro fell behind, adopting new Intel processor lines late.
The MacBook Pro only partially addresses the problem. The entry-level MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar that we reviewed has an Intel Core i5-6267U, though since then, it was updated to 7th-gen and now 8th-gen Intel Core processors. The update to 8th-gen is important, as the jump as significantly increased multi-core performance in other systems we\u2019ve tested. It\u2019s a bit late though \u2014 and frustratingly, the lower-end, non-Touch Bar models have left to die at 7th-gen. That\u2019s not a good sign for the future of non-Touch Bar MacBooks.
The system\u2019s Geekbench 3 multi-core score of 7,600 was not the best we\u2019d seen for 6th- and 7th-generation machines, and it falls well behind contemporary 8th-generation notebooks. For example, the XPS 13 with a Core i5-8250U scored twice as fast in the multi-core test at 15,127.
In our Handbrake test that converts a 420MB video file to H.265, the MacBook Pro took 446 seconds. Again, the XPS 13 was (almost) twice as fast at 270 seconds, and other 8th-generation machines weren\u2019t far behind.
The MacBook Pro 13 will be much faster now that it, too, leverages Intel\u2019s latest CPUs. We\u2019ll be sure to update our review once we\u2019ve tested the latest model, but it should be noted that only the 15-inch MacBook Pro includes the fast, though controversial, inclusion of the Core i9 processor.
Drive performance is often overlooked by consumers, but it\u2019s important to a system\u2019s overall capability. Apple knows this, and has been a leader in storage performance for years. The new MacBook Pro line is no exception. It quotes read speeds of 3.1 gigabytes per second, and write speeds of 2.2 gigabytes per second.
We can\u2019t do an apples-to-apples comparison with Windows competitors here, because the tools we normally use to test performance aren\u2019t compatible with MacOS. However, we did test using two benchmarks that run only on Apple\u2019s operating system.
First up was Blackmagic, a test designed to tell professionals if a drive is up to the task of handling content at specific framerates and resolutions. It produced a write speed result of 1,348 megabytes per second, and a read result of two gigabytes per second (annoyingly, this appears to be the maximum result the benchmark can show). That\u2019s a big improvement over the MacBook Pro 13 with Retina (2015). It hit a write speed of 647MB\/s, and a read speed of 1,056MB\/s.
We also fired up DiskMark. It spat out sequential read performance of 1,826MB\/s, and sequential write performance of 1,289MB\/s. We hadn\u2019t tested with that benchmark before, so take the numbers with a grain of salt. Still, they\u2019re good figures, and reasonably consistent with Blackmagic.
Again, these benchmarks do not run on Windows, so we can\u2019t make an apples-to-apples comparison of hard drive performance. But numbers we have from CrystalDiskMark, our Windows test, suggest Apple is at the head of the pack.
The Dell XPS 13 with 512GB solid state drive scored a read speed of 1,893MB\/s and a write sped of 475MB\/s. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, on the other hand, was better able to keep up, at 2,121MB\/s and 1,832MB\/s.
If this all sounds confusing, don\u2019t worry. While the numbers are outstanding, you don\u2019t need to obsess over them. It\u2019s clear the MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar has outstanding drive performance, and it\u2019ll handle any workload you ask of it. This just might be the most future-proof component in the entire system.
As in most past incarnations, the Apple MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar relies on Intel integrated graphics. If you want a more powerful discrete graphics solution, then you\u2019ll need to accept the MacBook Pro 15\u2019s larger footprint.
With that said, our review unit did boast Intel Iris Graphics 550 which, in theory, should be much quicker than standard Intel HD graphics. Compared to Intel HD 620, the solution most common in modern Windows laptops, Iris Graphics 550 has double the execution units (48 vs. 24) and a higher maximum clock speed (1,100MHz vs. 1,050MHz). Better still, Iris Graphics 550 has 64 megabytes of dedicated eDRAM, something you\u2019ll never find with Intel HD 620.
But does that mean you can play games better than with a typical Windows ultrabook? To find out we fired up Civilization VI, testing it at 1,440 x 900 resolution on the MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar, and on the same resolution on HP\u2019s Spectre x360, with minimum detail and memory consumption selected.
The game performed identically \u2014 and poorly \u2014 on both, delivering 21 frames per second through the in-game benchmark. But the HP was the better experience, as the Mac suffered graphical glitches that weren\u2019t present on the HP Spectre x360.
If you\u2019re curious why the game performs poorly despite greater technical capability, blame Apple\u2019s OpenGL support, which hasn\u2019t been updated significantly for years. Instead, the company prefers Metal, its own API which can be used on both iOS and MacOS devices. The problem? Porting a game from Windows\u2019 popular DirectX API to Metal is unfamiliar territory. Developers of Windows PC games don\u2019t have a good option for porting to the Mac, and the result is often performance that\u2019s less impressive than you\u2019d expect.
You\u2019ll have better luck with games ported over from iOS, such as CSR Racing Pro 3, Super Octagon, and Limbo. There\u2019s a fair selection of such games on the Mac App Store. These also tend to suffer problems, though, especially in control, which is often poorly converted from touch to keyboard and mouse.
While the MacBook Pro 13 took a step forward in processor performance, it also took a significant step back in battery capacity. The previous model had a 74.9 watt-hour battery, but the 2016 MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar was launched with a 49.2 watt-hour battery (the model without Touch Bar has a slightly larger 54.5 watt-hour battery). That was a reduction in capacity of almost 35 percent. In the 2018 update, it\u2019s been upped to a 58 watt-hour battery, though Apple\u2019s endurance estimates have remain unchanged.
Peacekeeper, a looped web browsing benchmark, drained a full charge in five hours and three minutes. That\u2019s not a bad result, but it\u2019s not amazing, either. The Dell XPS 13 with Core i7 lasted five hours and seven minutes, while the Acer Swift 7 lasted five hours and 56 minutes. The HP Spectre lasted a tad bit less at four hours and 54 minutes.
We also tested the system in a video loop, using iTunes. It drained the battery in ten hours and 24 minutes. That\u2019s another solid result, though behind the XPS 13 with a Core i5-8250U and Full HD display and neck and neck with the XPS 13 with a 4K display and Core i7-8550U. The MacBook Pro did beat out some other competitors, such as the ZenBook S and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon.
In real-world use, we found battery life to be average. Most 13-inch laptops priced about $1,000 can last through nearly a workday of a use, and the MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar can, as well. But this assumes your \u201cnormal\u201d use isn\u2019t constant use, and that you stay away from demanding applications.
Some users have noted that Safari seems to drain the battery more quickly than hoped. We\u2019ve noted that, as well, even after the MacOS 10.12.3 update, which fixed a bug that caused Safari to use more graphics horsepower than needed.
If you want amazing portability, you should aim for Dell\u2019s XPS 13 with 1080p display and Core i5 processor. The older version lasted an outstanding six hours and 12 minutes in Peacekeeper, and the latest version lasted for a strong 13 hours and 34 minutes in our video loop. The best of all options in terms of battery life is the Surface Book 2 13, which lasted an amazing 17 hours of battery life in our video playback test. The MacBook Pro 13 used to be the last word in battery life, but the new model \u2014 or, at least, the Touch Bar version \u2014 has lost the crown.
Apple\u2019s new MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar is a beautiful machine, but it has several flaws, and it\u2019s far too expensive. The update to 8th-gen makes buying a MacBook Pro viable again, but only the lack of updated entry-level options is disappointing.
Is there a better alternative?
That depends on if you\u2019d consider a Windows computer. If not, the MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar is an attractive option \u2013 though you should consider the model without Touch Bar first. It\u2019s more affordable, and has a larger battery. The processor is not quite as fast and looks to be stuck at 7th-gen, but the downgrade won\u2019t be significant for most people.
If you\u2019re open-minded about choosing between Windows 10 and MacOS, there are numerous competitors. They include the Dell XPS 13, HP Spectre x360, Huawei Matebook X Pro, Surface Book 2, and Razer Blade Stealth. Many of these are a bit quicker, some have better battery life, and all offer a better keyboard. The Windows alternatives also offer an optional touchscreen, and some are 2-in-1 devices usable as either laptop or tablet.
The main sacrifice you\u2019ll make with these alternatives is display quality. Only Microsoft\u2019s Surface Book 2, and the handful of OLED laptops currently available, can go toe-to-toe with the new Pro in that area.
How long will it last?
Apple has control of each Mac\u2019s lifespan by dictating which systems will receive MacOS updates. Since the MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar was just released, it\u2019s safe to say it\u2019ll last as long as any Mac currently available. With this MacBook in particular, the real danger is in the keyboard, which has had notable reliability issues. And Apple\u2019s warranty might be limited to an industry-standard one year of coverage, but the company\u2019s customer support is legendary.
Should you buy it?
No, at least not at the configuration we reviewed.
The MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar is not a bad laptop. On the contrary, it\u2019s quite good. But the $1,800 price tag demands more than just good. A laptop sold for that, as an entry-level model, must be among the best of the best. The MacBook Pro 13 without Touch Bar (starting at $1,300) and MacBook Pro 15 (starting at $2,400) are both better values for what you pay.<\/p>\n

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Sentiment rank: 0.4<\/div>\n

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