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Portables (Apple) Apple

Apple's MacBook Pro Models Get a Redesign, New Chips and MagSafe Charging (techcrunch.com) 180

Posted by msmash from the new-gadgets dept.
Apple just dropped a new version of the MacBook Pro that draws a much clearer line between the system and its perennial favorite thin-and-light sibling. From a report: The new system is powered by the new M1 Pro and Max, souped up versions of the chip the company unveiled at today's event. The company says the 10-core chip is capable of allowing up to 3x the memory bandwidth and up to of the M1, coupled with a 16 core GPU. The Max, meanwhile, bumps the GPU up to 32 cores. What's clear is that the company is targeting its bread and butter creative pro demographic in ways it didn't with last year's models. Unlike last year's model, the new models, which are available in 14- and 16-inch models offer entirely new redesigns. They also feature built-in fans for high-performance applications, though the company says it will rarely turn on. The system also marks the end of the middling-received Touchbar, with a full function key in its place.

As one feature leaves, an old favorite returns. Magsafe is back. The third-gen charger sports a proprietary port, but users will be able to continue charging via the Thunderbolt/USB-C ports. And, yes, this thing has ports. Three thunderbolt 4, HDMI and an SDXC card slot, to be exact. The bezel has been reduced, instead opting for an iPhone-style notch at the top to house the webcam. The camera has -- thankfully -- been upgraded for these teleconferencing days at 1080p (no 4k, sadly, but an improvement over the long-standing model) with a larger sensor and wider aperture. The 14-inch starts at $1,999, while the 16-inch runs $2,499. The Max version of the M1 is available as an upgrade, adding an additional $200 for the 24-core GPU and $400 for the 36-core version.
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Apple's MacBook Pro Models Get a Redesign, New Chips and MagSafe Charging More

Apple's MacBook Pro Models Get a Redesign, New Chips and MagSafe Charging

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  • So much for Humdrum Refreshes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NoMoreACs ( 6161580 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @01:15PM (#61903457)

    Sounds like Apple has listened to a large extent!

    Pretty stellar update, IMHO. The performance is simply outstanding; particularly considering the battery life.

    Now cue the haters regarding âoeNotchbookâ. Those will be the same people that whined about âoeBig Bezels!â For the past years.

    Well, you canâ(TM)t really have both.

    • Re:So much for Humdrum Refreshes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @01:31PM (#61903519) Journal

      Those will be the same people that whined about âoeBig Bezels!â For the past years. Well, you canâ(TM)t really have both.

      They might be different people. The internet is big.

    • Oddly, no other laptop manufacturer has had a problem with fitting a camera in the bezel, and having to carve a notch into the display. They manage it quite nicely. Granted it may not be a 1080p camera, but does everyone really need 1080p cameras for shitty Zoom calls that can't plug in a USB camera that will still be better?

      • Oddly, no other laptop manufacturer has had a problem with fitting a camera in the bezel, and having to carve a notch into the display. They manage it quite nicely. Granted it may not be a 1080p camera, but does everyone really need 1080p cameras for shitty Zoom calls that can't plug in a USB camera that will still be better?

        â¦and there it is, right on cue!

        YEARS of bitching about the 720p camera. Years!

        Now they listened, put in a nice 1080p camera with a decent image sensor (they claim 2X better low-light performance). Great!

        Now, here come the complaints saying "Who needs a 1080p camera?"

        Make up your fucking minds!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PCM2 ( 4486 )

          The old camera really did suck. Especially in a room that didn't have particularly good light. Although, the earlier M1 laptops supposedly did some tricks with the GPU cores that improved image quality, even though the glass was essentially the same. I haven't personally verified that, though.

          But I agree ... "who needs a 1080p camera" for "shitty Zoom calls"? My dude, do you have have a job? Where have you been for the last 18 months?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tsqr ( 808554 )

          I have never bitched about the camera built into any of the the Macbook Pros I have been given to use at work. And why would I? It's a damn webcam, and on the rare occasions it gets used, it's for tele-meetings where the image quality is of no importance to me. 1080p? Low light performance? Sorry; don't care. Video in those meetings is a distracting nuisance anyway when there are more than a handful of people involved. I'd much rather have the old camera and not have a notch. Actually, I'd be perfectly fine

    • My Dell XPS 15 is one year old and has small bezels with a front-facing camera above the screen and no notch [dell.com]. It can be done and I'm surprised Apple didn't make a better attempt when someone else has already done it.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Those will be the same people that whined about ÃoeBig Bezels!Ã For the past years

        I seriously doubt they are considering it's extremely rare I hear any complaints about bezel sizes. I don't think I've heard a single complaint in the last ten years about any bezels, let alone Apple's.

        Also I know there's only been one laptop, a Dell Lattitude from 2011, I ever felt had too enormous a bezel, and I've never publicly complained about it, and I think the notch is a fucking stupid idea.

        The Notch ONLY intrudes into the Menubar area! It doesn't affect content at all!

        Apple actually thought this through.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It usually comes up in reviews because other laptops have been reducing the bezels for years. Apple was an outlier in the mid range.

      • I seriously doubt they are considering it's extremely rare I hear any complaints about bezel sizes. I don't think I've heard a single complaint in the last ten years about any bezels, let alone Apple's.

        Liar.

        It has been a rather regular bitch around here for at least half a decade.

  • Can't buy MBPs with intel chips anymore... No wonder intel campaign to discredit MBPs is in the full swing... use marketing to replace lost sales.

    • You definitely can via 3rd party retailers (http://gravis.de). No idea if you can via Apple itself. Did not find it with a quick glance.

      Interesting, similar i/ and i9 (similar as in size of RAM and SSD) cost _significantly_ more then this two new models.

  • "drop"? (Score:2, Troll)

    by XanC ( 644172 )

    Does that mean they're not selling it anymore?

    Seriously, slang like that (especially slang that makes no sense) doesn't really belong in the summary.

    • Bro the scheduled refresh that's been on my calendar for a year just dropped fr no cap shit's :fire: pog

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      Does that mean they're not selling it anymore?

      Seriously, slang like that (especially slang that makes no sense) doesn't really belong in the summary.

      Yea, /. editors often forget a large part of the /. audience was born during the civil war and doesn't keep up with the slang the kids use these days.

  • I guess 99% of us would prefer having one USB-A and two USB-C. I also bet most people will never use more than 1 USB-C at the same time, and the most common use will be charging.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Macdude ( 23507 )

      And it should have a floppy drive and a parallel port too...

      • yeah right, nobody uses thumb drive, USB keyboards, mouse, printers. Or they all moved to USB-C, right?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        A single USB A port would mean no dongle required 90% of the time. Then again, no opportunity to sell people USB C versions of things they already own.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfm3 ( 830843 )
        I see your point, but floppies were already showing their age long before the iMac dropped the floppy drive. By the late 90's even the "high density" 1.44 MB ones were woefully antiquated and had mostly been supplanted by alternatives like Zip disks and CD-R for file storage, and most software drivers came on CD. In contrast, for a vast majority of peripherals like thumb drives, mice, and other small, cheap devices that people actually use, transport, and unplug frequently, USB-A is perfectly fine and is st

        • I see your point, but floppies were already showing their age long before the iMac dropped the floppy drive.

          Boy, you sure wouldn't have guessed it from all the pearl-clutching and hand-wringing in the tech-press at the time.

  • From the sublime to the ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @01:52PM (#61903629)

    Magsafe, SD, HDMI are great additions, and a big improvement on previous models.

    But the notch: WTF? This will be smack in the middle of the fucking menu bar, a place that's occupied regularly on my 16" MBP screen, let alone a 13". A screen should be a fully usable rectangle.

    • Black out the extra pixels on either side of the notch and move the menu bar down. Now you have no notch and the same aspect ratio as before. I imagine they will be able to make such a change in software. It is an obvious solution for viewing full screen content. I personally like the idea of the menu bar consuming less vertical space then previous so I am all for the new design. So long as the pointer can not get stuck on the inside of the notch - it should travel like the notch was not there.

    • Are you running Big Sur?

      It collapses several menu bar items into the Control Center, which can free up a good chunk of the menu bar.

      • Alternatively, Bartender is great.

        But I'm also one of those folks who has a menu bar that is halfway filled with icons, and that's even with Bartender being used to hide a huge number of icons. That said, my 13" MacBook Air is usually being used with two 27" 1440p monitors, so the fact that the icons fill half the 13" screen don't really bother me in the least, especially so since I never see them there (my laptop's screen is just a fullscreen Slack viewer for me).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's a very weird flex for Apple to celebrate bringing back the ports they took away.

      The notch is an interesting choice. Most non-Apple phones have moved to off centre punch holes. They are less annoying because they can be hidden out of the way by simply moving whatever normally goes in the corner over a bit.

      Could be difficult to put a cover over this notch.

    • But the notch: WTF? This will be smack in the middle of the fucking menu bar, a place that's occupied regularly on my 16" MBP screen, let alone a 13".

      The notch will be smack dab in the middle of space that is currently 100% unusably occupied by a black bezel. Until under-screen cameras are commercially viable in these sorts of products, we can't have it both ways: we either get a notch or a thick bezel.

      Because it sounds like you're in Camp Thick Bezel, you may be happy to hear that when you go fullscreen with your apps the OS will black out the space to either side of the notch so that it seemingly disappears, effectively causing it to look the way it do

  • I wonder how long it's going to take before someone hacks the display driver to drop the top of the screen to just below the notch so that we won't have to watch its ugliness.

    Notch, ports disappearing and coming back, and there now being "M1 Max Macs" (Max^2 ??) sound like some major trolling on Apple's part now.

    • I wonder how long it's going to take before someone hacks the display driver to drop the top of the screen to just below the notch so that we won't have to watch its ugliness

      Watch the Keynote. Apple already did that.

      • From what I understood, the areas on the side of the notch are "macOS only" for menus and such. And in dark mode, you don't really see it anymore since it's the same height as the menu bar.

        I still hope there's no notch and more usable ports on the next MacBook Air, though.

        • From what I understood, the areas on the side of the notch are "macOS only" for menus and such. And in dark mode, you don't really see it anymore since it's the same height as the menu bar.

          I still hope there's no notch and more usable ports on the next MacBook Air, though.

          There are 3 TB4 Ports, a dedicated HDMI Port, an SD Card Slot, and the coveted MagSafe Port and acbeadphone Jack. The last generation had 4 TB 3 Ports and a Headphone Port.

          I'd say this is quite an improvement!

  • I've been using a 2010 macbook pro since it can out and the situation has gotten pretty dire. I'd been holding off because everything Apple put out had some issue (too slow, not enough RAM, touchbar, etc.) but this generation of Apple laptops caught me hook line and sinker. First time in years that it's been possible to buy a no-compromises Apple laptop (well I'd argue trading a thunderbolt port for an HDMI port is a compromise, but 3 is probably enough for me).

  • I'd rather have a bigger bezel than a hole in the screen for a webcam.

    • I'd rather have a bigger bezel than a hole in the screen for a webcam.

      I thought the same thing but whatever. That spot in the menu bar goes unused for a great many people, and unless people use a great many full screen apps it's unused pixels. I don't much care either way but if asked on it I'd say leave the notch out of the screen and add those few extra millimeters to the size of the bezel.

  • Processors with great performance per watt, the return of MagSafe as well as usable ports, and the eradication of the Touchbar, are all very welcome changes. On the other hand, these laptops are completely incapable of being upgraded or properly repaired, which means that after AppleCare has expired, you could very well have an expensive paperweight. That alone is enough to steer me clear of any Apple laptops, regardless of how amazing their processors and battery life may be.

    • They are as repairable as any other laptop.

      Or do you mean: repair by yourself?

      My 2014 MacBock air got a new Keyboard, new battery, and because they thought they damaged the screen during repairs, they replaced the screen. It looks like brand new and feels like brand new.

      Like every 7 - 15 year old Mac - You are just an idiot. Like so often.

      Ah, and it got two new fans.

  • Am I getting old or is $3500 a shocking starting price for the M1Max 16"? If work wants to buy me one, kewl...I hope I am never foolish enough to spend that much of my own money for one.

    I was naive enough to hope that dropping the touchbar and introducing their own silicon would contain costs, not hike them. That was foolish of me.

  • Where are the damn FULL-SIZE arrow keys!
    No programmer worth that title can use those tiny half-size arrow keys!

    Once again, design over function because full-size arrow keys would break the "all the keys make a rectangle" design part.

    • The arrow keys are the same like always. I'm pretty used to them.
      If I have a laptop with bigger ones, or different arrangement, I make many mistakes.

      I guess for you it is just the other way around. A bit more annoying, atm you can not buy them with a mixed Thai/US keyboard :(

  • It is not immediately obvious that the M1 Max starts at 32GB RAM. So if you were looking at the 10 core M1 pro with 32gb then the extra $ for the m1 Max is not that bad considering it is another step in performance.
    Saw that when I ordered my 14â minutes after the keynote, was planning for the m1 pro (which to be honest is sufficient for me) with 32gb but decided to go for the m1 max then. Delivery next week!

  • What are they thinking? I tried going without for a few weeks, and it was like coming home when I went back to touch.

    And not full 4k? I mean, do hd, 2k, or 4k. Don't go 3/4 of the way there then drop the damn ball.

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