Last week I bought a new 2017 Macbook Pro 15-inch with 16gb of RAM, 1tb SSD, and the Radeon Pro 560 with 4gb of RAM.Here is the unboxing video I made of the new Macbook Pro.
In the video, I talked about picking up a secondary power supply. I feel it’s extremely cheap of Apple to charge $80 for the power supply and additional $20 for the USB-C cable I would need to actually power the Macbook Pro. (Both of wich are overpriced in my opinion.) In the past, if you ever wanted to buy a secondary power supply it came with the cable you would need to power your computer. This annoyed me when I got the Macbook Pro and I’m still annoyed by it.
I did want to write a little more about the new 2017 MacBook Pro after having spent a week using it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. So here we go.
This thing is fast! This is such a leap forward from my last Apple laptop. I’ve been doing a lot more video editing and the video above is the first thing I put together since getting the new Macbook Pro. I’m so used to making changes and having to wait for renders to finish to be able to see how the change I made looks. On this machine, I have no wait time. It nearly renders on the fly and if I do have to wait it’s rare and minimal.
Something I’m still getting used to is how wafer thin and light this laptop is. When I’m caring it around I feel like I could easily bend it. Apple makes cutting edge hardware and software. Especially with the hardware, Apple is obsessed with having the thinnest devices around that it results in not being able to provide the end user with a decent battery life. Apple boasts on their website that the new 15-inch model can provide the end user with “Up to 10 hours wireless web”. I’m sure if you enable the many power saving feature of this laptop and don’t go to websites with any kind of video on them that yes, the laptop can run for 10 hours on battery. In my real work use, however, I can get just barely over 2-hours of work done on my laptop before I have to plug it in. The Apple user community has been screaming for years that we are happy with thicker devices so we can have larger batteries, but the decision makers at Apple just aren’t listening.
I’m really enjoying the new Final Cut Pro video editing software. I’m also planning on picking up a copy of Apple’s Motion in the near future.
Finally, I want to talk about the Macbook Pro’s keyboard. This is an extremely low profile keyboard. The low profile is achieved by Apple’s use of a new butterfly switch underneath each key. I do enjoy the new keyboard and the sounds each key makes. Nothing makes me want to do more writing than a great sounding keyboard. Sadly, after only a week of use, the “i” key has failed on me. The butterfly switch underneath the “i” gave out. I have to wait until Monday to see if the local 3rd party Apple store in my town can honor my Applecare protection policy and replace the switch in a timely manner. Otherwise, the broken key will have to wait to be fixed until my next trip to Seattle. In the meantime, I’m relegated to using an external keyboard.
In the video, I mentioned that I picked up two dongles to help me get my work done. The first one I bought is the CharJenPro USB-C 3.1 HUB/ADAPTER. This one has and HDMI port, 3 USB 3.0 Ports, SD + MicroSD Card Reader, and a Type-C port for charging the Macbook Pro. I also got the Belkin USB Type C to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter. Something, I don’t use a whole lot, but it’s nice to have just in case.
And those are my thoughts on the new MacBook Pro. I’m really curious if anyone out there is having keyboard issues like I have. I wonder if this is a common problem with the new Macbook Pros or if I just have one key that was a lemon. Either way, let me know below.
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