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The New MacBook Pro Features 'Fastest SSD Ever' In a Laptop (macrumors.com)
Last week, Apple refreshed the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models, bringing newer Intel processors and quieter keyboards. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro also just so happens to feature the fastest SSD ever in a laptop, according to benchmarks from Laptop Mag. Mac Rumors summarizes the findings: The site's tests were performed on the $2,499 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar equipped with a 2.7GHz quad-core 8th-generation Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus 655, and a 512GB SSD. A file copy test of the SSD in the new MacBook Pro, which Apple says supports sequential read speeds of up to 3.2GB/s and sequential write speeds up to 2.2GB/s, led Laptop Mag to declare the SSD in the MacBook Pro "the fastest ever" in a laptop. Higher capacity SSDs may see even faster speeds on disk speeds tests. A BlackMagic Disk Speed test was also conducted, resulting in an average write speed of 2,682 MB/s.
On a Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark, the 13-inch MacBook Pro earned a score of 18,055 on the multi-core test, outperforming 13-inch machines from companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and Microsoft. That score beats out all 2017 MacBook Pro models and is faster than some iMac configurations. 15-inch MacBook Pro models with 6-core 8th-generation Intel chips will show even more impressive speeds. With that said, the 13-inch MacBook Pro didn't quite measure up to other machines when it came to GPU performance. "The 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro uses Intel's Iris Plus Graphics 655 with 128MB of embedded DRAM and was unable to compete in a Dirt 3 graphics test, getting only 38.8 frames per second," reports Mac Rumors. "All Windows-based machines tested offered much better performance."
On a Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark, the 13-inch MacBook Pro earned a score of 18,055 on the multi-core test, outperforming 13-inch machines from companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and Microsoft. That score beats out all 2017 MacBook Pro models and is faster than some iMac configurations. 15-inch MacBook Pro models with 6-core 8th-generation Intel chips will show even more impressive speeds. With that said, the 13-inch MacBook Pro didn't quite measure up to other machines when it came to GPU performance. "The 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro uses Intel's Iris Plus Graphics 655 with 128MB of embedded DRAM and was unable to compete in a Dirt 3 graphics test, getting only 38.8 frames per second," reports Mac Rumors. "All Windows-based machines tested offered much better performance."
I just brought my Mac in for 'service'. 2 year old machine, my keyboard had the known issues, my USB-C ports were failing, and then it stopped charging altogether. Fortunately the SSD seemed to be the one thing that was still working. The IO board was gone, and they acknowledged that the keyboard and ports needed replacing. Now, cheers to Apple for giving me an entirely new laptop body; but what happens when the same failures happen in two years and I DON'T have Apple Care? Total bullshit.
It's one hell of a display, though... I'm looking at it now, and it beats the crap out of any other laptop display I've seen.
Linux enables me to spend a great deal more on a laptop or a workstation actually. I see this anemic little SSD and chuckle. So what if it's "fast". I would rather have more storage.
I can get 2.5TB of SSD storage on a Linux laptop.
My old bruiser has 2.5TB of conventional storage. My "outdated" bruiser probably still has a better GPU than this Apple toy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If apple has the fastest ssd now, then it is only for a very short time, because it will be 3 years before they replace the model, and so during 95% of the life of their laptop, it will be inferior quality to the competition.
Are you an extreme narcissist looking at a black screen?
If you had had the pleasure of working with any good Macs like the MacPlus, for example, you'd understand what he talks about. His point is that Apple stuff is crap nowadays, and I concur. It's such a crap.
I've seen programmers with this attitude. "We only need one method or function. Having it all in one place is better." Hmmmm.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
If this is true that the speed it measured via file copy and the filesystem has a feature to speed this up either this is a non story or at least the summary is wrong. This has NOTHING to do with the disk speed, if this is copying through a CoW like scheme.
quote:
"To be fair, Appleâ(TM)s relatively new APFS file system is designed to speed up file file copies using a technology Apple calls Instant Cloning. But a win is a win."
A 5 year old computer is slower than a new one? I' m shocked.
Yes it seems like something of a rather tall claim, especially as there are luggable workstations out there with nvme storage. Plus what are those shiteboxes getting a paltry 270MB/s. My ancient laptop from 2010ish happily does that, which is close to the theoretical maximum of its SATA II interface.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Some research turns up that:
In other words, the files weren't copied. A hard link (similar to a shortcut for you Windows users) was created. The whole story is an error by non-techie journalists who noticed something wildly odd in their test results, and rather than spend 30 seconds researching it online like I did, decided "it must be because it's Apple!" and published it. The reality distortion field is alive and well.
Apple has been using Sandisk NAND lately as a bid to try to reduce dependence on Samsung. Both Sandisk and Toshiba SSDs (also used frequently by Apple) regularly benchmark slower than Samsung SSDs.
Making it worthless unless you like super expensive and shit servers that only run one OS.
$2500+ for something with a display only slightly larger than a tablet? No thanks.
You know as laptops for a given performance get smaller and lighter the price tends to go up rather steeply. And you don't get very light laptops with large screens.
Though it's still a mac so it still has a shitty keyboard.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Then he should have said it that way. I agree that Apple quality is declined markedly since Jobs died. I don't think Apple's products are good anymore, despite the fast SSD. However, the OP's comment read like flamebait, that because he doesn't use Apple products, the story is irrelevant. And that's why I told him to grow up. Had he wrote that the fast SSD is irrelevant because Apple now generally produces low quality hardware and software, I would have considered it a reasonable assessment.
The cost of manufacture is a pretty small portion of the total cost of these systems. Sure, the marginal cost of a single CPU is fairly low, but the R&D investment is massive and the fab itself is several billion dollars that needs to be recouped somehow.
Never underestimate the stupidity inherent in all human beings.
Apple for giving me an entirely new laptop body; but what happens when the same failures happen in two years and I DON'T have Apple Care?
The same thing that happens anytime a 4 year old computer fails -- you need to make the decision of whether it's cheaper to pay for the repair or buy a new one (possibly from a different manufacturer). My last Macbook lasted just under 4 years before I ran into problems (screen blanked out randomly), and since that was in daily use (including commuting on the back of my bike), I consider that to be pretty reasonable.
I have a 7 year old Lenovo laptop that still runs fine, but it rarely leaves the house.
A 5 year old computer is slower than a new one? I' m shocked.
Ok, fair point. I'm stunned at the magnitude of the speed difference, though. My work laptop also has SSDs, and it doesn't install Windows 10 into a VM that fast - and it's a Lenovo W530; not exactly a slouch.
That's just awkward. You could have just said "shagging" and left the sheep alone, ya cunt.
You could have bought a $500 laptop, tossed a $100 SSD in it, and been equally blown away.
I have an SSD and it boots instantly. Apps and game levels are near instantaneous. Speed isn't my problem. With games taking up 100GB now, even my 500GB SSD is constantly running out of space. When I do upgrade, I'll get a fast replacement, but size, not speed will be my primary requirement,
I'm running Linux on an old, beat-up 17" Macbook Pro. It does the job but the keyboard is a pain to use, e.g. why don't Apple know the difference between backspace and delete? Why not have an extended keyboard, which includes lots of convenient, time-saving keys, on a 17" laptop?
I swapped out the old HDD for an SSD (Basic Samsung 500GB) as soon as I got it and you know what? The SSD does everything faster than the rest of the laptop.
BTW, super-fast SSDs are only useful if you frequently transfer very large files, e.g. whole disk image backups. You won't notice the difference for normal day-to-day use.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
You paid $2500 for a device that was built for maybe $300. I don't understand why people continue to pay such prices for mainstream technology.
For once, I totally agree. Macs are insanely overpriced by any measure. And the days of "it just works" are far, far behind us. That may have been true at some point but not now.
I have no idea why people buy Macs in general- the hardware is crazy expensive, fixing them is crazy expensive, performance is okay but nothing to brag about, and the Mac ecosystem is a jumbled hodgepodge of half-baked shit. iTunes is the best example of a shit UI and functionality all rolled into a bloated mass of crap that's basically just a fucking file sync system (when it works).
But then I also don't understand why people buy pre-ripped jeans. They pay triple for an artificially ruined piece of clothing ("artfully distresssed" in fashion lingo) and then brag about it. WTF?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I'm not impressed by the Mac displays....they used to be very good but now they're just on par with offerings by every other manufacturer. I use a Mac at work and sitting next to a $500 laptop from Acer or Dell or anyone else it looks pretty much the same.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
My work laptop also has SSDs, and it doesn't install Windows 10 into a VM that fast - and it's a Lenovo W530; not exactly a slouch.
You're on the wrong side of the PCIe attached storage divide. The W530 has a weedy 6Gb/s SATA-III interface (my W510 has weedier SATA-II). The good Samsung drives can manage about 5x SATA-III speed on writes and more on reads.
Actually looking that up, I notived that the benchmark for the supposed "fastest SSD in a laptop" almost exactly matches the Samsung 970 EVO drive benchmarks.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Fortunately for Apple, they're not the ones doing the R&D on the CPU.
You are welcome on my lawn.
OEM SSDs are notoriously overpriced (ie, the markup is HUGE) and they are notoriously the bottom of the line. That said, this seems to be about standard for an NVMe SSD running PCIe x4 over DMI.
True: and it more or less perfectly matches the measured benchmarks for the Samsung EVO 970.
Even if the "comparison" machines were using comparable hardware, the limitation is within the OS -- Windows cannot do I/O (of any type) with any efficiency whatsoever.
Yeah I was wondering that. Some of the benchmarked laptops were running at SATA-II speeds: my old linux laptop wiht SATA-II does 270MB/s happily.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well, yeah, because every decent manufacturer buys the same panels from Samsung that Apple is using. I don't know why anyone ever thought Apple's displays were some special magic that nobody else had access to... it's not like they make them in-house.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
SSDs are already really fucking fast... Marketing this is a moot point. Your average consumer (worst, your average APPLE consumer) won't be able to tell the difference, assuming there actually is one.
I remember power cycling my Win7 laptop from college just for shits and giggles, being very impressed with the differences from installing your OS on a SSD over a HDD. That was 8~ years ago.
I tend to rant.
All the details are missing. What technology is being utilized? Those speed results are common in comparing SATA to NVMe SSDs. All the laptops I see with a M.2 are shipped with a SATA SSD. I find it hard to believe any laptop with a NVMe SSD is only getting 399.4 MB/s write speed (Dell XPS 13). For NVMe, I see 2100 MB/s on the low end and 2600 MB/s on the high end (with X4). The "BlackMagic Disk Speed test for macOS" returned a score of 2,682 MB/s, which I admit is pretty fast for a laptop, but not "insane". A better question is what are the failure rates? NVMe SSDs get hot. What cooling technology breakthrough is Apple using? Is there an empty 2.5 inch bay for more storage and backup (like my HP)? Without proper cooling, NVMe SSDs are begging to fail.
I did this yesterday. A maxed out 2018 MacBook Pro cost $7000.
I built an Oryx system 76 laptop with maxed out (and better) specs for $5000.
That's $2000 cheaper.
But the counterargument is - who the hell needs a 4K or 5K display in a 13" laptop. Which could also be said of the "fastest SSD in any laptop".
We've long passed the time when desktop/laptop hardware improvements actually improve the experience of using the device - and we're rapidly approaching that time for mobile devices too. There may be some use cases that demand the best/fastest/highest resolution hardware money can buy - but it's not your average MacBook user's use case.
Which, I guess in a way is a shame. Improvements in commodity hardware led the way to improvements everywhere. Server hardware got cheaper because they could use RAID arrays of the same commodity hard drives that desktops - and later laptops - used, benefiting from the economies of scale that apply to consumer hardware, even though servers didn't sell at anywhere near those levels. But that party's over - and since most server platforms today scale horizontally, they have other ways of improving performance than relying on raw horsepower improvements.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Remember to separate price (objective) from value (subjective). If you don't value the lightness, the price increase is just a negative.
And, for a fair comparison and as by your statement ("make sure that all data matches"), the macbook should also match the alternative. I would expect a $3500 device to have a USB-A port, and would value that more than -300 g.
That said, I sometimes explain (and demonstrate) to my coworkers that their $1400 equivalent Lenovo T-series laptop is not, in fact, equivalent (2 cores instead of 4, lower CPU speed, SATA SSD, intel GPU) to my MBP (no touchbar). (It is easy to demonstrate; build times are consistently ~30% lower on my laptop than theirs, no hocus-pocus.) Equally specced out, the price difference turns out marginal, as you indicate. And then my smug glee turns into a frown as they go to IT and get 32 MB installed while I am stuck with 16.
"To be fair, Apple’s relatively new APFS file system is designed to speed up file file copies using a technology Apple calls Instant Cloning. But a win is a win."
They should have tried with a 260 GB file, it would have been at the same speed. And the resulting two copies wouldn't even fit on the disk.
The Apple products you have used must also have been eight years old then (ok, maybe four), if by outperforms you mean generally run faster.
The T400:s are great machines, but neither my T430 with a SATA SSD or the newer ones my colleges at work have, touch my 2015 MPB in speed. And the MBP touchpad makes the T4?0:s feel like toys.
Depends on the game, the difference between FO4 on an SSD and an HDD is noticeable. Most of the doors in that game = loading new area.
you never know what you're getting. To be fair, you've pretty much got to go with Asus or one of the boutique gaming laptop companies like iBuyPower to get that though, and you usually pay a $200 premium. But, well, the Apple premium blows that out of the water...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
it's not even close. Now get off my lawn.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
People are weird like that. Being cheap on their food, bed, work equipment and other thing that actually matter while lavishly spending on all kinds of nonsense.
The T400:s are great machines, but neither my T430 with a SATA SSD or the newer ones my colleges at work have, touch my 2015 MPB in speed.
A laptop 3 years older, and substantially cheaper is slower? Well... yes. A good bit of the reason is the T430 probably has SATA, not NVMe, for the disc.
I've got a 2017 MBP for work and I'm not overly impressed, compared to other high end laptops of the same general vintage. The touch pad's OK I guess, but I'm not really a mouse heavy user (though the mac interface makes being so less easy than I'd like), and the keyboard is awful.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It’s the “one giant switch in a while loop” design pattern.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
What I'm thinking about here is the loss of connectivity options. Most laptops now do not have Ethernet, a couple of USB A ports, HDMI connectivity, a separate charging port. Instead, the result is dongle hell. There might be one or two USB C ports, one of which is for charging. Try to add a wireless mouse with one of those tiny USB A connectors and some other USB A device at the same time. Maybe it'll use unreliable Blue tooth. SSD connectors also seem to be disappearing. With the advent of routers with Giga bit Ethernet, Wi-Fi may not cut it for your home intranet much less Wi-Fi connectivity to a Giga bit, or slower, cable Internet connection. Other readers can think of losses in capability for their own situations.
There surely have been improvements in laptops such as higher quality screens, touch screens, two-and-one hardware, energy efficient electronics giving much longer on battery use, lighter weight, etc. But, laptops are generally meant to be easily portable. Thinner, lighter devices requiring a bulky dongles somewht reduce that advantage
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
The cost of manufacture is a pretty small portion of the total cost of these systems. Sure, the marginal cost of a single CPU is fairly low, but the R&D investment is massive and the fab itself is several billion dollars that needs to be recouped somehow.
Exactly.
Looking at BOM costs only as the arbiter of what retail price of a high tech product should be is ignorant, dangerous and naive.
Remember to separate price (objective) from value (subjective). If you don't value the lightness, the price increase is just a negative.
And, for a fair comparison and as by your statement ("make sure that all data matches"), the macbook should also match the alternative. I would expect a $3500 device to have a USB-A port, and would value that more than -300 g.
That said, I sometimes explain (and demonstrate) to my coworkers that their $1400 equivalent Lenovo T-series laptop is not, in fact, equivalent (2 cores instead of 4, lower CPU speed, SATA SSD, intel GPU) to my MBP (no touchbar). (It is easy to demonstrate; build times are consistently ~30% lower on my laptop than theirs, no hocus-pocus.) Equally specced out, the price difference turns out marginal, as you indicate. And then my smug glee turns into a frown as they go to IT and get 32 MB installed while I am stuck with 16.
Just think how your smile will return when you submit that requisition for a 6 core, 32 GB MBP next time around...
People talk like that but at least custom drivers don't break constantly in Windows.
Hmm. Reports of Windows 10 borking people's factory custom drivers are frequent. Just had a customer bring in his quite expensive HP EliteBook following the double whammy of the Windows 10 1803 upgrade and an update to his Intel graphics driver. The laptop would not light up the screen when waking up from sleep mode.
I don't understand why people continue to pay such prices for mainstream technology.
$2500 spread over 5 years, is less than 1% of a developer's salary. If a Mac makes you more productive, then buying it is a no-brainer.
The build cost is irrelevant.
Americans, in particular, typically confuse Price and Value. They continually do stuff like count Ports, GBs, etc,to determine "value", even if strapped together with chewing gum and bailing wire, and a hodgepodge of sweatshop-produced Drivers into a "Product" that will be in a landfill in 2 or 3 years.
Can just be upgraded to whatever the fastest is.
The current generation of Macbooks will have nearly zero resale value once their Applecare coverage ends.
That's highly unlikely, if history is any judge.
That's the one - monster fucking object of doom. 47,000 methods and 46,999 are getters and setters.
No it's not the same as having a load of globals, can't you see how OO it is?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Dell's whole Latitude series supports NVMe M.2 cards. Even the cheapest 3490 (starting at $450).
However, you need to buy a 5xxx series to get 4x and not a 2x slot.
"happens when the same failures happen in two years and I DON'T have Apple Care?"
I've had design/component failures on two of my Macs, both in and out of warranty. They were always fixed for free, including many nitpicky little things like a missing key cap, added RAM that didn't meet specs, etc. When the Geniuses see a 'known problem' they seem to fix it regardless of warranty. YMMV.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Now if only they'd spec higher quality and better QC'd keyboards...
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I want magsafe so my toddler won't destroy my mac while crawling around, a few usb ports I can use without a dongle, my F-keys, and a sane keyboard.
Also, the most important thing to know about a prospective SSD is: does it have power loss protection?
Last I checked, only Crucial and Intel did. Which for me made them the only viable options, even if they aren't the fastest.
Don't care what you Irish think.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
It's pretty much irrelevant; the difference in speed in unnoticeable unless you've got them side side and are doing a direct comparison. A decent SSD and a top of the line one FEEL the same for general computing.
Of course if he's got his laptop hooked up in a datacenter serving database content to thousands of users, it's going to make a big difference. But if that's the case he's a moron anyway.
16GB for HOW MUCH?! $2,499?!!!? Wait... maybe it has a 10K display. That would account for it.
Just wait until you find out what your car is assembled with: http://www.nord-lock.com/bolte...
I have two decades worth of Macs and display, actually I do not need anything better than my 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro or my similarly old 24" Dell 4K UltraSharp. Spending that much money to a vendor locked in product for a display that you rarely see a difference and makes every day work tasks less optimal (incompatible colorspace documents and receded 8-bit per colour channel effective sRGB dynamic range) does not make too much sense. https://rene.rebe.de/2014-01-2...
I have been on Macs for the last decade, I gave up, macOS at this point is just crippled abondoneware. Also their non standard vendor lock-in hackery is going too far. Even the iGPU is hidden behind "secret" EFI magic now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Guess how much my new AMD Ryzen build screams, 12 TB + SSD cache Linux server, f*ck yeah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I gave up buying Apple stuff in 1988
So, let me get this straight:
The las Apple Computer you bought had one of the following CPUs:
1 MHz 6502
2 MHz 65816
20 MHz 68020
25 MHz 68030
Think there's been any performance advances between that and a 2.9 GHz, 6 core Intel CPU? Think your comment has even a scintilla of relevance to this discussion?
Didn't think so.
Now if they would just put all the ports they thoughtlessly ripped out back, put the magnetically coupled charging port back, and give it a reliable, fully-functional keyboard like they USED TO MAKE, they would have a laptop I might consider buying.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Linux enables me to spend a great deal more on a laptop or a workstation actually. I see this anemic little SSD and chuckle. So what if it's "fast". I would rather have more storage.
I can get 2.5TB of SSD storage on a Linux laptop.
My old bruiser has 2.5TB of conventional storage. My "outdated" bruiser probably still has a better GPU than this Apple toy.
That Apple "toy" can be configured with up to a 6 core CPU as well as 4 TB of the FASTEST laptop SSD around
Now what?
Just think how your smile will return when you submit that requisition for a 6 core, 32 GB MBP next time around...
"His name was James Damore."
Sadly I think the display is one of its most dated parts - it's hardly changed from the screen on my 2013 MacBook Pro. Which was great for its day, but falls far short of modern offerings.
Other laptops offer much higher resolutions like 3200x1800 or 3840x2160, real HDR, 120Hz frame rates, smaller bezels, touch sensitivity... the Alienware 13 even has OLED. While Apple is still serving up basically the same LCD "Retina" 2880x1440 displays for years now. They still have decent colour gamuts but nothing you can't get elsewhere. Frankly, if I didn't need macOS support then I'd be all over an XPS 15 instead, personally.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Wrong. "Dropping $4k on a new laptop" IS a biggie. I make more than $150k a year. No wonder people don't have any money with attitudes like that. That $4000 laptop cost about $300 to make. It just has a huge markup that is making Apple very very rich. If you want to transfer your money to Apple, then you have a problem.
Surely you're not that incompetent that you can't look it up yourself?
Anyway, similarly spec'd machines come in at:
Macbook Pro $4399:
6 Core i7
32GB RAM
2TB SSD
4GB Radeon 560X
Oryx $3381:
6 Core i7
32GB RAM
2TB NVME
8GB Geforce GTX 1070
So there's a big price gulf there and the Oryx provides a MUCH higher performance GPU (in terms of both graphics and compute) by a **very** wide margin.
Apple does sell bigger sizes than their defaults. I remember seeing 1 TB SSDs last year. Yes, I agree to take sizes over speed. Also, small sizes and prices are the problems. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Thing people over look We are also talking about a LAPTOP. Not really greatest thing for gaming most the time. 99.999% of people will never get any really noticeable benefit from 3.2GB/s read speeds that a good SATA3 ssd won't handle just fine if you can also get 2x the space for less $. On side note of ssd chips in soldered to the board, i have a dell with an m.2 slot i could put a SSD of same speed in and not have to replace the whole laptop if ssd fail's. I put a 500gb sata based m.2 in mine cause it was same price as nvme 256gb version and its quick.
Higher capacity of SSD's have more v-nand chips which means SSD controller will write to more chips hence speeding up write speeds. Think of each chip as a pipe, you can only get so much water down a single pipe, add in more pipe's then more water can transfer through.
How would a Mac make you more productive?
Because, unlike Windows, it comes with a full suite of Unix command line tools.
Because, unlike Linux, everything "just works". No futzing with drivers, or figuring out how to crop an image with Gimp.
I have a Mac. It doesn't make me more productive.
Then why do you have it?
How do you crop images? And how did you come to know this without having to figure it out?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Because, unlike Windows, it comes with a full suite of Unix command line tools.
Uh, the last time I tried to write a bash script in osx I had to do a whole bunch of strange notation crap to work around osx. So, yes it's nice that ssh works, but not exactly native unix.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Oh my lord. I have Thinkpads that are 12 years old and still running. They have been put in bins and thrown around. You think commuting on the back of your bike should be a factor with a laptop?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Get a P52 ThinkPad. Goes to 128 GB of RAM. Has a Xeon Proc. More than enough grunt to maintain Alpha Geek status.
The good news is that most popular games do not run on a Mac.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
How do you crop images?
Just click on the image, and it will open the right tool.
Uh, the last time I tried to write a bash script in osx I had to do a whole bunch of strange notation crap to work around osx.
You should learn to write portable code. I have plenty of scripts that work with no changes on OS X, FreeBSD, and Linux. When there are problems, it is usually Linux that is the outlier.
but not exactly native unix.
Yes it is. Mac OS X is a full Unix kernel by any criteria.
I think the real reason is because MacBooks have kind of become the Windows of the laptop world, you get them because it's what everybody else has so it's the safe bet. They're everywhere across airport lounges to university campuses and they can run macOS, Linux and/or Windows, they have very limited configuration options so they are easy to manage, when they do break you can just take them into the official shop for repair rather than having to send them off, Apple has left the high performance and lowend markets to their competitors and provide a middling product for the majority. There isn't really a compelling reason to get one but there's not really a compelling reason not to either, they even mitigate the relatively poor value proposition with 0% interest financing options.
These days the people who don't have them are the people who either don't want them or are at the very low end of the price bracket that is really dominated by Chromebooks. In recent years the quality value proposition has died off too, they used to be way more reliable but my last 3 macbooks have had to go in for repair from creaky chassis to dead USB ports to rattling fans which really comes from poor quality control but at least when they do go wrong it's easy to get them fixed. For high performance computing there are way better options but for your average user the MacBook "Pro" covers pretty much everything.
I really like having a 4K display in my laptop, 13" or 15". It provides much crisper / clearer text which is vital when programming with lots on text on screen. My next laptop is probably going to be the pixelbook 2 though, since it now runs linux client apps.
"Fastest SSD ever in a laptop" short of all the laptops released in the last few years with NVMe PCIe 4x SSD slots with a 960 Pro slapped in them. I have a Sager with a 960 Pro in it, though not clear if Apple is basing theirs on the 960 Pro, 970 Evo, or 970 Pro. As the benchmarks posted put it somewhere around the speed of the 970 Evo, but I also don't trust any of the benchmarks they've used.
This is why I found Ruby on Rails an exercise in despair. Big ass "Swiss army knife" objects with a billion methods, each one harder to find sane documentation than the previous.
Single area of responsibility folks, learn it.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Well, actually, he may have a point and I am probably 100% wrong about other OEMs using the same panels as Apple; Apple doesn't offer a 4K laptop, while almost every other OEM does. I not exactly a huge fan of MSI (anymore, long story), but the 4K panel in the MSI gaming laptop I bought in 2015, used for 2 years, then passed on to my wife still far surpasses the one in my 2016 MBP. This would not be the case if MSI were using the same panels as Apple; at best, it would be a tie.
I especially hope this is the case with regard to the MacBook Air. And PC OEM caught using those shit panels should be barred from producing laptops, indefinitely.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
A 4k 13" display has a PPI high enough to match phone display levels of readability. Small phone screens are very readable because the fonts are well defined.
Overall you are right though. A Lenovo or NEC laptop is pretty much perfect now, apart perhaps from the price.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I wonder if Apple does some factory colour calibration.
Other manufacturers do on some models, but often a better option is to buy yourself a colour calibration device. That way you can calibrate all your displays to be the same and suited to your work environment lighting.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"video games don't benefit that much from a SSD once the game is loaded."
This is not true at all anymore. Game assets are far too big to fit in memory anymore.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
"Look at the retail price for a Core i7 or i9"
In no universe does Apple pay retail prices for their CPUs.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
So you want to compare a $500 Acer to a $3000 Mac. That's how your going to claim it's a better panel?
You want me to compare a 2880 x 1800 to a 4k screen at 15 inches. Ok but you're not gonna like the results.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
You do work on a 13-15" screen? Are you a blogger?
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
Apple does, in fact, do some color calibration. However, what they do is simply to make the display more pleasing to the eye, rather than more accurate for any sort of professional use. My wife and I both work with color, we need accuracy, and we use a Spyder5 colorimeter to profile our displays for Adobe RGB, sRGB, and 6500K output. What we've found is that most panels are designed around 6500K (a white point near those used by both sRGB and Adobe RGB and often referred to as "daylight" in industries that work with color) and get pretty close even without calibration.
However, ever when pitted against relatively inexpensive standalone monitors (think $200 or less), I've noted that Mac displays are often underperformers, color requiring profiles with massive curves in order to output 6500K white, let alone sRGB or Adobe RGB. This was not the case just 8 years ago, especially with the matte displays; but it is the case today, and it mean that, even after calibration, the display on my $2400 MacBook Pro is outclassed by a $200 monitor or the panel in a $500 laptop.
Sorry, fanbois, but I need accurate color today, just as I needed it 8 years ago, and apple no longer provides it.
And before anyone stutters "bu---- bu--- but viewing angles!" Yes, the $500 laptop will have shit viewing angles compared to a Mac (unless we're talking about the MacBook Air). Two points, though: 1) I'm not usually working off to the side of my display, I angle it so that it is pointing directly at me and 2) if a $500 laptop's display offers more accurate color, a comparably-priced laptop's color should be (and, in my experience, actually is) even better. Point #2 is really important, here, as the comparably priced laptops are the ones people doing serious work are going to be buying, which means they're not just getting something comes close at about 20% of the price, they're getting something at the same price point that blows the Mac away.
Truth be told, I am writing this from a MacBook Pro. A 2016 model with intermittent keyboard issues and, as of recently, a flaky touch bar. Oh, and the display flickering... that'd be a GPU issue, as it only seems to happen during playback of hardware-decoded h.264 video. It's fine for software development, which is what it was bought for (a client is a Mac house and I need to be able to test on their platform). At least, when they keyboard isn't fucking up. But I have a PC workstation for the real work; if I have to tie it down with monitor cables anyway, I figured I should afford myself the extra horsepower Apple simply won't sell me.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
No it isn't. What is ignorant is paying a 5000% markup on a product that is mass produced. Now THAT is stupid.
Ok, let's use those numbers.
If the BOM cost of a MacBook Pro is in fact $300, then the MSRP for that product at 5000% markup would be:
$15,000
Isn't debunking Hater Hyperbole fun?
I guess Apple prefer displays that "pop", go insanely bright for epeen^W benchmarks and are very very thin. They have always been fond of using software to calibrate out limitations of hardware, such as their speakers.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Now, don't get me wrong, I love how a Mac's display looks uncalibrated -- for personal use. It's great for consuming media, videos and photos just pop and that's great for the consumer. The Pro line, though, needs accurate color, and the "pop" just makes it complete shit for doing what Macs have always been better at. Of course, that means Macs are no longer better at those things.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
You're kinda wrong. I've seen benches where certain apps go from 9 second load times to 6 second load times. Sure it's not that big of a deal when you're literally talking just a few seconds, but that's still a 33% increase in real-world performance.
I was going to say Netscape Navigator, but either way.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
...you get them because it's what everybody else has so it's the safe bet. They're everywhere across airport lounges to university campuses
Other than motivation for developers to write software, how does the fact that other people have a Mac (or PC, or whatever) make it a "safe bet"? What does that mean? That is, what is everyone betting on?
Most software we use these days (speaking very generally) is web based and works with any browser. What does it matter which platform the people around you use?
And I'm also unsure why having them in airports and campuses is some sort of benefit to anyone. No one is going to loan you their Mac just because you, a fellow Mac user, also have one and yours is broken or missing or whatever. If they were just scattered about and anyone could just pick one up and use it then that might be a benefit, but I don't see any significant benefit on a local level of just having other people owning the same item.
Maybe if you needed to borrow a cable that was Mac-specific, but that's a box that Apple has deliberately placed themselves in.
So why is owning a Mac a "safe bet"? What are we betting on, exactly?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
A $500 Acer doesn't have the same display as a MacBook Pro.
Thank you, that's exactly my point: it still looks every bit as good and crisp and sharp and colorful.
Like I said, I really can't see $2000 worth of difference between them.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
So you want to compare a $500 Acer to a $3000 Mac. That's how your going to claim it's a better panel?
What part of "looks pretty much the same" was unclear? I didn't say it was "better", I said it looked about the same as the much more expensive Macbook.
To recap: the $500 Dell sitting next to a $2500 Macbook looks damn near the same to me. If we masked off the screens I doubt most people would reliably be able to tell which was which.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Other than motivation for developers to write software, how does the fact that other people have a Mac (or PC, or whatever) make it a "safe bet"? What does that mean? That is, what is everyone betting on?
It's the same hardware and design that everybody else has so chances are if there is a serious design or manufacturing fault then everybody is going to have it and that puts much more weight behind it being fixed (see the keyboard issue as an example). Also community support is obviously much better when everybody is using the same product.
Most software we use these days (speaking very generally) is web based and works with any browser.
Maybe most software you use is, but that isn't the reality for most people. Many of the tasks common to the majority of users have web based versions but just because the majority of people do email, web browsing and IM doesn't mean that's all they do.
And I'm also unsure why having them in airports and campuses is some sort of benefit to anyone.
I'm unsure why you think I was implying that, feel free to point out why you think that though. What I'm saying is they're everywhere, if you need a laptop beyond simple web-based apps (for which a Chromebook should suffice) and you don't have any specific or demanding compute requirements then most people seem to just buy a MacBook.
Didn't do that for me on either mac or windows, it loaded a tool (preview.app) and i had to figure out the appropriate option to make it crop the image - no different to linux.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Truth.
I never bother with NVMe or even laptop M.2 slots when upgrading peoples' machines, I just throw a 2.5" SSD SATA drive in and everyone is always like "wow, it's so much faster."
Even on my big number-crunching machine (which for some reason the stupid proprietary software we use refuses to just use all the RAM, leaves half of it free, and does a shit-ton of small reads-writes to buffer files whose location is NOT CONFIGURABLE. Thanks.)... I tested moving from a SATA SSD drive to a PCI SSD and it didn't really make much performance difference in actual usage.
The move from 100 iops to 100000? Amazing. Going from 100000 to 400000? Meh.
Sam
I'm unsure why you think I was implying that, feel free to point out why you think that though. What I'm saying is they're everywhere, if you need a laptop beyond simple web-based apps (for which a Chromebook should suffice) and you don't have any specific or demanding compute requirements then most people seem to just buy a MacBook.
As I go through airports (frequently) and visit college campuses (occasionally), I do not see that most people have Macbooks...I see a mix of Chromebooks, Macbooks, and an overwhelming preponderance of Windows laptops.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
People who are serious about typing don't buy MacBooks any more. Apple keyboards used to be poor but acceptable, but they are just really poor.
My current workplace gave me a Macbook to use and yes, the keyboard is shit. Shit, shit, SHIT.
I've currently got it plugged into a spare Windows keyboard because the Mac keyboard is so sucky.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I guess that could be true: my parents can't tell the difference between SDTV and HDTV, after all.
Then why should they spend more of their money on an HDTV?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Well yes, anecdotal evidence but that doesn't refute any of the other premises I described.
Well yes, anecdotal evidence but that doesn't refute any of the other premises I described.
Yes, except that there are far more Windows laptops in the wild than Macbooks. If you want herd immunity or the benefits that come from swimming in the most popular lane, then you'd probably want to choose a Windows laptop.
Again, aside from the somewhat abstracted benefits of following popularity or prevalence in the computing ecosystem, it doesn't really confer any local advantage whether you go with a Windows laptop or a Macbook.
If 90% of the crowd in the airport or on campus has the same OS as you, that's nice, but that doesn't mean it confers any actual benefit to you in a tangible, personal way. They still won't loan you their charger or HDMI cable.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Yes, except that there are far more Windows laptops in the wild than Macbooks. If you want herd immunity or the benefits that come from swimming in the most popular lane, then you'd probably want to choose a Windows laptop.
Which one (or two)? Because it's not about just the OS, it's about the product as a whole. If there is some hardware or software issue with say an Acer VivoBook you're much less likely to find support for it than you are for a Macbook, the fact that new Macbook Pros had an undesirable keyboard was frontpage news on most tech sites!
Again, aside from the somewhat abstracted benefits of following popularity or prevalence in the computing ecosystem, it doesn't really confer any local advantage whether you go with a Windows laptop or a Macbook.
Of course it does, economies of scale operates in support and service as well.
If 90% of the crowd in the airport or on campus has the same OS as you, that's nice, but that doesn't mean it confers any actual benefit to you in a tangible, personal way. They still won't loan you their charger or HDMI cable.
I never said or implied that it did, it's weird that you're still harping on about this when I already pointed that out to you. Are you going to need it explained a third time or have you got it now?
Be happy with your Macbook and the ample supplies of specialty cables and dongles that it requires.
Maybe buy an SD card to expand your storage. Oh wait, you can't.
Well, maybe you can plug in your old headphones and listen to some music. Oh wait, you can't.
Perhaps just plug any old USB gadget you have laying around. Oh wait, you can't.
Okay, then pop off the bottom of your Macbook and plug in some more memory. Oh wait, you can't.
As sucky as Windows is, on most PC laptops none of those things are an issue.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I have a 2015 MBP and I'm sticking with that as long as I can for exactly the reasons you stated there being downsides of the newer versions. I'm not advocating for the Macbook, I'm saying it's the mediocre middle ground that is really a jack of all trades and master of none. For any specialized use case you would almost definitely go for some kind of Windows laptop, I mean even the highest spec, most expensive Macbook Pro is a *long* way from the laptop performance crown in pretty much every measurable way.
I have a 2015 MBP and I'm sticking with that as long as I can for exactly the reasons you stated
I rest my case. :)
I really don't see any benefit(s) in buying a Macbook, but if someone else wants one then have at it.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I'm not trying to sell you on the idea, I'm just explaining why the macbook is the product for the herd mentality.