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00:00Hey, how's it going guys? This is Dave2D, and this is my review of the 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro.
00:16So this is the fully spec'd out version, the 2.9 GHz CPU, and the Radeon Pro 460.
00:22It retails for $3,100 US, it's pretty steep.
00:25The exterior is super clean, there's no light-up logo anymore, but the build quality is amazing.
00:30Literally the best on the market.
00:32The XPS 15 and the 14-inch Razer Blade are the closest, but they're still pretty far off.
00:38Machining on this MacBook is really impressive.
00:40The 13-inch base MacBook Pro had two Thunderbolt 3 ports.
00:44I really didn't like how few there were, but the 15-inch MacBook Pro has four of these ports,
00:48a much more comfortable number.
00:50A lot of people are upset about the adapters and dongles that we need to kind of make everything work now.
00:54And I get it, my camera uses an SD card slot, I need to use an adapter now to make everything work.
00:59But in 2018, like a year from now, people will not care about the old-school USB port.
01:05It's important now because we're in a transitionary period, but this is what you need.
01:09You need people like Apple and Lenovo and HP, like you need the popular computer companies
01:14to be aggressive and stick USB-C ports in everything so that accessory makers will adapt and bring us those devices as well.
01:21I want USB-C mice, I want USB-C everything.
01:24And the best way to do it, an aggressive way to do it, is doing this.
01:28It sucks while you're in the transitionary period, but a year from now, we'll be good.
01:32This is a keyboard that takes time to appreciate.
01:34I didn't like the keyboard on the 12-inch MacBook.
01:37The first-gen butterfly switches were pretty lame, and I never got used to them.
01:40These switches are better, and I would say that the biggest difference for me is that after using it for a week,
01:45I've gotten used to it, and I actually really like this keyboard.
01:47When you try it for the first time, it's going to feel terrible because it's probably very different from what you're used to.
01:52The travel is short, the keys feel too big, and the arrow keys are in that weird spot
01:56where you might hit shift when you're trying to press the up arrow.
01:58Keyboards are all about personal preference, but I think most people can learn to like this keyboard.
02:03The display is awesome. Very bright, with great color gamut and accuracy.
02:07It's noticeably better than last year's model.
02:09I don't know if I'd call it the best screen because there are some excellent 15-inch screens out there.
02:14I prefer the display on the XPS 15, but this is a fantastic display. It's definitely one of the best.
02:19If you're unfamiliar with the touch bar, it's basically a strip of touchscreen with configurable software buttons and controls.
02:26And this strip replaced all of the function keys on the keyboard.
02:30And when I first got this laptop in, I used the touch bar as much as I could to get a feel for it,
02:34so I could form an opinion on it.
02:36And like most reviewers, I found it cool, like fun to play with, but certainly not revolutionary.
02:42And fast forward a week later, I find that I don't use this touch bar very much.
02:45There's nothing wrong with it. It works as intended. It's got great texture.
02:49It doesn't get all fingerprinty. The tech is solid, and touch ID works really well.
02:53My problem with the touch bar is that you have to look away from the screen to look at the touch bar to use it,
02:58and that inherently makes your workflow a little bit less efficient.
03:01So let's say you're in mail, and you're trying to manage your mail for the day.
03:04It's nice to have extra functions and commands available in the touch bar,
03:08but to use them, I have to glance down, press them, and then look back up.
03:12And the same thing goes with suggested words while you're typing,
03:15or if you're in the calendar app, or any of the touch bar features.
03:18Keyboard shortcuts let you maintain your focus on the screen,
03:21so I flag emails, edit videos, play StarCraft, all with keyboard shortcuts,
03:25so I don't have to look away from the screen.
03:27Now, there are some cool things you can do with it.
03:29I like scrubbing through videos, I love the integration with Apple Maps,
03:32I love Nyan Cat, and developers are working on better integration.
03:35But I feel like we've been here before, I feel like we've done the whole
03:38let's wait for developers to come up with something cool for it before we judge it.
03:41I don't know, I feel like it's something that I would probably never use very often.
03:45The speakers are really good.
03:47The baseline 13-inch MacBook Pro has killer speakers,
03:50so I thought these would be way better because there's more room to work with,
03:53but they sound very similar to the 13-inch.
03:55Possibly worse, like they have better bass, but not as clear sounding.
04:00Still really awesome speakers though.
04:03The trackpad is massive. It's a great trackpad.
04:06MacBooks still have the best trackpads, great texture, excellent Taptic mechanics,
04:10but this time, I think it's too big.
04:12So I'm someone who uses the right click as the secondary click,
04:16and not everyone does this, it's something a lot of Windows users do,
04:19and I'm getting occasional issues with palm rejection
04:21because my hand is making contact with the bottom right surface while left clicking,
04:25so it thinks I'm trying to right click.
04:27Okay, in terms of everyday lightweight performance like email and web browsing,
04:31this thing is super fast because the hardware is top end.
04:34The Skylake chip in here is one of the fastest laptop CPUs right now,
04:38and they're running ridiculously fast drives.
04:40Now sadly, these drives are soldered on, which is so annoying,
04:43you can't upgrade them or even replace them if they fail.
04:46It has 16 gigs of RAM. It's a bummer you can't upgrade it,
04:49but I'm actually okay with 16 gigs. It's enough for what I do.
04:52The GPU in here is the Radeon Pro 460.
04:55Now Apple talks it up a lot with some big numbers and cool graphs,
04:58but for what I use the laptop for, performance is not great.
05:02These are some render times for my last YouTube video.
05:04I use Adobe Premiere.
05:05These are the speeds of the top spec 2015 MacBook Pro from last year
05:09using OpenCL and Metal to render.
05:11And then this is from the top spec 2016 MacBook Pro, the one I have here.
05:15Performance is better, but it's pretty mild.
05:18And then these are some other setups I tested just for kicks.
05:21Now it's kind of silly to compare the performance cross-platform like this
05:24because Windows laptops have Nvidia cards and use CUDA acceleration,
05:27but the takeaway is this.
05:29If you're an Adobe user, particularly Adobe Premiere,
05:31this Apple laptop is going to perform worse than an equivalent Windows laptop.
05:36And I don't mean equivalent in terms of pricing
05:38because Apple laptops are always going to be more expensive.
05:40I'm talking about product tier.
05:42A top tier, thin and light, Windows laptop with a GTX 960M
05:46or a GTX 1050 that's coming out, those will outperform this MacBook easily.
05:52So if you're kind of contemplating getting one of these things
05:54and you're an Adobe user, you should probably end that train of thought
05:58and look at Windows laptops.
06:00Now if you're a Final Cut user, it's a completely different ball of wax.
06:03I don't use Final Cut, so I can't speak about it intelligently,
06:06but my understanding is this.
06:08Final Cut is awesome on this new MacBook Pro.
06:10In terms of gaming performance,
06:12this is a laptop that isn't really designed for heavy gaming,
06:15but I'll be doing a dedicated video for gaming on all the different MacBooks,
06:19including external GPUs, pretty soon, so stay tuned for that.
06:22The thermals are great.
06:24Even when going full tilt, the temperatures are very comfortable to use.
06:27Fan noise is silent on idle as usual,
06:29but on load, it's actually a little quieter than last year's model.
06:32It's a smaller battery this year.
06:34The CPU is more power efficient, and Mac OS has really good power management,
06:37so when I use the laptop for lighter stuff,
06:39like emails, web browsing, or media consumption,
06:42I'll hit 8 hours comfortably,
06:44but if I'm pushing it hard on a video edit,
06:46I'm getting shorter battery life than last year by around 20%,
06:49and I don't love that.
06:51The MagSafe connection is gone, and that's a bummer,
06:53but the removable cable on the AC adapter is awesome.
06:56I've had many frayed cables over the years that required new chargers,
06:59and now you can just replace the cable,
07:01so even though Apple is making some serious bank selling dongles,
07:04they're probably going to sell less power adapters.
07:06Okay, some closing thoughts here.
07:08I like the idea of the 15-inch MacBook Pro.
07:10I like the OLED strip, I like the Thunderbolt 3 ports,
07:13I like the display, I love the fast drive speeds.
07:15It has some shortcomings, but the overall package is really nice to use.
07:19The pricing, however, is ridiculous.
07:21It's essentially double the price of really good top-end Windows laptops,
07:26and compared to those, and even last year's MacBook Pro,
07:29like their top-end 15-inch MacBook Pro from last year,
07:32this doesn't make sense as to why this is so expensive.
07:35It's almost $1,000 more than it should be, in my opinion.
07:38Now, it's a good product, the feature set is good,
07:42the performance is good, but for most people,
07:44it just is way too expensive and overpriced.
07:47That's the end of this video. Hope you guys liked it.
07:49Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
07:51It's been nice. I'll see you guys next time.