- Hey guys, this is Austin.
This is the brand new, 2018 13 inch MacBook Pro.
And inside there are going to be some decent improvements,
including an update to the eighth gen Intel core processors.
The only downside is that this laptop
is $1800, and that's for the base model.
So of course the question is, is it worth it?
For context, this is the Dell XPS 13.
It's going to be the late 2017 model,
which means that even though the hardware
is slightly different compared to the 2018 edition,
it is going to have very similar specs,
but surprise, surprise,
this guy is going to cost a whole lot less.
Look, I get it, Macs have always been priced
on the premium side of things.
And this is absolutely no exception.
When you consider that this is the base model
that costs $1800, even someone who's interested
in a Mac is going to think that's a lotta money.
Unless you're, I don't know, Tim Cook or something,
and you have these lining your bathroom.
I guess, I don't know, I don't think Tim Cook does that.
But now it's not all bad.
This generation of MacBook Pro is hands down
the nicest piece of laptop hardware
that you can buy today in my opinion.
The build quality of this guy is absolutely on point.
It's made entirely out of aluminum,
and especially when you look at the little tiny details,
it is clear, that Jony Ive and the boys
spent a lot of time paying a lot of attention to detail.
And that's something I appreciate.
No part of this is going to be rattling or squeaky,
or feel sort of unbalanced.
It is all a very, very nice piece of hardware.
The already great display has been upgraded
with True Tone tech, which just like on the iPhone
and on the iPad, is going to allow the screen
to adjust it's white balance to better suit
the room that you're in.
Now, personally for me, I don't find this very useful
because when I pay this much for a laptop,
I wanna very color accurate display
for things like photo and video editing.
But I mean, it's a nice feature
and is something new.
So I guess if you're in Japan, or you could pick this up
for like 25 bucks...
The speakers are also terrific.
So as far as that 13 inch laptop goes,
these are about as good as it gets.
Not only are they facing you,
which is very important, when you know, you have speakers
that are not facing downward like a lot of them,
but they're also very rich, they're very deep,
and they've got a lot of volume.
I also think the Apple T2 chip inside
is a fairly big deal.
So this is going to be a dedicated processor,
which is going to handle a lot of the lower level things,
such as things like the Touch Bar, the webcam,
things like your audio, and even your SSD,
which is going to speed things up, and importantly,
also give you some better security in the future.
That T2 chip also enables the webcam to be upgraded
to a full 1080p.
It's not exactly going to be the best thing in the world,
unlike the XPS 13, which unfortunately has the webcam
not only below the screen, but it's also all the way
to the left side for some bizarre reason.
All of the downsides of the previous generation MacBooks
are also here as well.
So you're still going to be getting a very similar keyboard.
Now it is going to be slightly tweaked here
to be a little bit quieter, and supposedly more reliable,
but there's still not a lotta actual keyboard travel.
And the Touch Bar is, well still the Touch Bar.
So it's here, it's going to give you access
to things like being able to easily adjust your volume,
your brightness, which is mostly what I use it for,
or you could also do stuff like get shortcuts or whatever.
But, I mean, it's fine, it's there.
But it doesn't really do a lot.
The most noticeable downside of the last gen though,
are going to be the ports.
There are still just four USB-C ports,
you know, like the last two MacBooks.
However, it's going to be a little bit more complicated
than just that.
So if you get the standard, non Touch Bar version
of the MacBook Pro, not only is it not going to be updated
with the eighth gen processors,
so the 2017 model is just rolling over,
but you're also only going to be getting two Thunderbolt 3 ports.
I mean, sure that's fine if you wanna plug in,
you know, a power adaptor and a single dongle,
but that's not a lot for a laptop
that's still going to cost you about $1300.
If you move up to the Touch Bar model,
you're going to be getting
a pretty decent performance bump.
So this is going to be a very respectable
quad-core processor, and in this case with the base model,
we're getting the Core i5-8259U on the 13 inch.
Unlike the U-series processors
in basically all the competition
which are running at 15 watts,
the MacBook Pro is going to be running at 28 watts.
And that might not sound like a big deal,
but having doubled the power budget
is going to allow them to not only get higher clock speeds
out of that Core i5, but also include better graphics.
What that means is that even the base Core i5 MacBook
is going to be able to outperform the Core i7 version
of the XPS 13, and of course it's going to be a big jump
over the non Touch Bar MacBook.
The inclusion of Iris graphics on this guy,
in this case the 655,
is also going to mean that you're getting
a pretty sizeable bump to the graphics performance.
Again, it's not going to be anywhere near
as much as say, something like a dedicated GPU,
but considering that you're still getting
all the power savings, with just better graphics,
is definitely not going to be a bad thing.
The SSD in the new MacBook is also really fast.
Now again, I have the late 2017 version of the XPS 13,
but they are both going to be using a 256 gigabyte
NVMe SSD, and as you can see, while the XPS is fast,
by pretty much any standards,
the 2018 MacBook is just going to be straight up faster.
But again, and when we come back to price,
that's where the MacBook starts
to look a little bit more shaky.
At $1800 for the base model,
this is one of the most expensive
13 inch MacBooks you can get.
And again, and with the base model,
you're only going to be getting eight gigs of RAM
and 256 gig SSD.
When you think about it from a value perspective,
it gets even worse the more you spec it out.
So you can easily upgrade this guy over $3000
and that's not even the max spec.
Throw a two terabyte SSD on this guy,
and uh,
yeah.
To put that in context, you could build
a pretty solid XPS 13 with the Core i7,
and that same eight gigs of RAM,
and 256 gig SSD, for over $500 less.
Now sure, there are definitely going to be some advantages
of going with the MacBook, but that's a lotta money.
Now the extra performance of the MacBook is nice,
stuff like having a better display
and another USB-C port is helpful.
But at the end of the day, these are going to be
pretty comparable laptops.
This one just happens to cost a lot more.
Honestly, what might be a better option
is going to be this guys bigger brother,
the 15 inch MacBook Pro.
For only a few hundred more dollars,
you're going to be getting an upgrade
to the H series processors,
which means that you're getting a standard
six core Core i7, as well as standard 16 gigs of RAM.
A $200 option on this guy, and on top of all of that,
you're going to be getting dedicated graphics.
Something that's not going to be an option
on any SKU of the 13 inch MacBook Pro.
The new MacBook Pro is a good laptop.
You're getting solid performance,
a great build, but it's just really expensive.
You've got to be a very specific kind of person
to wanna spend this much money on a 13 inch laptop.
If that's you, by all means go for it.
It is a solid option.
But for most people, I think they will be much better served
with something like a MacBook Air that wasn't super old.
(clearing throat) If Apple could please update
some of their other MacBooks, that would be great.
(mellow music)