- It's not that bad but it still has problems.
Hey everybody, this is Roberto Blake of robertoblake.com
and today we're gonna be geeking out over
my new MacBook Pro in Space Gray with a nice
cover on it.
Some of you may remember I did an Apple rant
about the 2016 MacBook Pro and I have the new
2017 MacBook Pro and this is gonna be my primary
mobile video editing workstation.
I am still looking into a PC just to
run against this and also as a laptop
for a second video editor that's gonna be working with me,
so there will be a PC laptop video editing series
coming pretty soon to the channel
and there might be a couple of product reviews
but we're gonna focus on the MacBook Pro.
MacBook Pro is a gorgeous device.
There's no getting away from that.
As a stand alone laptop there are cheaper, better options
if all you need is a powerful laptop and work station,
however, if you are in the Apple ecosystem
then there's actually a caveat there.
The caveat here is the ecosystem
and if you are in that ecosystem then it's not about
the stand alone laptop as a product,
it's about the laptop, it's about the AirPods,
it's about the Apple watch, it's about the iPhone,
it's about the iPad, it's about Apple TV,
you know, all of those things that I actually own.
So Voltron is a really good analogy for here.
Spec for spec, dollar for dollar, every single Apple product
has a much better, cheaper competitor.
Stand alone, they do not cut it.
But with their powers combined,
the Apple products work seamlessly together,
and in terms of usability you only have to figure out
so many things.
They work together, flawlessly for the most part,
and you don't have to learn a new interface,
and new UI, you don't have to retain nearly
as much information and so, streamlining that process
is actually really practical for the majority of people.
This will not be my full review,
this is just more or less my first impressions
of working with it and some thoughts.
I am not a Final Cut user, I am an Adobe Premiere Pro
video editor through and through.
But because so many of you keep asking for it,
there will be Final Cut tutorials on this channel
and a little bit of other video editing software as well.
That being said, as an Adobe user and part of
that Adobe ecosystem, I have a few complaints.
The MacBook Pro, in my opinion, purposefully
diminishes the performance of Premiere Pro
in favor of Final Cut Pro.
Adobe Premiere Pro uses both OpenCL and OpenGL
and we've seen from all the amazing reviews
of people who've been doing AMD thread ripper builds
that AMD video graphics cards can perform in OpenCL
in Adobe Premiere when it comes to render times.
It is my opinion, that because Apple and Final Cut Pro
are a direct competitor of Adobe that they had no
incentive to optimize Adobe Premiere to work
with their hardware when they have their own competing
software that they could optimize to outperform there
because prior to Apple moving from
the NVIDIA graphics card chip set, like the GTX
and so on and so forth, to AMD and OpenCL
which they know Premiere Pro is not as optimized for.
Well, before that, most people were not making
the comparison between vastly superior render times
from Final Cut Pro to Adobe Premiere.
That's only a modern, recent argument, since that move
just a few years ago and that was a direct backlash
from the video editing community, in my opinion,
moving from Final Cut X, AKA Final Cut 10,
or as I think of it, iMovie Pro, to Adobe Premiere.
Most of us who were Final Cut Seven users
really did not like those changes
and the dumbing down of the interface.
It was something that was done, once again,
to leave pros behind for the average consumer
because Apple is a consumer electronics company now,
it's not a creative company anymore,
it's not for us creators anymore
as evidenced by the fact that I had to buy
an accessory just to have basic things
like an SD card slot so that I can use that
whenever I want to conveniently instead of having
to go USB type C for the Panasonic GH5
to USB type C to the MacBook Pro.
Which I supposed you could do it's just not what
I prefer to do and I should have that option as a pro
for a machine that I'm paying $3000 for,
I shouldn't have to buy accessories for simple tasks
like SD card slots and the like.
Also as a public speaker, the extra dongle stuff
just to have HDMI out, since most modern convention centers
still just barely use HDMI
and still VGA for their presenters,
you can't expect them to upgrade that to USB type C
anytime soon, I don't care how forward technology thinking
you are, that's not practical.
By the way, I'm not living in the past
on the USB type C thing, I actually had USB type C
in my Dell XPS 13 before the Mac's even thought
to put it in there, so there is that.
I had that for a whole year before Apple got onboard.
But again, over all my first impressions of having
used it and the ecosystem, using it with my new iPhone 8
is that it's a great experience to work with day-to-day.
The battery life is fantastic, the aesthetic is obviously
gorgeous, and from a workflow standpoint,
AirDrop is phenomenal if you're a social media person,
for me being able to work in Photoshop
and then be able to just push a button instead
of having to do this upload download thing
and have it on my phone, throw it up on Instagram
for you guys, that's been amazing.
I gonna link to some accessories and some things
that you should definitely get if you ever pick up
this laptop because there're quite a few of them.
You're gonna need some cables, you're gonna need some
other things, you're gonna need some dongles.
And I will link to the ones I think are best
in the description down below.
In terms of workflow and working with the Apple ecosystem,
especially if you're on IOS, I recommend it.
I think that it's a decent video editing laptop.
I haven't had any major issues with it.
Render times are not something I focus on as much,
I sent those things and forget it, walk away,
go do something else, and this definitely accommodates that.
I will be doing a full review on this laptop
a little bit later after I've used it longer.
It'll be an honest review because there's almost
zero chance that Apple will ever work with me
on anything and there's almost zero chance
because I am hyper critical of them
as someone who spends a lot of money with them.
There's zero chance of me working with Apple.
I will be doing some honest reviews on things
like the AirPods, the iPhone, and of course the MacBook Pro
and in a lot of these things I'm going to be very harsh,
I'm going to be very critical
because as someone who's spending money
I think you have a right to do that
and again, the way I'm gonna do my reviews is
I use this stuff for my business,
I don't use this to play around, I don't use this
stuff casually, and so I want you to have an informed
dissenting opinion that is not
someone who's a fanboy of Apple,
but someone who's an old school fan
who has learned to live with a little bit of disappointment
in the fact that they've left professionals behind
for the consumer market and so
I'm going to address those things from the point of view
of a professional who uses this
in their business day-to-day.
So, that's something you're into, you'll definitely
want to stay tuned, more videos are coming.
And I'd love to know, what tools are you using
for content creation, what tools are you using
day-to-day for your online business?
Let me know in the comment section.
Like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe, check out the other
awesome stuff on the channel.
As always you guys, thanks so very much for watching
and don't forget, create something awesome today
on whatever laptop you happen to have.
Take care.
By the way, I did put together what I consider
to be the ultimate 2017 laptop buyers guide.
If you are looking for an alternative to the MacBook Pro
you should definitely check that out.
I cover a lot of different laptops at different budgets,
for different scenarios, whether you're a student,
whether you're a gamer, whether you're a graphic designer,
video editor, whether you're just using this for business,
I did make some recommendations.
I also did talk about other MacBook laptop products
that you can consider beyond the MacBook Pro
and what might fit your budget.
So definitely check that out,
it'll be linked in the description down below.
Also up here in the info card.