Apple has taken the wraps off of its brand new MacBook Pro. It's a beautifully designed piece of hardware, with several innovative touches (quite literally). However, there are some annoying caveats potential buyers will have to beware.
Fans have waited a long time for a new MacBook Pro, as it's been four long years since Apple updated its premium laptop in any major way. Today saw their patience rewarded, with Apple unveiling the new MacBook Pro, which comes in three distinct flavors.
The headline feature is the new Touch Bar, an OLED touchscreen strip which sits between the keyboard and the screen. This offers a selection of gestures and taps based on what the user is doing at that moment. So if you're editing photos, the core editing tools will be displayed on the Touch Bar. And if you're typing a message, word suggestions and emojis will be displayed.
Other new features include a dedicated button for summoning Siri, a Touch ID fingerprint scanner, and a large Force Touch trackpad. The new MacBook Pro is also smaller and lighter than the old one, boasts a brighter, better, and more colorful display, and a battery life of up to 10 hours.
Which all means that Apple did indeed leak its own hardware 48 hours before the Hello Again event. Which is flabbergasting, quite frankly.
One More Thing...
We have listed all of the positive elements of the new MacBook Pro, but there are some major downsides worth mentioning too.
The new MacBook Pro has a headphone jack (yay!) and Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, but that's all. There are no regular USB ports, no SD card reader, and no HDMI port. Apple is also killing the MagSafe connector that ensured no one ever tripped over the power cable plugged into your MacBook.
And then there's the price. The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and no Touch Bar comes in at $1,499. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and the Touch Bar is priced at $1,799. And the premium 15-inch MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and the Touch Bar tops the bill at $2,399.
You can pre-order the new MacBook Pro from today, with the entry-level model already in stores, and the other two models shipping in 2-3 weeks.
What do you think of the new MacBook Pro? Which model will you be buying? Do you like the look of the new Touch Bar? Or would you prefer the traditional function keys? Does the price of the new MacBook Pro put you off at all? Please let us know in the comments below!