Apple MacBook Pro 15 (Late 2016 2.9 GHz, 460) Notebook Review

[Redaktion]

Top spec. We already reviewed the entry-level of the new Apple MacBook Pro 15. Our test sample today is the high-end SKU, and the graphics card AMD Radeon Pro 460 is particularly interesting.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-15-Late-2016-2-9-GHz-460-Notebook-Review.195702.0.html

[Zoro]

Thank you for the review, but my opinion didn't change. It is an overpriced piece of junk. I can't understand why some people are willing to pay 3k for a laptop, based on the yesterday's technology.

[Klaus Hinum]

To be precise, at the time of announcement, the technology was not "yesterdays" as there were no Kaby-Lake quad-cores or Iris products (for the 13-inch) announced. Only the non touch bar version had an "old" chip. With validation and testing I guess a Kaby Lake quad based MBP15 would be possible for Apple earliest in 1-2 month (as they want to start with a decent quantitiy in store).

[Zoro]

To be precise, at the time of announcement, the technology was not "yesterdays" as there were no Kaby-Lake quad-cores or Iris products (for the 13-inch) announced. Only the non touch bar version had an "old" chip. With validation and testing I guess a Kaby Lake quad based MBP15 would be possible for Apple earliest in 1-2 month (as they want to start with a decent quantitiy in store).

I agree on that point, but i still don't get Apple's price policy. Usually, when a newer product arrives at the market, companies lower the prices for the older hardware, but not Apple.

And I also don't understand, why I should pay ~3.300Eur for a non UHD screen (which is still very decent - no complaints on that part), AMD Radeon 460 4GB, 16GB of RAM and 512GB PCI-E, whereas the comptetition, namely, Dell XPS 15 costs only 2099Eur with literally same specs (with a newer processor and much faster GPU).

Obviously Apple is not a piece of junk, as I metaphorically stated above, it is a wonderful piece of engineerig, which is still overpriced and lacks some necessary features (like MagSafe, ports).

So I don't get it - why should I, or anybody else, overpay almost 50% just to get MacOS? And don't get me wrong - I do not hate Apple, I love the company, I just don't like the direction it goes.

[Brandon]

Okay, some people in this comment section are just hilarious and I have to say this. The MBP15 is currently the best quad-core multimedia laptop. Period. I mean, there is not a single laptop on the market that even comes close to delivering the same level of user experience as the MBP15. And the same can be said about all other Macbooks as they're the best machines in their respective categories.

Yeah I admit windows laptops have come very far. But Macbooks always stick to a same philosophy: the input and the output.
1) No other laptop has a Macbook's trackpad. "Oh but you know, there are tons of mouse or third party toupads from wacom or logitech. Also the new Microsoft precision touchpad is great. And who needs a touchpad when you can have a touchscreen?"
2) No other laptop comes with Macbooks' quality speakers or internal DAC. "Who cares? And if you want, there're portable wireless speakers or audiophile headphones. There're tube amps, high end dacs, thunderbolt audio interfaces and audio receivers more expensive than your car, and 11.1 channel cinematic studio monitors more expensive than your house."
3) No other laptop has a Macbook's keyboard. "Key travel isn't there and my finger oil gets all over it. Traditional laptop keyboards from a decade ago were so good. What about Portable bluetooth keyboards? cherry-switch Mechanical keyboards? Or you can buy laser holographic keyboards these days."
4) No other laptop has Macbooks' display quality. "Dell's 4K? HP's IGZO IPS? High-end gaming laptops? Laptops with OLED displays? Anyone can buy 27" gaming monitors. And that new 200" 8K OLED widescreen monitor with a 144hz refresh rate?"
5) No other laptop has 4 thunderbolt 3 ports. "I hate dongles, and 5GB/s external storage isn't here yet."
6) No other laptop has Macbook's build quality. "But HP and Razer also use full body aluminum. Oh and they say metal absorbs shock so it's bad for internal components. And what about Business laptops? Mil-Spec certified? Semi-rugged/waterproof and Fully-rugged laptops?"
7) No other laptop has OS X. "OS X is for babies who don't understand sophisticated world of Linux or Windows. And if you really want one, there's hackintosh."
8) No other 15" laptop has top of the line mobile CPU and an entry level gaming GPU in a 15mm, 1.8kg chassis. "Who cares about slim and light? I work out and I'd say even 4kg feels like a feather. And those babies can pack the latest Xeon server CPU and desktop Nvidia 1080 graphics"
9) No other laptop with similar configuration has 10 hour battery life. "Big deal. Like anyone's actually gonna play games or do CAD design while driving a car"
10) No other laptop has Apple's universal serviceability. "But it's like that youtuber Louis Rossman said. Those guys are such jerks and meanies."

Just to give some perspective, these are internationally popular brand-laptops competing with the MBP15. They're all 14/15", quad-core, come with minimum Nvidia 960m/M2000M/1050 graphics, and most importantly, under 2.6kg: Dell XPS 15 (9560), Dell Precision 15 7000 (7510), Asus Zenbook Pro UX501VW, HP Omen 15, HP ZBook 15, Lenovo Thinkpad P50, MSI GS43VR, MSI GS63VR, Razer Blade 14, ASUS ROG GL502VS, ASUS ROG GL502VS, Gigabyte AERO 14, Giagabyte P35x v7, Aorus X5 v6, Aorux X3 Plus v7.
And if you dig deeper, many cheaper variants exists in brands like ASUS, Acer, MSI and Gigabyte. And if you're willing to go a little further, there are many more barebone version of these laptops from brands like Clevo, Sager, Schenker, Eurocom and Eluktronics.

I haven't lived long enough to use the legendary thinkpads of the old or those panasonic toughbooks. But I've used and seen reviews from almost every brand of laptop to know that no other laptop has all these things combined in one neat package. I wish my Thinkpad P50 came with 12 hours of light use battery life, macbook quality trackpad, speakers, DAC, a 500nits pwm free screen with full color coverage, and at least a pound lighter but that's not remotely true. And having used both keyboards, I honestly prefer the MPB15 keyboard to every other laptop keyboard, even the old Thinkpad T series. It's supposed to be one of the best and most reliable machines many claim it to be a close second or an alternative to the MBP15 yet it's still rigged with tons of unresolved issues. So to me, the MBP15 with Radeon Pro 460 is the jack of all trades, master of all. And I'm sure lots of other people feel the same way because otherwise, they wouldn't sell like hotcakes.

[gc]

Can the power available be increased by connecting the MacBookPro to an external monitor (that provides additional power over the USB-C/TB3 connection) ?  Or a USB-C charger?

[Vinicius Rocinski]

Games performace 96%!?!? Are you kidding?

[Klaus Hinum]

Gaming performance of 96% is rated for the class of laptops (Multimedia and not Gaming).

[blablubbblabla]

you should start rating ecological impact. the strategy that apple uses is bad for the environment by intentionally glueing stuff together to prohibit people from repairing or upgrading their computers which results in toxic waste, time waste and energy used for transport that could be used to actually benefit people.

instead of giving back to the customer base apple by lowering their prices, because they made record earning the last years, they also make their products more expensive every year.

not impressed.

think different?

[David Rooler]

Thank you for the review, but my opinion didn't change. It is an overpriced piece of junk. I can't understand why some people are willing to pay 3k for a laptop, based on the yesterday's technology.

When Apple announced the laptops, correct me if I am wrong, but there was no Kaby Lake QUAD core processors. Blame Intel for repeated delays. They delayed so much that they basically introduced Skylake and it was obsolete in 1-2 months. Incredible...

[Jeff Bellin]

Most everything I might have wanted to comment upon has already been covered, so I have just a few brief observations/questions:

1) Though the Radeon 460 clearly provides decent gaming performance, why in the world would a $3,000+ machine fail to use one of the latest 9xx or 1xxx series GPUs from nVidia?  I can't imagine the cost impact would be meaningful at these price points.  I realize Apple is not targeting this at gamers, but if you are positioning this as the most powerful, high end laptop in production, why scrimp on this one area, which a sizeable portion of the target market would value (Apple wouldn't know if this was true, as they pride themselves on not doing market research and "knowing" what the market wants.  I find it hard to believe that the market "wants" a 500+ nit screen more than they would a world class GPU rather than one more at home in an $1,800 mid range gaming oriented computer.

2) What's with the laughably low 4k SSD speeds?  Both benchmarks reported show speeds of roughly 10 MB/s read and write speeds for by far the most common kind of disk I/O performed in a typical usage scenario.  Today's best SSDs are capable of speeds near 50 MB/s for 4k reads (the single most noticeable operation) and well over 100 MB/s for 4k writes.  Stranger than the spec is that NBC doesn't mention it at all.  Much like the obvious miss on the GPU I cite above, I'm sure most users would care (or notice) if the sequential large file R/W speeds were closer to 1,000 MB/s than the astronomical numbers these SSDs produce, but unless I'm out of date on what matters most in SSD benchmarks, the abominably low 4k results (even the cheapest SATA SSDs today produce 2-3x faster 4k read times) should raise some eyebrows.

3) It shouldn't have to cost this much to buy a notebook of this caliber!  Clearly no other mfr is targeting this rarefied price point, but if any number of manufacturers were to aim for these specs, they could surely hit the mark at a price point 25-35% lower.  I agree with the person who cited Apple's greed in their pricing.  They are clearly willing to forego "normal" buyers and to do the opposite of making up for low unit margins with "volume;" they are making up for what will be comparatively low volume with outrageously high margins.  As an investor, I guess I would be fine with the strategy.  As a consumer, it offends me and, while I don't have a use for a machine with these specs (who does?) if I did I'd sacrifice a few of the Wowee specs just to not reward this kind of elitism.

[T N]

Gaming performance of 96% is rated for the class of laptops (Multimedia and not Gaming).

Gaming performance is good in most games if you set resolution to 1920x1200 and turn AA/Anisotropic Filtering completely off (can verify with benchmarks that I've ran). Granted not $3k good but good when you consider the target audience.

[soebali]

How to check whether the screen is APPA030 or APPA031?

[Nitesh]

"The power adapter is the limiting factor during our stress test with both tools (Prime95 and FurMark run for at least one hour). The processor drops to ~2.3 GHz at 84 °C (~183 °F) and the GPU to ~750 MHz at 79 °C (~174 °F). This is unfortunate since the cooling solution still has some headroom."


Unfortunate but makes sense, there are also reports the battery percent drains while plugged in under load. Not sure why they wouldn't just put in a few more watts worth of power supply.

[John398]

Hi everyone. Does the 460 affect hear, fan noise, battery life over the 450? Because if it does, then I will go for the 450. Thanks everyone.