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00:00Okay, so I spent the past few days living the 16-inch MacBook life.
00:08I've tried the i7 and the i9 pretty extensively.
00:11This is the base model i7 and the fully upgraded i9 in terms of CPU and GPU.
00:17Now I don't want to do a technical review of these devices.
00:22I feel like there's just a way better conversation to be had instead of just, you know, a breakdown
00:27of the differences and good things and bad things about this product.
00:30I will talk about a few things up front in terms of things that can help you make a purchase
00:35decision.
00:36First, the i9 is worth it.
00:39If you are someone whose workflow or application can actually take advantage of extra cores,
00:45like the i9 has two extra cores over the 6-core i7, it's totally worth it this year.
00:50They have better thermal performance compared to the previous generation.
00:54It's a worthy upgrade.
00:56It doesn't have perfect thermals, it does still have thermal limitations, but it's significantly
01:00improved over what we saw last year and even better than what came out earlier this year
01:04in 2019.
01:05Secondly, the GPU.
01:07The graphical performance of these new AMD chips is quite solid.
01:10Running some benchmarks, you can just see that these new AMD 7nm chips, it's a significant
01:16bump in performance compared to the Vega 20 from the previous generation.
01:20So if you do anything that's graphically intense like video editing, I would just spring for
01:24that GPU upgrade.
01:25Now when it comes to performance on MacBook Pros, it's always been complicated.
01:30This is why.
01:31Apple designs their systems to run off of USB-C charging.
01:35Very few devices out there do it.
01:37These guys are the only company to do it with a high-performance Intel chip.
01:42So there's lots of laptops out there that use weaker U processors.
01:46Apple uses their H processors, like the Intel H processors, and they still power their entire
01:52system off of USB-C.
01:54It might seem insignificant, but there's two advantages to that.
01:57First, it allows a device like this to be charged with any kind of USB-C power delivery
02:02adapter.
02:03So as long as there's enough wattage, it can fill up the MacBook Pro, however slowly it
02:07might be.
02:08Secondly, it also allows a device like this to work on an airplane power socket.
02:12So the socket you see on an airplane seat, you can plug this thing up to it, and it'll
02:16juice up your MacBook.
02:18The vast majority of high-performance laptops will not work if you plug it into an airplane
02:23socket.
02:24So the point is, they pull too much wattage, the socket doesn't do it.
02:27Now, the disadvantage to having USB-C charging on a device like this is that there's a limit
02:35as to how powerful the components can be inside the MacBook Pro.
02:38A lot of people are like, why doesn't Apple put an RTX 2080 into their MacBook Pros?
02:44It sounds great on paper, but it would be a terrible idea because now this system could
02:49no longer run off of 100 watts.
02:51So now this whole power system could not work.
02:53They would have to have separate power systems.
02:56It's not what people want.
02:57It's not what Apple wants.
02:59That's why they don't do it.
03:00And that's also why I'm happy that they use these AMD chips instead of a more powerful
03:04NVIDIA GPU, because if you put an RTX or a GTX, anything inside here, you could no longer
03:09power it off a 100 watt USB-C charger.
03:13It can't be done.
03:14No one can do it.
03:15So what Apple has actually created here is the world's most powerful laptop that uses
03:19USB-C charging.
03:21And for a lot of people, that connection is very valuable.
03:24Okay.
03:25The keyboard, finally running scissor switches.
03:29Thank goodness.
03:30So, I mean, I've been talking about this for years, right from the beginning.
03:33I'm actually someone that got used to how butterfly switches felt, but the reliability
03:38just always bugged me.
03:40And it's nice to see that it's finally gone to a really classic and universally loved
03:44scissor switch.
03:45And it also has the physical escape key, which is fantastic.
03:48And it's also nice to see the return of the inverted T for the arrow key cluster.
03:52I always thought it was so weird that they switched off of this orientation for the arrow
03:56keys to something that was specific to the butterfly keyboards, even though there are
04:00other products like the iMacs still use this inverted T. So it's nice to see them come
04:04back to this.
04:06But hardware wise, they did a really good job this year.
04:09The speakers sound fantastic.
04:11The microphones are good.
04:12The thermal performance is much improved compared to the previous generation.
04:16It's still not perfect, but it's way better than anything they've had before in the thin
04:19MacBook Pro.
04:20So I'm happy with it.
04:22If there's like, I mean, there's a few things I don't love.
04:24I wish it had Wi-Fi 6.
04:25Basically every high-end laptop that came out this year supports Wi-Fi 6.
04:30This still doesn't.
04:31And also the webcam, it's still running 720p.
04:34It also doesn't have Face ID, which is, it's not the end of the world, but it would've
04:38been nice to see on a refresh like this.
04:41But overall, hardware is good, including the 16-inch screen.
04:44I haven't talked about it because it's really not that special.
04:46It's a fantastic screen, but it's what you would expect for a 16-inch MacBook Pro.
04:51But over the past four years, we've been, as a community of technological enthusiasts,
04:57we've been really tunnel visioned on the shortcomings of Apple's hardware.
05:01Because this MacBook from 2016 to early 2019 just had limitations that shouldn't have been
05:07there.
05:08But now that they've fixed the hardware, I would like to address something that has always
05:13been an issue with Apple products and its value.
05:17Is the 16-inch MacBook Pro actually worth its money?
05:21Because this is a very expensive machine.
05:22It starts at $2,300, $2,400 and can go up quite high.
05:26And in the past on my channel, I have stated that if you were someone that wanted to buy
05:31a MacBook Pro for use with Adobe's creative applications, that it wasn't a good option.
05:37Like to basically go with half a dozen other options out there that were cheaper and better
05:41performing instead of the MacBook Pro.
05:43But that is no longer the case.
05:45Their hardware this year is good.
05:47Their pricing is fair for an Apple product.
05:50And most importantly, the way that Adobe has tweaked their software to work with this new
05:55hardware from Apple is, it's good.
05:58They finally made something that performs the way it should.
06:01So if you're someone that held off the MacBook Pro because of unreliable keyboards or performance
06:05that wasn't up to snuff, I think this year's model is on point.
06:08And also, because of like, this is a new design, right?
06:12They're going to use this chassis for several years.
06:16They're going to, because they sunk a lot of money to make this thing happen.
06:18So don't worry about this thing being renewed into some new model next year.
06:24It's not going to happen.
06:25They're going to use this shape for a while.
06:27You're good.
06:28Okay.
06:29Hope you guys enjoyed this video.
06:30Thumbs if you liked it.
06:31Subs if you loved it.
06:32See you guys next time.
06:38Bye.