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00:00Hey, how's it going guys? This is Dave2D, and this is my review of the 2016 13-inch
00:12MacBook Pro. So when they first announced this thing, I had mixed feelings. One, I was
00:16excited because it's the new MacBook Pro, but then I looked at the paper specs and the
00:20price tag, and it was a little less appealing. $1500 with no OLED strip, but I've had it
00:26for a week. These are my thoughts. Okay, right off the rip, the build quality on this
00:30thing is the best in the business. I've handled a couple laptops on this channel, and no one
00:35makes a laptop that has better craftsmanship than this MacBook. The tolerances of all the
00:40machining is very tight, the hinge is perfectly tuned, and there's next to no flex despite
00:45being super thin. But for $1500, you're going to have to bring more to the table than
00:49just build quality, and that's where things get a little less awesome. This specific model
00:54has two ports, both USB-C, both supporting Thunderbolt 3. The fact that they're all USB-C
00:59bugs me a bit. That means adapters for a lot of stuff that people do right now. In a couple
01:04years, that'll be different, but right now, you'll probably need some adapters. In regards
01:08to the missing SD card slot, I think a lot of reviewers and journalists are going to
01:12be bummed by this because, well, we depended on this port for video and camera work, but
01:16a big chunk of MacBook owners just never use that port, and same with the HDMI port. So,
01:21yeah, it's easy for camera users to be super annoyed by this, but for the average MacBook
01:25Pro user, it's not a big deal. But what does bug me, a professional laptop or a laptop
01:31with productivity in mind shouldn't have two ports. Actually, if you're plugged into power,
01:35you're looking at one port. The MacBook Air had more ports than this when it was plugged
01:39in. Now, I use this adapter, it's my favorite because it spreads heat well. I'll link it
01:43below, but the fact that owners need to purchase an adapter or two or five is pretty disappointing.
01:50The keyboard uses second generation butterfly switches. It's improved a bit. It's still
01:54a half millimeter of key travel, but it feels slightly more responsive than the 12-inch
01:58MacBook keyboard. Some people love these butterfly switches and actually prefer them. I still
02:03prefer the older generation of keyboards, but this is a personal preference thing, and
02:07I think most people can learn to like this keyboard over time. The display is amazing.
02:12The resolution hasn't changed. It's much brighter with a wider color gamut. The image is a little
02:17cool prior to calibration, but once you've calibrated, it's perfect. It has wide viewing
02:21angles and the bezels are relatively thin. They're not the thinnest. The XPS 13 is thinner,
02:26but in terms of overall display quality, this is arguably the best looking 13-inch screen
02:31on the market right now. The webcam up top looks like this. It's better than the 12-inch
02:35MacBook, but it's still not very good. I found the trackpad on the 12-inch MacBook pretty
02:40big already. This is bigger, and if you use a lot of gestures, you'll probably like this.
02:44I only use a few of the full hand gestures, and I actually find this trackpad a little
02:49too big. It's a personal thing. I get the occasional failed palm rejection because of
02:53its size, but it's still the best trackpad I've used. The speakers are also ridiculously
02:58good. Once again, best in class. Put it this way, these speakers have set the bar so high,
03:03it kind of annoys me that I have to review other laptop speakers. Some of the bigger
03:07gaming laptops are louder and have stronger bass, but these MacBook Pro speakers sound
03:11incredibly clean with almost no distortion, even at maximum volume. Under the hood, there's
03:17nothing we can really upgrade by ourselves. The RAM is soldered on, and the storage drives,
03:21yeah, they're removable, but they're proprietary, so you probably won't be upgrading those anytime
03:25soon. Fortunately, the drive is fast, which helps to make the system feel really snappy.
03:30The base processor is a Skylake Core i5-6360U. It has a slower clock speed than almost every
03:37Windows Ultrabook at this price point. It's kind of disappointing to look at this chip,
03:41and then realize that it came out in September of 2015. It's over a year old, and performance
03:46is similar to the base model 13-inch MacBook Pro from last year. It's just a lot more power-efficient.
03:52But the truth is, it's more than fast enough for what most people would do on this machine,
03:55and because of the faster drive this year, the whole system does feel quicker. The integrated
04:00GPU is a nice step up from last year's model. It's now running an Iris 540. It's similar
04:05in graphical compute to like a 930M or a 940M. You can play some games, nothing super
04:11crazy, but if you want to see a dedicated video on gaming with this system, let me know
04:15in the comments below. The graphics chip also has connectivity to 4K and 5K screens. As
04:21for external GPUs, the Razer Core doesn't connect right now, at least not well enough
04:24for me to do a video, but it's a work in progress, and there are some other external GPUs coming
04:29down the pipe. I'll be doing a dedicated piece on that, so subscribe if you want to see that
04:32video when it goes up. The fans are silent on idle, and on load, it's audible, but not
04:38too loud. It throttles when it's under heavy load, like rendering a video. Now, I'm an
04:42Adobe user, so I can only speak about video editing with Premiere, and it's pretty good
04:46for 1080p edits, but 4K edits are pretty choppy. The battery life is good. The battery's been
04:52shrunk down a lot. It's now only 55 watt-hours, but because of the more efficient CPU, I'm
04:57still getting over 9 hours of regular use, with the screen at around 250 nits. And because
05:02you can use any of the USB-C ports for charging, we've lost the MagSafe connection. Okay, this
05:07device costs $1,500, and despite the paper specs looking a little lame, it's actually
05:11a very solid device. Great build quality, fantastic screen, speakers, and trackpad,
05:16but what isn't great is obviously the price tag. And for $1,500, it's not that it's an
05:21overpriced machine. It's kind of Apple premium pricing, but you're forced to purchase things
05:26in this system that you normally may not want to purchase, or you may not need. So, like
05:31the super wide-gamut screen and the fantastic speakers, you're forced to buy into this system
05:37just because it has the Pro moniker. Now, dongles, adapters, proprietary storage drives,
05:43these are all kind of designed to generate revenue for Apple. I get that, but as a consumer,
05:48we kind of get screwed for it. Now, would I recommend this laptop to the average person?
05:53Obviously not. There are a few people I would recommend this to, so people that really don't
05:56want the OLED strip, this is obviously the only other option. But for the average person
06:00that's looking for a 13-inch MacBook that's kind of above a MacBook Air, look at last
06:05year's model. It's going to be like 30 or 40% cheaper than this, like the refurb model,
06:10and it's going to have very similar performance to this. Maybe not in the GPU element, but
06:14the processor is going to be very similar to this. That's the end of this video. Hope
06:18you guys liked it. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. It's been nice. I'll
06:21see you guys next time.