The sudden launch of the 16-inch MacBook Pro is a major setback for Apple in the cold winter of the laptop

Suddenly, the 16-inch MacBook Pro replaced its 15-inch predecessor and made it onto Apple’s official website.

Beijing time on the evening of November 13, Apple in the absence of advance maintenance of the official website, the same as AirPods Pro, suddenly launched a 16-inch MacBook Pro, the previous rumors will only be late, not absent.

Coincidentally, in May this year, Apple just updated the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and after a lapse of six months, Apple once again significantly updated this product line, more frequently than in previous years.

To say who can experience this frequency more, it is better to buy a 15-inch MacBook Pro two days ago. Because compared to 15-inch, 16-inch MacBook Pro is more worthy of professional users.

Although the starting price of the 16-inch MacBook Pro is as high as 18,999 yuan, this does not stop its target users.

Looking at the body from the outside, like the 15-inch, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is available in silver and space gray. Not much has changed in appearance, the biggest change is in its screen.

Open the computer, the 16-inch display screen has a resolution of 3072×1920, ppi is 226, and the maximum brightness is 500 nits. The P3 wide color gamut and original color display are retained. As a comparison, the previous 15-inch resolution was 2880×1800 and ppi was 220.

Although the display size has become larger, the display effect of the screen is more delicate, and the supported colors have also been upgraded from "million colors" to "million colors". This display is the best in the current MacBook series, and it is obviously more desired by Pro users.

The display screen has become larger, but Apple has not changed the fuselage much. The length, width and height of the 16-inch are 35.79cm, 26.59cm, and 1.62cm respectively, and the weight is 2kg, while the 15-inch is 34.93cm, 24.07cm, 1.55cm, and the weight is 1.83kg. Almost a 16-inch screen is stuffed into the 15-inch fuselage.

For Pro users, this increase in size and weight is negligible.

By the way, the 16-inch MacBook Pro should have a higher screen ratio. This is also the high screen ratio and narrow bezels we pursue on mobile phones.

The camera in the center of the screen has been upgraded to a Face ID camera as rumored, and it is also a FaceTime camera that supports 720p.

In 2015, Apple, which pursued lightness, added a butterfly keyboard to the MacBook at that time. But this upgrade has been criticized by consumers for its high failure rate and frequent after-sales service. Most importantly, the butterfly keyboard has a short keystroke and a hard typing feel, which is not conducive to long-term coding.

Although Apple later improved it, the effect was still unsatisfactory.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro finally replaced the butterfly keyboard with a scissor keyboard. This is a signal that future MacBook products may be replaced by scissor keyboards, and we officially say goodbye to butterfly keyboards.

However, this scissor keyboard has been optimized by Apple, and its key travel is 1mm. Apple calls it a "second-controlled keyboard". This may also be one of the reasons for its slightly thicker body. As for its typing experience and mute effect, it needs to be actually known. But one thing is for sure, it must be better than the butterfly keyboard.

Key positions have also changed. From top to bottom, the first is that the function area of the Touch Bar is more distinct. The exit key (esc) and the power key (also the fingerprint key) are isolated from the touch area. At the same time, the former is changed from the touch key to the physical key.

This change will solve the "accidental touch" problem that Touch Bar has been criticized by users before, and improve the efficiency of blind typing. For example, pressing the power button but pressing Siri, pressing exit but not easy to find the position.

Further down is the optimization of the arrow keys. The size of the left and right arrow keys is finally no longer the same height as the up and down keys, but has become the same size button. Now you won’t be so awkward to press.

The speakers on either side of the keyboard have been increased to six, still three microphones. Compared with the old model, it will have stronger stereo effect. Apple claims that it offers dual vibration low-efficiency subwoofers for better bass effect.

After talking about external changes, let’s talk about internal improvement.

In fact, this is the last point to mention. As a representative of the top MacBook products, the 16-inch MacBook Pro was born for professional users.

The processor of the 16-inch MacBook Pro starts from the Intel 9th generation Core 6-core i7 processor, and the maximum optional 8-core i9 processor can reach 5.0GHz. Its performance is 2.1 times that of the 4-core MacBook Pro.

At the same time, Apple upgraded the heat dissipation system for this hot processor, officially claiming that its heat sink has increased by 35%, and the maximum continuous power of the MacBook Pro can therefore be increased by up to 12W.

The biggest change comes from the graphics processing unit. The standard and high-end versions of the 16-inch MacBook Pro are equipped with an AMD Radeon Pro 5300M graphics processing unit and a 5500 graphics processing unit, respectively. The standard 4GB video memory is available, and the maximum option is 8GB. This upgrade allows professionals to handle better image work.

Take the common Final Cut Pro X as an example, its rendering speed can be improved by an astonishing 90% compared to the 15-inch MacBook Pro. Therefore, Apple claims that this change can improve the performance of the previous Radeon Pro 560X by 2.1 times.

On the other hand, Apple has also raised the upper limit of options. The storage of the 16-inch MacBook Pro starts from 512 GB solid state drive, and the high-end version is 1TB, with a maximum optional 8TB solid state drive. The memory also starts with 16GB DDR4, but the maximum optional 64GB.

With such powerful performance and storage, there must be a better battery life. The 16-inch MacBook Pro boosts the battery to 100 watt-hours, and comes standard with a 96W charger. As a comparison, the 15-inch MacBook Pro is 83.6 watt-hours and the charger is 87W. Therefore, its battery life has also been increased from 10 hours to 11 hours (calculated by Apple’s wireless network browsing standard).

Other than that, there are no more changes to the 16-inch MacBook Pro. Therefore, it is a bit of a pity in terms of network connection. The 16-inch MacBook Pro does not yet support Wi-Fi 6.

Oh, no, and the price. The 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at 18,999 yuan, with a 2.6GHz i7 processor, 8GB + 512GB. The specific launch date has yet to be announced.

There is no doubt that with the development of the web, video content has become more and more popular. Apple is catering to more and more professional creative workers with products, especially those who have a high demand for images.

Although this group of people is so small, Apple’s product power is enough to make the notebook industry enter its twilight years, which is very rare in the industry.

"Buy or not?"

In Apple’s promotion, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is called "a studio that runs with you." The above problem is naturally solved.

This starting price may be able to buy two laptops for ordinary people, but it is a professional tool suitable for photographers, video workers, game developers and other practitioners who are used to macOS. Whether it is suitable for you depends on your needs and budget.

The title image is from TheVerge.