Review: Touch Bar MacBook Pros give an expensive glimpse at the Mac’s future

The new design of the MacBook Pros is nice, and Apple’s decision to put in nothing but Thunderbolt 3 ports has prompted a fresh wave of dongle talk, but the signature feature of the new MacBook Pros was always going to be the Touch Bar.

This little touch-enabled strip represents a bunch of things. It’s a melding of Apple’s traditional Intel-driven software platform and the company’s own homegrown chips and its touch-driven iOS platform. It’s Apple’s answer to the touchscreen, a model that Apple steadfastly resists in its computers even as Microsoft and its partners embrace it. And it's the biggest thing about these Macs that’s truly new—Macs in the last half-decade have gotten thinner and lighter and have better battery life than before, but, Touch Bar aside, they all still run basically the same software in basically the same way.

So, yes, these new laptops have new CPUs and GPUs, new designs, new ports, and new screens. We’ll spend plenty of time with all of those things. But the biggest question for buyers is whether the Touch Bar is worth it and what it adds to the experience that you can’t already get if you keep the latest version of macOS installed on your laptop.

Differences between all three MacBook Pros

Specs at a glance: 13-inch 2016 Apple MacBook Pro (Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
Screen	2560×1600 at 13.3" (227 PPI)
OS	OS X 10.12.1 Sierra
CPU	2.9GHz Intel Core i5-6267U (Turbo up to 3.3GHz)
RAM	8GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 (soldered, upgradeable to 16GB at purchase)
GPU	Intel Iris 550 (integrated, 64MB eDRAM)
HDD	256GB PCIe 3.0 x4 solid-state drive
Networking	1.3Gbps 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2
Ports	2x Thunderbolt 3, 2x Thunderbolt 3 with reduced bandwidth, headphones
Size	11.97" × 8.36" × 0.59" (304.1 mm × 212.4 mm × 14.9 mm)
Weight	3.02 lbs (1.37 kg)
Battery	49.2Whr
Warranty	1 year
Starting price	$1,799.99
Price as reviewed	$1,799.99
Other perks	720p webcam, backlit keyboard, three integrated mics

We've been over this a few times, but let's list the differences between the $1,499 MacBook Pro and the Touch Bar model. There are a couple of new details I can confirm now that I’ve actually been able to use both models.

• The low-end Pro uses a 15W Core i5-6360U CPU with an Intel Iris 540 GPU; the high-end model uses a 28W Core i5-6267U CPU with an Intel Iris 550 GPU. The difference, aside from small boosts to CPU and GPU clock speeds, is that the 28W model can run faster for longer and throttle less frequently. The 15W model can also consume less power.
• The low-end Pro uses a single “Alpine Ridge” Thunderbolt 3 controller from Intel, while the high-end Pro uses two Thunderbolt controllers. The two ports on the right side of the MacBook Pro have "reduced PCI Express bandwidth," which Apple says means they have two PCIe 3.0 lanes’ worth of bandwidth at their disposal instead of the four lanes dedicated to the ports on the left side (Intel’s mobile Skylake chipsets include a total of 10 PCIe lanes, four of which are already being used by the SSD). You can connect all the same things to both ports—displays, storage, power adapters—but especially high-performance storage arrays should be plugged in on the left side to maximize the available bandwidth.
• The low-end Pro uses 1866MHz LPDDR3 RAM while the high-end Pro uses 2133MHz LPDDR3. Apple has said it’s using LPDDR3 to save power, but it’s also the reason the systems max out at 16GB.
• The low-end Pro actually has a larger battery than the high-end one: 54.5Whr compared to 49.2Whr. Apple says both laptops have 10 hours of battery life, but the lower-power processor, the larger battery, and the lack of a little second screen above the keyboard all mean that the low-end model actually lasts a bit longer than the Touch Bar model.
• The low-end model includes two integrated mics, while the high-end model includes three.
• The low-end Pro’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi tops out at 867Mbps, while both the Touch Bar MacBook Pros can do a maximum of 1.3Gbps just like last year’s models.

And here are a few further differences between both 13-inch models and the 15-inch models, all of which include Touch Bars.

• 15-inch Pros have enough thermal headroom to fit in quad-core Skylake processors. The base model includes a 2.6GHz (3.5GHz Turbo) Core i7-6700HQ, while our review unit uses a 2.7GHz (3.6GHz Turbo) Core i7-6820HQ. Either model can be configured with a 2.9GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Core i7-6920HQ.
• All models use their processors’ Intel HD 530 integrated graphics when possible to save power, but they also include dedicated AMD Radeon GPUs. The Radeon Pro 450, 455, and 460 are all based on AMD’s latest Polaris architecture—we’ll go into more detail about each component later in the review.
• The trackpad in the 15-inch model is larger than in the 13-inch models.
• All four Thunderbolt 3 ports in the 15-inch Pros offer the same amount of PCIe bandwidth, since Intel’s quad-core CPUs add more PCIe 3.0 lanes to the amount that the chipset includes (in total, Apple is using four lanes for the SSD, eight lanes across all four Thunderbolt 3 ports, and another eight lanes for the dedicated GPUs).

Using the 15-inch model

Specs at a glance: 15-inch 2016 Apple MacBook Pro
Screen	2880×1800 at 15.4" (220 PPI)
OS	OS X 10.12.1 Sierra
CPU	2.7GHz Intel Core i7-6820HQ (Turbo up to 3.6GHz)
RAM	16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 (soldered)
GPU	AMD Radeon Pro 455 with 2GB RAM, Intel HD 530
HDD	512GB PCIe 3.0 x4 solid-state drive
Networking	1.3Gbps 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2
Ports	4x Thunderbolt 3, headphones
Size	13.75" × 9.48" × 0.61" (349.3 mm × 240.7 mm × 15.5 mm)
Weight	4.02 lbs (1.83 kg)
Battery	76.0Whr
Warranty	1 year
Starting price	$2,399.99
Price as reviewed	$2,799.99
Other perks	720p webcam, backlit keyboard, three integrated mics

The reduced size and weight of the 15-inch Pro are both really nice when you’re carrying the machine around. At just four pounds, it actually weighs less than the 4.5 pound 13-inch MacBook Pros did before the jump to Retina, and it’s a pound-and-a-half lighter than the pre-Retina 15-inch models (there’s a less consequential but still nice half-pound reduction compared to the older Retina models).

When you're using it, though, it’s still very much a 15-inch laptop. I use 13-inch laptops almost exclusively these days, and the more cumbersome size and larger palmrest make the 15-inch models just a little unwieldy compared to what I’m used to. In other words, even with the size and weight decreases, the 15-inch model isn't small enough to be a good replacement for a 13-inch notebook.

I will say that my minor palm rejection problems with the 13-inch Pro’s larger trackpad aren’t really problems here. It may be because the trackpad is larger, so the corners of my hands are always firmly placed on the trackpad as I type rather than hitting it intermittently. Beyond this, the experience of typing and of using the trackpad is identical.

The 2880×1800 screen has the same resolution as the older Retina models, albeit with the added brightness and contrast and the wide color support. But like the MacBook and the 13-inch Pros, the screen’s default resolution is 1680×1050 mode. As with the previous models, you can also select 1024×600, 1280×800, 1440×900, and 1900×1200 modes depending on what’s the most comfortable for you.

Finally, the speakers here are much larger than the ones in the 13-inch model, and they sound pretty good for laptop speakers. They have respectable bass and dynamic range. While they aren’t as good as the speakers in a desktop like an iMac or some good dedicated speakers, they’re good enough for movies and TV, and they aren’t bad if you need to fill a room with music for a small party.