2016 macbook pro 13 with touch bar review

The lighter/thinner design is a nice step forward for the MacBook Pro lineup, with shades of the 12-inch MacBook combined with healthier horsepower (though its battery life hasn't improved we may have preferred a middle-ground with longer uptimes and a bit more thickness/heaviness). In other areas, our impressions from the cheaper non-Touch-Bar model still hold. Chat apps, or other places where you might use emoji, for example, are a great fit: Tap the smiley-face icon and immediately see the strip light up with smiley, frowny, thumbs-up-y or poopy icons.Īnd for those worried about the row of Fn keys being gone, have no fear: As soon as you press the Fn button they appear on the Touch Bar. It's possible that, over time, younger Mac users – those who grew up using mobile devices – will become accustomed to it and find it as natural as using a trackpad and keyboard.

Right now the Touch Bar is little more than a novelty.

Is the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar a nice laptop? You bet. Add the Touch Bar, a contextual strip of screen sitting above the keyboard, and it also adds a bit more fun.īut when a new product has a $500-higher starting price than the product it's replacing, we have to look at everything through that lens. They're 13-percent lighter, 17-percent thinner, with a better-looking screen. The new MacBook Pro lineup is an improvement over the last-gen models. But is the new strip of screen a game-changer? And does any of this justify a starting price that's approaching US$2,000? Read on, as New Atlas reviews the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Or at least that's what the company's marketing will tell you, as it plugs this lighter, thinner, Touch-Bar-ier MacBook Pro for holiday shoppers.

Apple has reinvented the laptop yet again.

2016 macbook pro 13 with touch bar review