A larger and wide display, new Magical Keyboard, better sound experience and optimized performance. Khow more in our MacBook Pro 16 review.
Some of the core features which differentiate it with other similar products include a wide and bigger display with sleek bezels, new well-designed keyboard. And cluster of power with an 8-core Core i9 CPU, highly memory oriented 8GB of video RAM and 8TB of storage. This new machine has a lot of reasons to catch my attention but the most important thing is its improved typing experience which inclines my attention towards it.
It is legit that the 16-inch MacBook Pro is not a cheap device, Starting at $2,399 ($3,899 as tested), but technically it has everything that a tech person hopes to look in an Apple laptop. And there is no doubt in this statement that “It is one of the best laptops for power users and video editors”.
MacBook Pro 16 review of the price
The 16-inch MacBook Pro is available to order now both online and in stores and releasing date was November 15.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,399 for the standard model with a Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, AMD Radeon 5300M GPU and 512GB SSD. This model replaces the 15-inch MacBook Pro, which started at the same price. The $2,799 model is a bit more upgraded version which lets you experience the faster Core i9 CPU, faster Radeon Pro 5500M graphics and 1TB SSD.
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Macbook Pro 16 review of Magic keyboard
When you look at the 16-inch MacBook Pro first time the first thing which you will observe is its big display, but the first thing you will want to feel by touching is the new Magic Keyboard. There were a lot of controversies about Apple’s butterfly keyboard which Apple now dumped by using a scissor mechanism in this laptop’s keyboard, and it added a new keycap structure that increases key stability by 33 percent and reduces key travel. And also added dome of rubber underneath for support.
The overall result is very much improved. It is a keyboard that delivers a better 1mm of travel (compared to less than 0.8mm before). It feels soft on the way down with a firm click at the down, without the tough and hard flatness. The 16-inch MacBook Pro’s keyboard feels so comfortable that I don’t want to use keyboards that I was using in the past. Apple also gave attention to customer’s feedback by adding back an Escape key and an inverted T arrow key set up so you can move the cursor more easily by feel. The shrunken size of touchpad but I don’t mind this.
MacBook Pro 16 review of display: More pixels, fewer bezels
I think it does not matter of surprise that this is one of the brightest and most colorful oriented panels around. The 16-inch large screen on the MacBook Pro has a resolution of 3072 x 1920. Even though this is not a 4K screen but still it is very charismatic in terms of color grading. Apple likely didn’t go for this resolution to save on battery life, but I still think professionals would prefer a 4K option. The slimmer edges make visual content feel more hypnotic, whether you’re editing video or watching shows. And professionals will vote their appreciation for the ability to change the refresh rate on the display. The 16-inch MacBook Pro’s screen can reproduce 113.9% of the sRGB color gamut, which is good. The panel on the 16-inch MacBook Pro is one of the most authentic around. Keep in mind that the score of 0 is perfect and it turned in a Delta-E score of 0.27.
Macbook pro 16 review of Design: Similar but a bit burly
The 16-inch MacBook Pro looks very much like other MacBook Pros in terms of looks, with a wider touchpad and a solid aluminum designing in your choice of two colors: Silver and Space Gray. The only core difference between this and the 15-inch MacBook is that the new model has narrower bezels than the other one, though the top bezel is relatively thick compared to systems like the Dell XPS 15. Its weight is approximately 4.3 pounds, compared to 4 pounds for the previous 15-inch MacBook Pro. The new Pro measures 14.1 x 9.7 x 0.6 inches, compared to 13.8 x 9.5 x 0.6 inches for its predecessor.
Macbook pro 16 review of awesome sound and awesome mic
When we talk about its audio, we see that it’s more majestic than its visuals. It has a six-speaker sound system with force-canceling woofers. This system also provides a half octave deeper base. It provides perfect sound quality without the distortions that can trouble other laptops.
For creating content a studio-quality is provided by the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The design of the 3-mic array is competent for the best Yeti mics out there. The huge reduction in hiss makes you feel comfortable while recording podcasts and surely you will feel more confident when you’re on conference calls.
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I recorded one voice memo on the 16-inch MacBook Pro and another the 13-inch Pro, and the former did a better job minimizing background noise.
MacBook Pro 16 review of specs and performance
Let’s talk about its speed. The 16-inch MacBook Pro is one of the most powerful laptops periods with your choice of 6-core Core i7 processor or an 8-core Core i9 CPU. You get 16GB of RAM to start but it is extendable up to 64GB of memory. And there’s 512GB of SSD storage that’s configurable up to 8TB.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro scored 7,250 on Geekbench 5, which measures overall performance, which is a bit lower than the 7,584 from the Dell XPS 15 (with a 2.4-GHz Core i9 processor, 32GB of RAM and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro’s rate of creation of work of video editing projects is very much fast. It took the laptop only 8 minutes to transcode a 6.5GB 4K video to 1080p, which is the same amount of time the Dell XPS 15 took. The Razer Blade Pro 17 took a longer 10:39, but that configuration we tested had a slower Core i7 CPU.
For the evaluation of SSD on the 16-inch MacBook Pro, we used the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. The 16-inch MacBook Pro turned in a write speed of 2,224 MBps and a read speed of 2,116, while the MacBook Pro sped ahead with a score of 2,805/2540 MBps for write and read.
Even though this is not a proper gaming laptop but we tested its prowess using The Rise of the Tomb Raider game benchmark. The 16-inch MacBook Pro turned in a fine frame rate of 27.2 fps with the resolution set to 1920 x 1200 at the very high graphics preset.
On the graphics side, the 16-inch MacBook Pro should be able to digest any workload with balance. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300M is the starting GPU but you can upgrade to the Radeon 5500M and max out with 8GB of video RAM, which is what our review model has.
The Dell XPS 15 got 19.54 fps with the same preset. However, we observed that by default, the texture quality setting wasn’t set to very high on the MacBook Pro as it was on the Dell. When we set that to very high then MacBook Pro’s frame rate was practically identical to the XPS 15’s mark at 19.6 fps.
Macbook pro 16 review of Battery life
Now one of the most important specifications of a laptop, “Battery life”. Even with all of these things, the 16-inch MacBook Pro should provide plenty of continuity. It comes with a 100-watt-hour-battery. That’s 16 additional watt-hours than before, which Apple says will provide up to 11 hours of web surfing time.
On testing it by continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the 16-inch MacBook Pro lasted 10 hours and 55 minutes. Which is the best time for such a big-screened laptop
By comparison, the non-OLED, 4K version of the Dell XPS 13 lasted 8:48, and the OLED version lasted 8:07. The OLED version of the Spectre x360 15 lasted a meager 7 hours and 46 minutes, and the non-OLED Spectre x360 lasted 8:09. The Razer Blade Pro 17 is not even the same ballpark at 3:12.
Conclusion of Macbook pro 16 review
It is no doubt a fair statement to give that the 16-inch MacBook Pro is the finest Apple laptop in years. The Magic Keyboard is a real game-changer as it’s a lot more comfortable than any Butterfly MacBook keyboard. I also highly admire the sleek bezels, colorful display and especially the magnificent sound. Another eye-catchy point is nearly 11 hours of battery life, which gives a real tough time to all of Apple’s closest competitors.
What are the cons of this machine? This machine is a bit heftier and thicker than the 15-inch MacBook Pro. There is also a major missing of Face ID for unlocking the system, even though Touch ID is pretty easy to use but still. And some professionals will object to the lack of a 4K display and also usually lack of full-size USB ports and a memory card slot.
If you are the Apple lover, then the 16-inch MacBook Pro is for sure worth it but If you like Windows, the Dell XPS 15 is a great alternative, as it costs about $900 less than the 16-inch MacBook.
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