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Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch) review: Dial M for most-powerful Mac ever

To call the MacBook Pro, Apple’s ‘problem child’ will be doing it a great disservice. After all, it was a really powerful laptop that was lapped by many a buyer from all over the world. Having said that it wasn’t devoid of issues as most people seemed to be quite unhappy mostly with the keyboard. Then there were throttling issues and some related to the battery as well.
If it would be wrong to say that MacBook was a problem child then it won’t be incorrect to say that of all the Apple devices, MacBook was in the news for wrong reasons the most.

Apple with its new 16-inch MacBook Pro claims to have addressed them all. There’s a new keyboard, new display size, new speakers to name a few upgrades that Apple has made. At a starting price of Rs 1,99,900, Apple is pitching it to the ‘Pro’ users who want to upgrade from their old MacBooks and switch some high-end Windows users as well. We have been using the 16-inch MacBook Pro as our daily driver for a while now and here’s what we think about it:

Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch review: Design and display

Let’s begin with the all-new 16-inch display and what alterations it brings to the MacBook Pro. As expected the new MacBook Pro is thicker, taller, wider and heavier. The earlier MacBook Pro was 0.61 inches thick while this one is 0.64 inches. The 16-inch MacBook Pro weighs around 4.3 pounds and is a heavy device. It might look a lot like the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro but there are a lot of differences. The thickness makes it heavier but more powerful. If you want to lug it around in your backpack for a day-long conference or in 6-hours transit at the airport, you will feel weighed down.

Having said that, the weight is worth it as Apple has made this machine a really powerful one and that wouldn’t have been possible by making it brawnier. If you want a thin MacBook, then there’s always the MacBook Air to opt for. Apple has kept the same aluminium unibody case for the MacBook and it’s the classic case of if it ain’t broke, why fix it.


The 16-inch display has knocked off some amount of bezels compared to the previous-generation of MacBook Pro. The display also offers more resolution — 3072 x 1920 — than the previous MacBook Pro, which had 2560 x 1600 resolution. The improvement in display resolution means that you end up staring at an excellent display where colours are accurate, brightness levels are great and contrast is top-notch. We used the MacBook Pro in outdoor conditions in bright sunlight and had absolutely no problem with the LCD display. Be it playing games, editing images or watching multimedia content — the MacBook Pro’s display is ideal for everything.

Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch) review: Performance

More meat has been added not just to the exterior but to the innards of the MacBook Pro. Apple is giving multiple processors to choose from as the 16-inch MacBook Pro has Intel’s latest six- and eight-core i7 and i9 processors. These processors can attain boost speeds up to 5Ghz, which in plain-speak means that it is a really fast machine. Buyers also get the option to choose between AMD’s Radeon Pro 5300M and 5500M GPUs with 4GB of VRAM. Gaming is far superior on this MacBook than the previous one and a lot better than most Windows devices we have used. Graphics rendering is also much faster than we have seen on most other laptops.

The MacBook Pro we have reviewed had the following configuration: 2.3-GHz, 8-core, ninth-generation Intel Core i9 CPU with 16 GB of RAM, an Intel UHD Graphics 630AMD Radeon Pro 5500M graphics card with 8 gigs of memory, along with 1 TB of storage. This isn’t the top-of-the-line but its quite close to it and was a real mean machine.

The new MacBook Pro delivers performance, which is quite frankly unmatched. Lags? Not happening. Does the MacBook Pro ‘hang’? Not a chance. What happens when you multi-task and open far too many tabs at once? The MacBook seems to challenge you and ask “how many tabs can you dare to open?” To be fair, this isn’t new to this MacBook Pro as the previous-generation one also was frighteningly powerful and gave no one any complaints.

Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch) review: Keyboard, battery and more
Now that we have got frightening and complaints in a sentence perhaps it’s the right time to talk about the new keyboard. There’s a scene in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic Pulp Fiction when Samuel L Jackson’s character Jules delivers a — one of the many brilliant ones — quotable quotes. “If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions.”

The ‘scary’ question here is has Apple improved the keyboard on the new MacBook Pro? The answer isn’t frightening, in fact, it’s the opposite of it. The keyboard on the 16-inch MacBook Pro to put it simply is really wonderful. Now, here we would like to clarify that unlike many users across the globe, we didn’t really have a problem with the old keyboard. However, that was till the point we had never used the new keyboard. Suddenly, the old keyboard felt a bit archaic.

The keyboard on the MacBook Pro offers more key travel, which is now up to 1mm from the 0.7mm. Apple’s made the keys more springier and the keycaps are more sturdier than ever. Typing doesn’t make too much sound and is a more pleasurable experience.

The problem with Apple’s keyboards started when it got the butterfly switch in 2015. It was a mechanism that allowed for less key travel time and took less space but created issues. Apple had to start a repair policy as well for those who suffered from keyboard issues on certain MacBooks. The keyboards were improved in subsequent MacBooks but it was kind of an albatross around the company’s neck.

Not anymore as the new Magic keyboard lays all those ‘ghosts’ of the past to rest. Is this the best keyboard you will use? Not really but it’s really, really good and that will do for now.

Apple has also brought the Escape key back with the new keyboard as in the previous-generation MacBook it was on the Touch Bar. To us, this hardly made any difference but apparently a lot of people are quite delighted with getting the Escape key back The TouchID fingerprint sensor is also a different key and not a part of the Touch Bar. The placement of the Siri ‘button’ still bothers us as inadvertently we end up activating it even when not needed.

The trackpad on the MacBook Pro remains as excellent as ever and works with the slightest of taps. Not to forget, it remains big in size so you won’t have any issue navigating on it.

One has to talk about the Touch Bar, which gives users access to brightness levels and volume controls among other things. One can tap on the Touch Bar to change tabs in Safari or even search for sites. Still, the use of the Touch Bar — in our opinion — remains up for debate. Having said, there’s a colleague who simply swears by it and can’t really do without it. We guess that’s the audience for whom Apple is still persisting with a feature that can perhaps be done away with.

The keyboard is vastly improved, the display is excellent but those aren’t really the class-leading features the new MacBook Pro offers. That honour has to be bestowed on the new speakers. They are undoubtedly the best speakers you will find on any laptop. The new six-speaker system makes music sound really good and can easily replace a Bluetooth speaker as they fill a small room with quality output. Plus, anyone who uses the MacBook to edit videos won’t really separate headphones as the speakers sound really good.

Apple has improved the battery life of the new MacBook Pro as it now lasts an entire day with web browsing, editing documents, writing work among other things. Yes, if you do use heavy-duty video editing software then it would last less. The new MacBook Pro now ships with a 96-watt charger, which means that it charges also relatively quickly.
If you are a hardcore Mac user then the lack of ports is something you accept as par for the course. There are four Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports along with a headphone jack. Take it from us, you will always need to carry a dongle or two with the MacBook Pro as the lack of a USB-A port or an SD card slot will bother a lot of prospective buyers.

Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch) review: Verdict
Starting at Rs 1,99,900, the MacBook is an expensive laptop but packs in a lot of features that make it quite a compelling buy. Existing Mac users, who were unhappy with the keyboard, have got a great reason to upgrade. The ‘Pro’ users will find that the MacBook offers everything that they seek for in a laptop. Apple has improved the MacBook by quite a lot and it is evident in almost every facet of this laptop, which is what makes it the best MacBook money can buy. If you have the cash and are ready to splash, go for it and forget about buying a new laptop for the next five years at least. This MacBook will undoubtedly last long, age well and for Apple’s sake hopefully shed the ‘problem child’ for once and good.

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