I've seen online reviews, written reviews, hype, rant, salt and all love and hate about the machine. Here I'd like to tell my own point of view to this new and expensive tool as a photographer.
So lets look at the highlights shall we?
67% brighter display than the generation before:
While editing photos, too brights screen can fool the photographer in to believing his exposure is wrong. Ideal brightness for editing photographs is 120 cd/m² or 100 cd/m² if you are specialising in print only. I use 120 cd/m² brightness in my setup. So I don't care about this.
Faster Graphics 2GB or 4GB VRAM:
This is actually one thing I am looking for. my current computer has 1GB VRAM which is Nvidia GT650. Photography editing tools do not require too much Vram however the preview and using certain filter tools do tend to respond slower bigger the image gets. Vram also take some pressure off the CPU. Running CaptureOne and Photoshop at the same time with more Vram I can throw at it the better.
PCIe- based SSD:
I am looking forward for this as well. I was thinking of upgrading with Raid 0 but that required me to format/reinstall the mac once again which means all my current data would be gone and I just don't want to buy 2 same SSD and go through all this process on this old body. PCIe is even faster than Raid 0 which is already incredible fast. Fast read and write speeds will help me look through the giant sized photos without delay, and this happens to me because I shoot medium format film and the photos are about 65 megapixels and very large in size.
10 hours of battery life:
I need to test that my self because website states that it is UP TO 10 hours which will be different for sure when I am tethering and transmitting preview of the tethered photos to clients Tablet. A full day photoshoot is about 8 hours and 1st hour of the shoot is hair makeup and etc so if the battery lasts 7 hours that would be great. p.s. Website states its all day battery life 10 hours . . . Dear Apple, one day is 24 hours, I am awake about 12-14 hours a day!
Up to 2.9 GHz Quadcore Intel core i7 processor:
CPU is the heart of the computer and newer faster processor is always welcome. Multitasking and Adobe Bridge requires fast CPU. Adobe Bridge requires both good CPU and GPU when working on 65 megapixels 16 bit Adobe RGB tiff files. So yes please. I know that this is not the best processor out there but compare to mine it is really good.
Touch Bar and Touch ID:
I don't care about this and I wont be using this much. I think its a clever idea yet very dumb, having the Function keys and having a touch bar at the same time . . . yea that would be a innovation. I watched the demo and "usefulness" and NO, I can do Half the things they promoted with hotkeys which I am familiar and used to it and other half Im not interested in anyways. I usually use a external keyboard while I'm at home anyways so thats a useless function to me and anyone who knows how to quickly and efficiently operate computer while editing with their preferred software. The most thing I use on which is on function keys which is now replaced by touch bar is the mission control and launchpad which can become a deal breaker if mac got rid of the entire function.
No more Magsafe:
WTF! If Steve was alive he would die again, if he could hear this. Photography studios are full of cables and clumsy people. I don't care about being able to charge from both sides.
Yet another fan system for cooling:
Every time mac makes a new fan, they present it as if they invented the wheal. So far all mac books become hot and very hot when using the computer to its limits. I have no doubt this will be same.
Four USB type C ports which are also thunderbolt:
Here is yet another very smart and yet very dumb idea. I understand that apple wants to charge with USB-c and be able to use both sides. But you know what would be great idea . . . Have two of those "innovation" usb-c ports (one on each side) then have one Old fashioned Thunderbolt, one USB 3 and you know what would earn back my respect re-introduce the Ethernet port This is a "PRO" machine! The loss of SD card reader is not a big deal to me I shoot on medium format film and my digital Camera uses CF cards. I have to spend £70 and get this to fill my needs. I already have a amazing USB 3 dock with ten USB 3 and one 5V USB port. So just one dongle shit will be sufficient (I HOPE)
FUNCTION OVER FORM! APPLE Let me repeat FUNCTION OVER FORM!!! Remember when apple used the advertising slogan and was a key point for many creative people to try apple when IBM, Toshiba, Dell, Asus machines with windows operating system were dominating the market. Let me tell you "Apple Does MORE Costs LESS" WTF happened to that?
Above sRGB colour gamut screen:
This is improvement in positive way, however unless it is 10bit simultaneous colour, wide gamut over 1Billion colour representation Thats a Billion with a B and 100% Adobe RGB 1998 coverage, it is not too useful to Professionals. However I will enjoy watching things on it I guess . . . and I will have more accurate representation of the colours which are displayed on WEB. See my current setup here. Well I might not be able to do full accurate editing with this new screen but, I can view my edited images and get a feed back on what it will look like on other peoples screen and thats the only good thing about this screen from my perspective.
New 720p Front Facing Camera:
I don't actually care about this, however it is 2016 and 720p . . . apple you can do better! most of my FaceTime and video calls are made from my phone and received to my phone. So I wont notice much between 1080 and 720 but still, for those who is using bigger screen to view you face call things, that could make difference to them.
Thinner Keyboard which is Loud:
I don't know why people are making too much fuss about this but as long as there is a functioning keyboard, which responds to me I am fine.
Selling point of this Laptop to me is, I need something compact powerful with mac OS. I've been using my laptop since mid 2012 and it is time to invest in a upgrade. My wait for Mac Pro was waste, Hackhintosh is very unreliable unless I am a computer Wizard and apple will just not put dedicated Graphics card on their mac mini.
What I am planning on buying:
Im planning on buying 15inch Space grey version.
With upgraded 2.9 GHz Quad-core Intel core i7 processor Turbo boost up to 3.8 GHz
1 TB PCI-e based SSD
Upgraded AMD Radeon Pro With 4GB VRAM
16GB 2133MHz RAM.
Wonderful blog and good post its really helpful for us.
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