I really went back on forth on this Mac. I did not want to spend the money and would have gone with a 13 inch option, were it not for the butterfly keyboard issue. I even considered a Windows box, but since i use one in my job was very resistent to the idea.
In the end the 16 inch with its magic keyboard was my only real choice. These things are so expensive, but I did realize that it was replacing a 10 year old MacBook Pro that still worked, so I guess you get what you pay for. After shopping around I got a pretty good deal from an Apple authorized seller through Amazon (saved $300). I took the 16Gb i-9 quad core with the standard video memory, slightly higher end card, and a 1TB drive all for $2499. I wanted more RAM, but read that the solid state hard drive would make up the difference quite nicely; which appears to be true.
Okay, so how do I like it? I absolutely love this thing!!! It works so smoothly, so fast, and so well. No hang ups or lags, no glitches or little “we’ll fix that later” items. It’s powerful and easy to use. The keyboard feels a little different, but is not a bad tradeoff for computer slimness. The track pad took me a while to get used to, but when you do it’s actually pretty handy.
I even love the touch bar, which I fully planned to hate after reading the reviews. It’s easy to customize and it does so many things just when you need them. Example, in finder, the trash can and new folder are right there (in my setup). In Quicktime it has a scrubber bar that lets you smoothly scroll to the frame you want. Oh well, some will hate it - i like it.
Performance: I realize that I am coming from a 10 year old MacBook, but I also use a pretty new Dell laptop in my work, which if you throw out the docking station is a pretty good workhorse. My only real performance needs are for home video editing, and ripping and rendering movies (which i buy) for my home server. Video editing is fun again! It adds clips and photos so fast, edits like a dream, and renders like lightning. Video conversion is something else altogether...
Video conversion test case: Frozen 2 on blue-ray. Ripping with Make MKV was about the same, owing to my external drive limitations, but rendering using Handbrake was phenominal (to me anyway). It rendered the movie in high quality, H264, 1080p in about 45 minutes. I am no professional, so you will have to rate that against your own experience, but for me it was fantastic!
Finally, less demanding software like microsoft Office 365, Apple Pages and friends, and VLC handle quite nicely - loading documents in a flash and never hanging up hiccuping.
Oh yeah, i bought two USB 3.1 adapters and one SD adapter for about $8 each, all three with the tiny plug and short cord. That allows you to use all four ports at onc, plus they are all compact and blend quite nicely.
Summary: i love this computer and don’t begrudge a penny spent on it.
Sustainability features
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Energy efficiency
Conserves energy compared to similar products.
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EPEAT EPEAT addresses the sustainability impacts of electronic products. An EPEAT registered product must meet required criteria and can meet optional criteria. The criteria depend on the type of product and can include energy efficiency, reduction of fluorinated greenhouse gases (F-Gases), and end of life management. Products meeting 50% - 75% optional criteria are “Silver” and those meeting more than 75% are “Gold”.
Certification Level
GOLD Part of
Climate Pledge Friendly
There is a newer version of this item:
Sustainability features
This product has sustainability features recognized by trusted certifications.
Energy efficiency
Conserves energy compared to similar products.
As certified by
EPEAT EPEAT addresses the sustainability impacts of electronic products. An EPEAT registered product must meet required criteria and can meet optional criteria. The criteria depend on the type of product and can include energy efficiency, reduction of fluorinated greenhouse gases (F-Gases), and end of life management. Products meeting 50% - 75% optional criteria are “Silver” and those meeting more than 75% are “Gold”.
Certification Level
GOLD Part of
Climate Pledge Friendly
Compare Apple Mac products
| Price | From: - | From: - | From: - |
| Ratings | (4,951) | (1,768) | (342) |
| Display | 16-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Retina display | 13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Retina display | 15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Retina display |
| Processor | 2.6GHz 6-core 9th-generation Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz or 2.3GHz 8-core 9th-generation Intel Core i9 processor with Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz | 2.3GHz quad-core 8th-generation Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz | 2.2GHz 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz or 2.6GHz 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost up to 4.3GHz |
| Battery | Up to 11 hours wireless web battery life | Up to 10 hours wireless web battery life | Up to 10 hours wireless web battery life |
| Touch Bar/ID | Touch Bar and Touch ID | Touch Bar and Touch ID | Touch Bar and Touch ID |
| Storage | 512GB or 1TB SSD | 256GB or 512GB SSD | 256GB or 512GB SSD |
| Weight | 4.3 pounds (2.0 kg) | 3.02 pounds (1.37 kg) | 4.02 pounds (1.83 kg) |
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Should You Buy?
Reviews with images
My first Mac
This computer is my first Mac. My mom and I have always been Dell microsoft explorer gals. Yet, due to our bad experience with our last computer; we decided to purchase a Macbook and see what all the fuss was about. This computer is pretty great. There are a few draw backs. Like I would like to have the lock screen be either different than my desktop picture or the same, and not that one that you get when you turn the computer on; it's really ugly and boring. Other than that, the computer is beautifully done and has hardly any updates; which is a real change compared to the horrible updates that I had to be subjected to when I was using my Aspire computer. Also, another real change is not having to push a button to turn on the computer. I'm learning to like this function and am not as worried as I was when I first experienced the computer doing this for the first time; you just open the computer and it comes on. Here's another thing, I could be wrong, but this Macbook doesn't have touch screen. You can touch the bar, but not the screen. So, if you're looking for one that has this feature you might want to look elsewhere. I for one don't care about touch screen, even though it would be a neat feature; it still works great for me and my mom.
Top reviews from other countries
A. Carvalho
Excelente notebook, acessórios escassos
Reviewed in Brazil on February 19, 2020