If you haven’t heard the news yet, there’s a new Macbook Pro out. Marking the 25th anniversary of Apple’s portable computers, the new laptops integrate a brand new multi-touch enabled Touch Bar that replaces the function key row.
Apple MacBook Pro (2017) 13-inch with Touch Bar specifications
- 13.3-inch (2560×1600 pixels) IPS LED-backlit display, 227 PPI, 500 nits brightness
- 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz, with 4MB shared L3 cache
- 8GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 onboard memory, 256GB /512GB PCIe-based onboard SSD
- Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports with support for: Charging, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt (up to 40 Gbps), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps)
- Backlit keyboard, Force Touch trackpad
- Touch Bar with integrated Touch ID sensor
- 720p FaceTime HD camera
- Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2
- Stereo speakers with high dynamic range, Three microphones, 3.5mm headphone jack
- Built-in 49.2-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery with Up to 10 hours wireless web/iTunes movie playback, Up to 30 days of standby time
Apple MacBook Pro (2017) 15-inch with Touch Bar specifications
- 15.4-inch (2880×1800 pixels) IPS LED-backlit display, 220 PPI, 500 nits brightness
- 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz) with Intel HD Graphics 530 and 2GB GDDR5 Radeon Pro 450 GPU / 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with Intel HD Graphics 530 and 2GB GDDR5 Radeon Pro 455 GPU
- 16GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 onboard memory, 256GB /512GB PCIe-based onboard SSD
- Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports with support for: Charging, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt (up to 40 Gbps), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps)
- Backlit keyboard, Force Touch trackpad
- Touch Bar with integrated Touch ID sensor
- 720p FaceTime HD camera
- Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2
- Stereo speakers with high dynamic range, Three microphones, 3.5mm headphone jack
- Built-in 76.0-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery with Up to 10 hours wireless web/iTunes movie playback, Up to 30 days of standby time
While the multi touch enabled Touch Bar strip will dynamically adjust and display icons that suit the exact work you are doing at the moment, there’s other changes in the hardware too. The new Macbook Pro models replace the existing USB, Thunderbolt, HDMI and Magsafe ports with 4 USB Type C connectors. This elegant looking solution enables you to charge your computer, run video out from any of the ports. The latter will of course require a dongle as will the ability to charge your iPhone or connect pretty much any accessory you currently own.
In terms of processing power, you get 6th Core i7 processors on the 15″ Macbook Pro while the 13″ version gets an option between i5 and i7 processors. The 15″ Macbook Pro also gets an ATI Polaris based GPU which will have 2 or 4GB of RAM depending on the variant you chose. Storage on the 13 and 15 inch Macbook Pros starts at 256GB and goes up to 2TB on the top of the line variant.
Both the models will start shipping soon and have been priced at Rs. 1,55,900 (MRP) for the 13 inch version and goes up to Rs. 1,72,900 (MRP) for the upgraded version, while the 15 inch Macbook Pro will start at Rs. 2,05,900 (MRP) and go up to Rs. 2,41,900 for the upgraded version.
Interestingly, Apple has also introduced a lower end version of the 13 inch Macbook Pro priced at Rs. 1,29,000 that sports just 2 Thunderbolt ports / USB C ports and eschews the Touch Bar. The lower end Macbook Pro will be available today, while the Touch Bar enabled 13 and 15 inch Macbook Pro models will take 2-3 weeks to ship in the U.S. Apple says both the standard and Touch Bar enabled MacBook Pros will be available in India soon.