MBPs suddenly out of stock everywhere -could this mean they're coming?
I was (like everybody else) waiting for Skylake... It didn't come at WWDC, and we're now hearing as late as the 4th calendar quarter because it may well be Sierra only... I need a computer much sooner than that (due to my laptop being in use on an enormous (30 TB!) photo upload, my daily use machine right now is an iPad Pro - really nice for some things - I actually write better on it than on a computer, but limiting for others). I was about ready to pull the trigger on a top-end (1 TB/2.8 gHz/dGPU) last-generation MacBook Pro with the $400 or so off I was seeing - thinking "I'll give Apple until the end of the month to release something new, then I'll buy what I can find, whether or not it's the new one". Now all of AppleInsider's price guides show it out of stock everywhere - the only option showing stock is with no discount at the Apple Store. This is a machine that was $400 off a couple of days ago... Hopefully, this means the new ones are right around the corner?
I might have actually chosen the current machine anyway, due to Disappearing Port Syndrome - Not only are they probably taking my SD reader away, but it looks like any USB port where I might plug one in without an adapter may also be numbered among the missing (neither B+H nor Newegg stocks a direct-connect USB 3.1 SD card reader yet - B+H has a couple of larger, more expensive readers that primarily read CFast or XQD, but also support SD, and that ship with a USB-C cable). As a photographer, the biggest reason to own a laptop instead of using my iPad Pro for everything is dealing with images! Those images come in from SD cards in my camera!
Skylake is about 10% faster than Haswell - no big deal there...
Who knows what the new GPUs will bring - that may be substantial - early results on Polaris show that it is a real improvement.
I wish I was hearing about 4K displays, 32 GB RAM options or 2 TB SSD options, but I'm not - those would be the kind of improvements that would make the new one worth the hassles of the "ahead of their time" USB-C only ports and any possible bugs in the touch bar.
I'm afraid that I waited too long - hopefully, we'll either see new MBPs or at least new stock on the old ones at reasonable prices...
I might have actually chosen the current machine anyway, due to Disappearing Port Syndrome - Not only are they probably taking my SD reader away, but it looks like any USB port where I might plug one in without an adapter may also be numbered among the missing (neither B+H nor Newegg stocks a direct-connect USB 3.1 SD card reader yet - B+H has a couple of larger, more expensive readers that primarily read CFast or XQD, but also support SD, and that ship with a USB-C cable). As a photographer, the biggest reason to own a laptop instead of using my iPad Pro for everything is dealing with images! Those images come in from SD cards in my camera!
Skylake is about 10% faster than Haswell - no big deal there...
Who knows what the new GPUs will bring - that may be substantial - early results on Polaris show that it is a real improvement.
I wish I was hearing about 4K displays, 32 GB RAM options or 2 TB SSD options, but I'm not - those would be the kind of improvements that would make the new one worth the hassles of the "ahead of their time" USB-C only ports and any possible bugs in the touch bar.
I'm afraid that I waited too long - hopefully, we'll either see new MBPs or at least new stock on the old ones at reasonable prices...
Comments
My preferred (reasonable) port configuration (I know I'm not getting Ethernet back no matter how useful it is at large institutions) would be 2 USB-C, 2 USB 3.0, HDMI, Thunderbolt 2 (for older drives), MagSafe, headphone, SD reader. This is one more port than the present model - it's missing one Thunderbolt and gains two USB-C. If Apple wants to give it no more ports (there's plenty of space for the extra one on a 15"), I'd happily lose one USB of either type.
At a minimum, I'd like 2 USB-C, one USB 3.0, HDMI, headphone, SD reader. This charges via USB-C and loses Thunderbolt 2, but maintains one each of the important ports except TB2 and maintains the card reader.
If we go to 4 USB-C and a bagful of dongles, the machine would need to compensate for that port configuration in some way other than size and weight. If it's just Skylake, that's a downgrade to me, but if it's got 32 GB of RAM, a 2 TB drive and a 4K P3 display, that's worth dealing with the dongles.