Introducing the New MacBook Pro

Student exploring the features of the new Macbook Pro. Photo by Diana Hoffman/Spectrum.
Student exploring the features of the new Macbook Pro. Photo by Diana Hoffman/Spectrum.

 

By Diana Hofmann

Staff Reporter

This past weekend, Apple displayed its new product on it’s home page.

It is said to be faster, more powerful, thinner and lighter than previous MacBook’s and provides up to 10-hour battery life.

One of the most highlighted features is the touch bar, which is a multi-touch enabled strip of glass that is built into the keyboard for instant access to any of your favorite or relevant tools. It also allows you to use system controls such as volume and brightness, while also using typing features such as emoji’s and predictive text.

In addition, Apple’s new product now provides a touch ID that enables instant access to your login, ensuring it is faster and more secure.

“As a video editor, having that easy access touch screen right above the keyboard will make getting to my editing programs faster and more efficient. As an editor time is everything, so having a higher quality computer with brand new technology will put me ahead of the game for future projects,” said graduate student and graduate assistant for the Sports Communication Media Graduate Program, Kara Levine.

The new MacBook is reported to bring a whole new level of performance and portability. Apple is promising that this new laptop is faster than ever with its cutting edge graphics, high performance processors and state-of- the-art storage. The company also reports that it comes with 130 percent faster graphics, up to 3.8GHz turbo boost processing and up to 100 percent faster flash storage.

This new Macbook Pro is declared to be the brightest and most colorful Mac notebook display yet by providing brighter LED backlighting and an increased contrast ratio. It is the first Mac notebook to support wide color ensuring life-like pictures.

Its speakers have also been completely redesigned by Apple in order to provide their consumers with more than twice the dynamic range and up to 58 percent more volume, and two and a half times louder bass. Being that it is connected directly to system power, it will have up to three times more peak power.

“The new MacBook Pro sounds awesome, I would definitely purchase it. The size is perfect and the touch bar makes it very unique,” said senior Haley Craw.

This product has 4 new ports, the USB-C, which is a revved-up universal port. It provides data transfer, charging and video output in a single connector. Existing devices are to be connected with a cable or adapter.

“It’s not compatible with most current USB devices. You can’t even plug your iPhone into the MacBook so you have to pay $20 for each USB port. It’s a lot of money and they are trying to force a new standard,” said Senior Technical Services Specialist Chris Panagoulias.

This new laptop is a lot more expensive than a regular MacBook Pro. It starts off at $1,799 but if you add more features to it, the 13-inch model could top off to be $2,899. The 15-inch model automatically has the touch bar and starts at $2,399, but could ultimately end up at $4,299 as stated on Apple.com.

“Every MacBook is expensive, but buying one that has brand new features and is lighter than the 15-inch MacBook pro is worth the money,” said Levine.

The new MacBook Pro without the touch bar is available in stores and the MacBook Pro with the touch bar is available now for pre-order.

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