In November, I received my new MacBook Pro with touch bar. I specced it with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, but stuck with the stock i5 processor. Initially, I was confused by the resolution. Given it was my first retina, I thought it would be much higher resolution than it was out of the box. After a little bit of digging, I found out that there was a more space setting. That was much better. I guess the retina is more about not having jagged edges than all-out resolution.
So what are my impressions after two months?
The Pros
The SSD is fast. I mean really fast. I ran a benchmark and the results were 1.5Gb/s and 2.0Gb/s write and read respectively! I don’t love or hate the keyboard. I have grown used to it. As a fan of mechanical keyboards (I have many), that surprised me. The sound it really good, so much better than my MacBook Air (especially with Boom installed.) I use the touch ID all the time, especially for 1Password. Most of the time though I unlock using my Apple Watch.
The Cons
I haven’t found myself using the touch bar as much as I thought I would. I think it will get more useful over time. Support for Java-based IDEs would be nice. Right now I don’t seem to be able to bind anything to the F9-F12 keys. Not sure what that is about. The computer was also really expensive. Much more than I thought it would be. Other than that, I haven’t found much to complain about.
Overall, I am pleased with my purchase. I think I will buy Apple Care before the year is, out as repairs will be expensive.
Technology, Programming & Flight Sim 