advantage: The appearance is thin and beautiful, the Retina screen is clear and beautiful, the mute and heat are low, the Touch ID experience is perfect, the Force Touch is highly integrated, the system is smooth and free of jamming, and the endurance is excellent.

Disadvantages: The Touch Bar experience is poor. The unified Thunderbolt 3 interface increases the user cost, and the price is slightly higher.

There are many people who like Apple products around us. People love the brand mostly because the launch of each generation of products will be accompanied by revolutionary changes in the industry, which is a benchmark of time node technology. The pursuit of beauty and experience is the reason most users choose. Although I am not a fan of fruit, after using several mobile phones and tablet products, I can deeply understand that the product contains developers' tireless pursuit of function and almost paranoid search for beauty, It is most appropriate to use Jobs's phrase "Innovation distinctions between a leader and a follower" to interpret Apple's "spirit of creation"!

Apple products are generally introduced from mobile phones or tablets, and then to all-in-one computers or Macs. People tend to be rational when choosing electronic products. Most people are not like what some people say "to show off". Apple computers, as the products with the highest selection rate in designers and IT industry, also have reasons, The nearly perfect adaptation and optimization of design software is unmatched by other products. With the gradual increase of Apple users in the industry, the system and file format may gradually marginalize you if you do not use it. In the face of ever-changing technology, in the final analysis, products are all tools to improve productivity. Designers must also start from the perspective of users, focus on pain points and seek a more perfect experience is what we want to see. When you see such a beautiful, lightweight, high-performance machine with a sense of future technology in front of me, I think everyone is irresistible! The hot debate caused by the release of the 12 inch Macbook last year has just receded. On October 28 this year, a new member of the Mac family, the Mac book pro, was released. After reading this release, you will find that this Mac update is not a "minor upgrade" of slightly changed hardware, such as cpu and hard disk, which are criticized by fans. From appearance to hardware, From software application to Touch Bar, which has changed the human-computer interaction mode, it seems that it has injected fresh blood into the slightly tired Mac users in recent years. Can the new Mac Retina version of "four years of one sword" lead the trend of mobile again and shock the world? Now let's find the answer with questions!

As we all know, in the Mac family, the products are divided into two major categories: Mac book Air and Pro. Compared with Air, Pro pays more attention to portability and experience. In addition, the Mac has always controlled the energy consumption of hardware and the adaptation of software well, so we don't have to worry about heat dissipation except that the fanless Pro is quieter, just like a large screen iPad with a keyboard, These designs minimize the weight of the Pro, so that some people do not believe that it is the weight of a 13 inch notebook; In addition to the Retina screen mentioned above, one of the full line products of Air has not been equipped with a retinal screen so far, so this new Pro has many expectations for the eyeglass picky fruit powder.

Retina screen

The same as Retina's iPad mini4 (326ppi), compared with 13.3-inch Mac bool pro. （227ppi）

It can't be found from the above comparison pictures that the products of the same brand, which are both Retina screens, have some differences in the data of pixels per unit area due to the screen size, but the actual appearance shows that the Pro color is warmer and more accurate, while the mini color is cooler. In practical operation, the gap brought by ppi is indistinguishable to the naked eye. The 13 inch MBP (short for Mac book pro) screen with 2560 × 1600 resolution IPS technology has fine appearance and uniform color tone. The 170 degree wide viewing angle makes the screen performance almost impeccable, so if you are picky or obsessive, please pay attention to the screen selection.

Thin, convenient and highly mobile

The most intuitive feeling of MBP appearance is the thinness, especially the unimaginable thinness of the screen, which even feels like the screen will break accidentally when opened! Just because of the pursuit of thin and light design, the screen's iconic luminous logo has also been compromised and replaced with a mirror polished logo like the iPhone and iPad.

In addition to a certain improvement in visual perception, the light and thin fuselage also has a great reduction in volume and weight. The weight of 13 inch 1.37Kg is roughly equivalent to the weight of three iPad air2s, which is suitable for mobile office equipment for office workers.

The new metal hinge design not only makes the MBP body thinner, but also increases the strength, so that you can feel obvious damping when you open the screen. Opening the screen with one hand too hard will bring the lighter body together, but the strength is very smooth.

The small keyboard changes and needs to be adapted

In order to seek a thinner body size, it is necessary to re conceive the whole keyboard's second-generation structure and technology. The new MBP adopts a new generation of full-size "butterfly keyboard" with a larger area of a single key cap. The following figure shows that the difference between the two structures is that the disc keyboard can be thinner, the key stroke is shorter, and it is better than "X" Type X scissors structure is more stable in the key cap.

This brutal shortening of the key path brings about a stiff feel. Although the disc type feedback system brings a click feeling similar to a mechanical disk, it feels strange when you hit it, so that you have not been able to adapt to the keyboard for many days. The increased 17% key cap area really cannot make up for the missing hand feeling of 40% shorter key travel. There is no problem in comfort, but I personally think the accuracy is not high.

Moreover, the integrated design of "up and down" keys in the lower right corner saves more space on the keyboard. In order to distinguish easily, a bulge is added in the middle. Although the square layout of the keyboard is achieved in appearance, it looks very comfortable, but it will lose some convenience in operation.

Here I want to say that the command key marked with "⌘⌘⌘", also known as the Apple key, is a key that is frequently used in keyboard operations. It was said that it was because Jobs thought it was ugly to abuse the Apple key, and the designer Susan Kare discovered this icon. Although I still feel that it is somewhat anti human, it is also the reason why Alt has preconceived itself. In fact, the command key is similar to the control key of a PC. Here are some common key combinations.

1. Close the current session: Windows Ctrl W/Mac Command W

2. Minimize the current window: Windows Ait space N/Mac Command M

3. Copy: Windows Ctrl C / Mac Command C

4. Paste: Windows Ctrl V / Mac Command V

5. Cut: Windows Ctrl X/Mac Command X (folders cannot be acted with shortcut keys)

6. Reorganization (e.g. web page, App Store): Windows F5 or Ctrl R/Command R

This time, the new Mac Book Pro keyboard has also been modified to include the key cap symbols, which not only enrich the symbol representation of some key caps, but also improve the "Caps" The key has an intimate switch between Chinese and English. In order to facilitate the distinction between uppercase and lowercase, the LED light at the left corner of the key cap has also been designed in two colors. Green means to open uppercase, while white means lowercase. It is more localized and looks more reasonable and friendly.

Other appearances

It seems that I don't want to open the box here. As a designer of the world's top manufacturers, I don't think there is anything to write because of the impeccability. The packaging of Mac Book Pro continues the consistent style of Apple products, and the design of white bottoming products in the middle remains unchanged for thousands of years. What I admire most is that every time Apple products are packaged, one product picture can reflect almost all the highlights of the product. For example, the MBP picture can see the thin screen as cicada wings, the widened touch panel below, and the Touch Bar, which will be highlighted later!

Open the upper cover of the package and you can see the MBP wrapped with frosted protective film. In addition to the front face, which looks like an arc curve with convex middle and sinking sides, this is the non luminous logo.

Since MBP has no power key design, opening the screen means activating the system. There is a thin cotton pad between the screen and the keyboard to place the screen abrasion and buffer extrusion. Uncover the protective gasket, and you can see the screen with a black frame. The black frame appears to have a higher proportion of the screen, but it is easy to get fingerprints.

The back design has a basic style and the front face has a radian design. The purpose of this is to visually look thinner and improve the feel of the slim body. However, it is a bit awkward to hold it in the hand. In addition, the weight of 1.37Kg is not heavy for boys, but it should remind you to hold it firmly for girls.

USB-C  

USB-C standard Thunderbolt 3 interface completely replaces the previous power supply HDMI and USB are also the major changes of the new MBP. In the entry version, there are two ports in the middle and four ports are reserved. In addition, the 3.5mm headphone jack is also reserved. In the final analysis, it is also a forced interface unification for the thinner body. Although it seems to be progressive, it is Apple's style, When adding things, it is always innovative and cutting things will be bold. At present, the unification of the USB Type-C standard interface seems to have two sides: first, as Phil Schiller introduced at the press conference, Thunderbolt 3 has a powerful data transmission capability (it supports 40Gb/s bandwidth transmission speed at the maximum and is compatible with 10GB/s USB 3.1 Gen 2 and DisplayPort 1.2). Each of the other four interfaces can be used to charge the notebook, support multiple devices to read, write and output at high speed at the same time, and can achieve multitask processing, which is really a blessing for professionals; However, there will be a lot of inconvenience to us at present. First of all, we should know that we need to spend RMB to purchase an extension device that uses this interface. Apple's accessories are always expensive. TB has undoubtedly increased the cost of users before the cheap version is cracked. The cancellation of the classic Magsafe magnetic connector may be more painful for many users. The humanized design has become a thing of the past, and it also increases the risk of bringing down the computer by going to the power line. Another thing to note is that the transmission rates of the left and right interfaces of the 13 inch MBP equipped with the four interface version are different, which limits the PCI-E bandwidth on the right. Therefore, the external accessories should be placed at the two interfaces on the left. The compatibility of USB-C with the old version of the converter also needs to be verified.

Force Touch  

The Force Touch touchpad is bigger on the Mac book Pro. It can be seen that Apple has a special preference for touch operation. The appearance and use of the touchpad are not very different from those of ordinary PCs, but there is a mystery inside! First of all, after careful study of this touch panel, we found that it is really fixed up and down! It is too different from the traditional "springboard" touch panel. First, the mechanical structure is completely replaced by the force sensor and the Tactic Engine response feedback, which realizes more functions and brings a balanced touch. Different feedback will be obtained when pressing with normal force or with high force. This new operation mode also means that it is possible to operate on the "same plane". Through the configuration of Force Touch option and Taptic, you can freely match your preferred touch activation function, Whether it's a small amount of single keying feedback or a large amount of double keying feedback, it's very real. In the past, the relatively simple and mechanical operation mode was incomparable with Force Touch. Here, I'm not going to praise it deliberately, because it gives me a great feeling! For example, when playing a movie in QuickTime, you can accelerate the movie by gradually increasing the force, and realize the zoom function by increasing the force in the map. In addition, in the drawing, the characters will thicken the strokes as the force increases.

Force Touch is absolutely a great innovation! With the help of Force Touch's tactile secondary pressing, developers will surely join more and more creative applications. Especially for designers like Adobe, some large software developers will do more convenient and creative processing of graphics on pressure-sensitive input Chrome and other browsers will also add some functions similar to website preview and keyword search that are triggered by touch. In addition, in iTunes and other playback software, there may be operations similar to album preview, fast jump and other operations that are triggered by touch. All this is not impossible in the future.

Touch Bar and Touch ID

Touch Bar， "Dazzling" but not "fast"

The biggest attraction of Mac Book Pro this time is the introduction of the concept of Touch Bar. In fact, a secondary screen has been added above the keyboard to replace the traditional F key position. This is not just a screen, but a capacitive screen similar to a touch phone, which can display function keys and perform multi touch operations at the same time, The operation options of the secondary screen also change with the switching of the main screen items. This addition of Touch Bar is also a new challenge for Mac to human operating habits, which is a complete change to human operating habits!

The introduction of the Touch Bar function of the new MacBook Pro has also injected vitality into the product. The introduction of a new concept will take a long time for users to adapt. It seems to be a very convenient new interactive way to complete the command of different software through the sliding and clicking of a 2170x60 touch bar on the top, which not only brings a full sense of technology, It is a change in the way we operate the keyboard over the years.

Apple's Touch Bar today, which once refused to introduce touch into computers, may be a compromise to reality, or a greater plan for the future. The essential difference between the Touch Bar this time and the touch-screen computers on the street is that the Touch Bar and the main screen are split screen displays. The touch bar is mainly used as a shortcut for the common functions of the main screen software, such as fast forward, fast backward, pause and other operations in video playback. Here, the Touch Bar supports the automatic capture of video in the browser, When there is video playing in the webpage, the corresponding touch button will also be displayed.

Compared with the traditional mouse click video progress bar or direction key control, it is more intuitive, but not much convenient!

The experience of Touch Bar in Safari is very good. The support for some big websites such as Sina and Baidu allows users to quickly enter the corresponding website, which is very fast, and the drawing of color tags looks very intuitive and comfortable, which also effectively makes up the limitations and process of the finger operation distance of Force Touch as a touch panel. Click directly to enter immediately, and the experience is good!

The convenience of Touch Bar is also outstanding in calculators. Usually, when we use a calculator to calculate, we need to enter numbers and then use symbols such as Shift++- x ÷ on the number keys to complete the calculation. It is inconvenient and easy to press wrong. With Touch Bar, the operation is also very convenient and fast.

The silent operation of the Touch Bar is just a touch at the fingertip. Although the efficiency and convenience of the operation of the Touch Bar for picture browsing is not significantly improved compared with the traditional finger sliding touch pad or direction key operation, the silent operation may be helpful when it is afraid of affecting others, In addition, although the picture preview provided by the outdoor air conditioner is not very clear due to the size limit, it is better than clicking the page turning key in the picture sea. In addition, on the left side of the touch control bar, you will find many plug-ins for photo "brightness", "cropping", "filter", "contrast", "touch up", "red eye", "cropping", etc., which are one-to-one corresponding to the adjustment function of photos on the computer. What impressed me most is that the "cropping" function is to adjust the rotation angle by dragging the Touch Bar, There is a semicircle arc scale around the main screen photo, which is very vivid and easy to use. In this way, the photo adjustment is much faster than the traditional operation, which greatly improves the productivity.

Of course, the application of Touch Bar is far more than that. At present, it only provides support for some native software. Most of the software on the market has a very low matching degree due to the lagging development, and most of them do not support it. Moreover, the support for "own software" is not perfect. For example, there are few operable keys provided in the commonly used iMovie, and there are almost no other options except a split key. We all know that iMovie, as a powerful video editing software, should also be used for at least time axis adjustment, transition, subtitles, and audio tracks, Unfortunately, it can't be seen on the Touch Bar, so if there is no later software matching it, the Touch Bar will have no other function except to look good.

For another example, the lack of user defined software functions for the Touch Bar and the inability to set shortcut buttons for the Touch Bar according to user habits greatly restrict the space for the Touch Bar to play, which requires developers to carefully understand the habits of most users and have a good plan for the logical order of function display, Only then can the user's timely operation keys be presented to the touch bar as scheduled to achieve the goal of real convenience and efficiency. I hope that more and more software developers can really participate in the recent development. Without their support, the Touch Bar will really become a beautiful "decoration bar", but the good news is Ps Office、DaVinci Resolve Some mainstream software is being developed in full swing, and some commonly used software will be adapted later. At present, the operation has not experienced the convenience and efficiency as expected, and some operations are even complex. In addition, the position of the Touch Bar is located below the screen during the operation, and today, there is still a dizzying feeling in the operation, Touch Bar gives a feeling of novelty, convenience, complexity and confusion.

For the new interactive design of Touch Bar, four shortcut function keys are added to the small menu on the right by default after canceling the original functional area: Adjust Brightness, Adjust Sound, Mute and Siri. The 507 pixel functional area on the right is also defined as the "most critical area", which is the operation we often use. For example, you can directly press the corresponding icon to adjust the volume and brightness, and then drag the scroll bar. You can also press and hold the icon and drag the progress bar from left to right like PS adjustment, which is much easier and faster than the combination button adjustment of traditional laptops.  

Of course, for the Multi Touch Bar, the buttons displayed on the secondary screen can be customized, and the operation is relatively simple. You can drag the icon of the alternative bar to the lower border with the mouse to add or replace it. However, it is worth noting that the function bar on the right, 500 pixels wide, normally displays only four setting options, Therefore, it is better to set some settings that you often need to change. For example, if you do not need siri, you can replace them with settings that you often use.

What's more interesting is that the official promotional website of MacBook Pro shows the scene of playing "Mahjong 18" with Touch Bar. I can't help but say that even if the match is perfect, it will never be too comfortable to play. At first, it is embarrassing for the palm to cross the keyboard, and it is easy to touch the keys if the palm is uneven, In addition, in split screen display, do you have to watch the main screen and then watch the secondary screen to select? I prefer a touch pad or mouse to a Touch Bar.

The Multi Touch Bar function plays a key role in Mac Book Pro 2016. Although there are more text and pictures, this function cannot be fully analyzed because it is too "huge"! As mentioned above, the overall feeling of Touch Bar is full of novelty, and there are many puzzles in its use, so it is still very tangled. To be frank, it is not as good as the experience mentioned in the publicity, The revolutionary design of the Touch Bar for human-computer interaction requires the third-party software developers to expand the application to the Touch Bar as soon as possible, and the design of the operation level is also crucial to the later user experience, which directly determines whether Touch will indeed be a valuable tool to improve labor force. In addition, for users, At the beginning, it seems that everything in Touch Bar is novel, and it is indeed convenient to use it in an application. However, most software does not support it, and some software operations are complicated. It may be unknown whether users will be interested in Touch Bar again after they are new! Moreover, it seems that the design of the Touch Bar has a big move in the future for Apple. But for the design industry with the highest Mac usage, if you expand the external display, will you still "reuse" the Touch Bar in your sight? I admit that the capacitive touch bar has a perfect feel, but the fundamental difference between touch and physical keys cannot be ignored. That is, the touch of physical keys to the fingertips makes it possible to do blind exercises. On the Touch Bar, I can only do blind exercises on the ESC key at the upper left corner. So, at present, I prefer to use the mouse, keyboard and touch pad, Unless some software with very good experience will use Touch Bar, it is usually used to install force.

Touch ID， As always

Another big attraction of MacBook Pro is the Touch ID on the upper right corner of the keyboard. The pushable design is similar to the iPhone before the 7th generation. Touch unlocking and pressing is the power off key. In addition, it can not only be used to unlock the Mac PC when you log in to the Mac for the first time, but more importantly, it is used to confirm payment permissions like the iPhone and iPad. The convenience of application in the system is self-evident, which can eliminate the tedious steps of entering the password, and it can be opened at a touch; Of course, for some professional users, Touch ID can do more than that. It can quickly unlock encrypted files and shortcut system settings. The unlocking speed of Touch ID is very fast. In addition, due to the use of Secure Enclave fingerprint identification, the success rate of wet hand unlocking is also high.

Touch ID Shopping

Digital password verification is also required for restarting or power-off and power-off like other products. If you enter the system again in standby mode, you only need to unlock the Touch ID.

The MacBook Pro implantation of Touch ID to increase user experience is just one aspect. The most important thing is to pave the way for quick payment in the App Store and Apple Pay that may be added in the future. The experience of unlocking the system and completing the purchase confirmation of the App Store is very similar to that of iPhone. There is no slot for the entire function.  

hardware configuration

MacBook Pro's hardware has been significantly updated this time. The processor uses a 2.9GHz dual core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost can reach 3.3GHz at most), and is equipped with 4MB shared three-level cache; 8GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM memory; 256GB SSD based on PCE-E 3.0 has faster solid-state reading speed; It is equipped with four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-c) ports as standard, supporting I/O and high-speed video output.  

The production of games and videos in daily applications will bring great pressure to the hard disk, The bottleneck of SATA interface hard disk can only be filled by PCI-E, so PCI-E based SSDs are the trend of the times in the future. MacBook Pro has always been optimized in video editing and graphics processing. This time, with the support of PCI-E SSDs, the whole experience is as pleasant as flying. Compared with ordinary interface laptops, you can feel a clear difference.

Among the scores of GeekBench (a multi platform comprehensive test tool) below, the single core/dual core scores are 3057 and 6618 respectively. Although the score cannot be used as the only criterion, it can be seen from the numerical value that this core i5 with 29GHz performs exceptionally well and can meet the smooth processing of graphics and audio by professional users. Of course, ordinary users can use it for office work even more easily.

In terms of SSD reading and writing, in the test of the disk speed test provided by MBP, this 256GB SSD based on PCI-E has excellent performance. The average hard disk write is up to 1.5G/s, while the read reaches the upper limit of 2G/s. It has strong performance in importing large files everywhere, and has the support of USB-C, The transmission of large files or fragmented files in daily office work will make you feel "flying". In addition, the targeted optimization of video and graphics processing in the system will make the whole lightweight mobile office notebook more comfortable.  

I tried several stand-alone games, of which App Star and QQ are running in the background. The maximum 500 MB game CPU load is less than 10%, and the memory usage is stable at about 3GB.

mac OS

The system optimization of Apple is still outstanding. This time, the wallpaper of the system is more abundant, and the system performance is further optimized. With the cooperation of hardware and software, the cooperation between Mac and other Apple devices is realized, which is more closely coordinated, mainly in the following aspects:

Scenario 1: When there is a call from our iPhone, the Mac will receive the notification and display the caller's information. We can answer or hang up through the Mac, which is equivalent to a handsfree phone.

Scenario 2: You can send and receive messages from iPhone through Mac, and you can send messages on Mac or have an iMessage conversation by clicking the phone number in the phone book.

Scenario 3: Through the collaboration between iPhone and Mac, you can directly copy and paste from iPhone to Mac fingertips through the traditional method of pasting and copying. This is also mainly introduced at the press conference, which is very practical!

Scenario 4: With the unlocking function, Apple Watch can log in to the Mac without entering a password to continue working. It not only makes everything clear, but also provides great convenience.

The design of Mac is closely related to the powerful operating system, Mac OS. The barrier free and convenient communication between devices through the cooperation between software and hardware is also what hardware manufacturers have been looking for. Apple just has the advantage of resource integration. In OS, we see more thoughtful interaction design and humanistic consideration of payment security, The experience has really been done in every detail. Here are some screenshots of the system.

Standby and endurance

The charging and standby time of the Mac were actually tested. It took one and a half hours to charge from 40% to 100% while operating the Mac; In the process of non-stop use, after taking screenshots, watching videos, and scanning Weibo and QQ, 58% of them went down after four and a half hours. In the daily commuting of Mac, there is no problem for eight hours, unless it is used with full load all the time.

last

After many days of in-depth experience, in general, the new MacBook Pro is a very good mobile office computer despite the price factor, and its outstanding appearance design is obvious to all. The good portability brought by the ultra-thin body design is also needed in our daily life, and almost anyone can't refuse it from the aesthetic point of view; In addition, the upgrade of hardware has brought good performance, The core I5 dual core processor, together with 8G 2133MHz DDR3 SDRAM memory and PCIe interface based SSD, can make us feel at ease in entertainment and office work. The color gamut and brightness of the top and excellent Retina screen have been improved again. For ordinary users, the above configurations can also meet the requirements of general drawing For the needs of video clips, although we need to purchase additional accessories for multiple expandable USB-C interfaces, the transmission and versatility brought by the interfaces are obvious; The endurance can also meet the light use of our daily commuting, but if you are a professional, then take the charger! Here are the advantages and disadvantages of the product.

Advantages

1. Lightweight and fashionable appearance, suitable for carrying;

2. Re layout of multiple designs, with more outstanding details;

3. Retina screen has excellent performance, clear and beautiful;

4. PCIe interface SSD has fast access speed and improves productivity;

5. Thunderbolt 3 port supports high-speed l/o and video output;

6. Touch ID is safe and easy to use, and the experience is almost perfect;

7. The fan free design is silent, and the low energy consumption heating control is very good;

8. Force Touch has strong and unique technical barriers;

9. The mac OS responds smoothly, and the logical relationship at the operation level is clear;

10. Very good endurance, one day of light office work is enough;

11. The mac can be compatible with most software, and the three major components of office are perfectly compatible.

Disadvantages

1. Touch Bar is a gimmick so far. It's useless except for its good looks (it's too expensive!);

2. The new butterfly keyboard can't be loved. Although it is thin, it has no feel;

3. If you plan to subvert Win to join the Mac family, you should be ready to use time to adapt;

4. If a professional designer friend has meters in his pocket, he still suggests to use the 15 inch exclusive Tuhao version directly. Because the 13 inch screen is too small, the graphics card is also a pain point, and you may regret buying it (this is not a shortcoming);

5. If you buy it, you can also buy the digital media converter together. It is still cheaper now, and the multi port is only 388;

6. I always feel pain without Magsafe magnetic power interface.