Originally Posted: December 7th, 2019

2019 13-inch MacBook Pro Review

It’s well built, has a great screen, great trackpad and good performance. The keyboard, unfortunately, spoils it. If you read my last post, you might be surprised. I still think it is a bad time to buy one. Let's break down why and review the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro.

2019 MacBook Changes

In July, Apple discontinued the 12-inch MacBook and the 2015 Air, made minor updates to the 2018 Air, and introduced a new low-end MacBook Pro. In November, they replaced the 15-inch Pro with a 16-inch model featuring a larger screen, better GPUs, larger battery, higher RAM and SSD limits, and a scissor switch keyboard. Compared to how the lineup was at the beginning of the year, everything is improved. There’s something for everyone and the lineup makes sense again.

• The 13” Air is great for light usage. If you just need a basic laptop, this is the one to get.

• The 13” Pro is great if you need performance in a small package. If the Air isn’t enough, look here.

• The 16” Pro is the portable powerhouse. Unless you’re sure you need this much power, you probably don’t.

The 2019 MacBook Pro 13-inch, 2 Thunderbolt 3 Ports

Seriously, that’s the official name

Like all recent Apple Laptops, the 2019 13” MacBook Pro is a nice piece of Aluminum on the outside. This one is around 12 inches wide, 8.5 inches deep, .6 inches thick and weighs 3 pounds. It feels solid in the hand, but light enough to not notice in a bag. Ever since the unibody design debuted on the 2008 MacBook Air, Apple’s physical laptop design has been second to none. Nothing has changed there. It feels well built.

Opening it up, you’ll notice one of the most under appreciated parts of a good laptop - the hinge. We take for granted that it’s easy to open with one hand, and that the screen will move to whatever angle we want and stay there. The hinge on the 2019 MacBook Pros does not disappoint. For my money, Apple still makes the best overall package of hinge, palm rest and trackpad area. Apple really nails the basics. (Besides the keyboard - more on that later.)

Now that the laptop is open, let’s scan roughly top to bottom:

Webcam: Meh

I can't tell what's more amazing - how far the iPhone front facing camera has come since 2011, or that the MacBook Pro camera hasn't changed since then. In 2019 we still have the same grainy, depressing 720p webcam. It's not as bad as the 2015-2017 (RIP) 12" MacBook, which stepped down to 480p to fit in it’s tiny frame. I imagine the reason we are stuck at 720p is the thinness of the display lid. Apple decided the extra thickness wasn't a good trade off to make. It’s arguable, but it seems like the right call. I also imagine Apple bought 100 million of those things 8 years ago and they're just sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Tim Cook, the master of the supply chain, at work.

Screen: It’s beautiful

The screen has been the same resolution and size since 2013, 2560 x 1600 at 227 PPI. This is one of the best screens you’ll find, and 16:10 is still the correct aspect ratio for a laptop. It goes up to 500 nits and supports the DCI-P3 color space. Translated into English: it’s really bright and colorful.

I'd like to see more pixel density, but higher density brings along a trade off in battery life. Yet again, I think they made the right choice. 4K resolution panels in 13" class laptops are battery hogs (see: XPS 13), creating more work for the GPU while chasing diminishing returns. You'd be hard pressed to find a pixel or a complaint when looking at the screen.

Microphone and Speakers: They’re decent

The speakers are better than most, but they are still laptop speakers. They provide an OK bass level and get pretty loud. I wouldn’t use it for filling a room with music, but they are more than good enough for casual use if you don’t have dedicated speakers around. The microphone is similar. Good enough for a video call, but not something you’d want to record a podcast with.

Of course, they are not as good as the “studio quality” microphone and speakers Apple put into the 16-inch. It’s safe to assume the next generation of 13-inch should include those same improvements. No matter how good the next ones are, they’re still not going to be as good as something external.

Touch Bar: more useful than I thought

We’re getting into the controversial areas now. If you’ve listened to Apple pundits for the past few years, you’ve heard lots of complaints about the Touch Bar. To me, those complaints seem overblown. For my uses - documents, web browsing, writing, other light tasks - I’ve found myself reaching for it and enjoying using it. Granted, I’m not a VI user or a developer who desperately misses the physical escape key. I can sympathize, it just doesn’t apply to me. The 16-inch fixes this, and presumably so will the next 13-inch.

I do wish the TouchBar was optional, but that doesn’t seem to be in Apple’s plans. They recently doubled down on it, adding it to the low end MacBook Pro in 2019. Like it or not, it’s here to stay. The integrated TouchID sensor is the bigger feature to me. I’d like to see FaceID, but that’s another thing Apple doesn’t seem to be prioritizing. Seeing FaceID on the iPad Pro makes me think it could fit in the display bezels if they were willing to make the display assembly thicker. Again, it’s a trade off. For now TouchID and the handy unlock with Apple Watch feature make the omission less painful.

Keyboard: it’s a long story

It’s a huge asterisk on an otherwise great computer. A semi-brief history:

2015 - The first butterfly keyboard debuted on the 12” MacBook, a computer that made a lot of compromises to be as small and thin as possible. The keyboard was a big part of that, with the butterfly keyboard being 34% thinner than the previous scissor switch style. Early reviews noted the lack of key travel and weren’t sold on the new mechanism, but there were no widespread complaints about reliability yet.

2016 - In the spring, Apple updated the 12” with no mention of the keyboard. In October, a second generation butterfly mechanism provided “more responsive typing” on the new 2016 MacBook Pro. Complaints about the keyboard were mostly drowned out by complaints about the new ports and the TouchBar. Reports of butterfly keyboards failing were starting to pop up, but it wasn’t clear how many people were being affected. The issue became obvious though: small amounts of dust or debris can get lodged in the keys, causing them to not function or repeat key strokes. The way Apple designed the new laptops compounds the problem, requiring an expensive complete top case swap rather than simply changing out the keyboard. Not good.

2017 - Apple updated the 12” with the second generation keyboard used in the 2016 MacBook Pro, and spec bumped the MacBook Pro. More reports of keys failing were coming in, enough to prompt Apple to publish one of the funniest support articles in recent memory. To my knowledge, this was the first time Apple publicly admitted faults with the butterfly keyboard. Telling customers their expensive new laptops occasionally need some compressed air to function was not a good look. Casey Johnston posted her famous The New MacBook Keyboard is Ruining My Life, where she noted that the path from ‘a piece of dust’ to ‘$700 repair’ was terrifyingly short. The reputational damage to the MacBook was becoming obvious.

2018 - This was the big year. In May, Apple was hit with two class action lawsuits over the butterfly keyboard. In June, they announced the butterfly keyboard repair program, giving owners of the 2015-2017 laptops four years of warranty coverage for keyboard issues. The 12” MacBook was left behind, but in October the 2018 retina MacBook Air was announced, and the MacBook Pros were updated. Both of those new laptops feature a 3rd generation of keyboard, this time featuring rubber gaskets around each key. The gasket makes the keyboard quieter and is supposed to keep out dust. Shortly after release, reports of the 3rd generation keyboard failing started to come out.

2019 - In March, Joanna Stern posts that Appl Still Hasn’t Fixd Its MacBook Kyboad Problm which caused Apple to publicly apologize.

We are aware that a small number of users are having issues with their third-generation butterfly keyboard and for that we are sorry. The vast majority of Mac notebook customers are having a positive experience with the new keyboard.

In May, Apple updated the high end 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros, and revised the keyboard again. The 4th revision included the membrane, but featured “new materials” which were supposed to improve reliability. In July, Apple refreshed the low end 13” MacBook Pro and the Air, both gaining the 4th generation keyboard. Apple immediately added the new Air and MacBook Pros to the keyboard repair program. While this should have been reassuring, it also was a signal Apple knew the problm was not fixd.

Finally, in November, Apple waved the white flag on the butterfly keyboard and introduced the 16-inch MacBook Pro with a traditional scissor switch keyboard and physical escape key. That’s where we are now. The fix is out there - it’s just not available on any laptop besides the new 16-inch. That puts customers in an awkward position. Buy the top of the line, or buy a laptop that might fail on you a few years from now and require a $700 repair. Even if the 4th generation does improve reliability, the butterfly keyboard is still, at best, divisive. Apple always claims the issues affect a small percentage of customers, but I do not recommend that anyone trusts this keyboard long term. Even with the 4 year warranty, it’s unacceptable on a premium, expensive device.

Trackpad: best in class

Ever since Apple bought FingerWorks in 2005, they’ve had the best trackpads in the industry. Nothing has changed, even with Microsoft finally getting their act together in the last few years with their precision drivers. I think the 4th generation MBP's trackpads are little too big, but it’s not an issue. The palm rejection is good, and it mostly stays out of the way.

For me, one of the defining Mac experiences is multi fingered gestures. It’s how I navigate spaces, reveal my desktop, switch apps and get into Lauchpad. The too-large trackpads do help with those, but it doesn’t feel like a noticeable improvement over the size of the 2015 models. Oh, and force touch exists, too, I guess. Either way, it’s a great trackpad.

Ports: It’s complicated

Ever since 2016, the only ports the MacBook Pro has are Thunderbolt 3 and a headphone jack. SD card slot, HDMI, USB-A, Thunderbolt 2 and MagSafe are all gone.

Thunderbolt 3 looks like a normal USB-C port, but it has super powers. It really fast (up to 40Gbps) and can carry other protocols, like USB, HDMI, DisplayPort and power. Apple wants it to be the port to end all ports, and in some ways it is. As USB-C cables and devices have improved and become more popular, a lot of Apple’s goals are being fulfilled. For most people though, it means new cables, more adapters and frustration.

The cheaper MacBook Pro (starting at $1299 for 1.4GHz/8GB/128GB) has two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the left side. The more expensive (starting at $1799 for 2.4GHz/8GB/256GB) add two others on the right side. It comes down to PCI lanes, Thunderbolt controllers and it's complicated. I’ll spare you all the technical details, unless you want them.

For me, my main use of ports is connecting a keyboard, mouse and display. I do this with Apple’s USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter. Do I wish I didn’t have to spend $69 to do this, or be forced to buy new cables and accessories? Sure, but I appreciate the convenience of USB-C. More and more devices are switching to USB-C, and we’re getting closer to the one-port-to-rule-them-all utopia. As the ecosystem grows, the complaints are slowly going away. Just make sure to budget for some adapters and new cables.

Some Things You Can't See

Performance: it’s good

TL;DR: it’s better than the MacBook Air, but not as good as the 15 or 16-inch. There are tons of other reviews that go deep into the benchmarks and differences, but the easiest way to explain is to look at the TDP of the Intel CPU in each.

MacBook Air: 7W
13-inch 2 port: 15W
13-inch 4 port: 28W
16-inch: 45W

You’re always going to get more performance for longer periods of time with the bigger and more expensive models. If you want a basic laptop, get the Air. If you need a bit more, get the 13-inch 2 port. If you’re doing CPU and GPU heavy work, you really should be looking at the high end 13-inch or 16-inch. The 15W CPU in the low end 13-inch is a nice middle ground, and it’s what is right for my use.

Battery Life: it’s okay

Apple quotes 10 hours of “wireless web” but it heavily depends on what you're doing. I haven’t done any in depth testing, but I have no complaints. I’d like to see what’s possible if the laptop got a little thicker and had a bigger battery, like the 16-inch. For now though, it’s good enough.

SSD: It’s fast, but too small

Apple has really prioritized SSD speed, and it shows. Fast storage allows it to boot, launch apps and move files really quickly. It’s a big part of why it feels so responsive. My only complaint is the size of the SSD Apple includes on the base models. Both the Air and the 13-inch 2 port start at 128GB, which is downright insulting. For people who do most of their work online and stream most of their media, it may not be an issue. For me, it destroys the experience. Apple did adjust their SSD upgrade pricing in 2019, which helped, but these 128GB drives need to go.

Overall: It’s great*

Despite it’s ridiculous name, the 2019 MacBook Pro 13-inch, 2 Thunderbolt 3 Ports is a great* computer.

If you go out and buy one right now, Apple will cover any keyboard repairs for 4 years, but what happens then? No computers should have an expiration date, especially one marketed towards professional users with a professional price to go with it.

The 16-inch proves that Apple is headed in the right direction, we just have to wait. That’s why I think that anyone who wants a 13-inch MacBook Pro should hold off. There are always going to be better computers coming, but this is one of those updates that is worth waiting for. With any luck, it should only be a few months.

I still miss MagSafe.