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2016 Apple MacBook Pro with TouchBar: The Good, Bad and Ugly Review
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May 30, 2025
When the brand new 2016 Apple MacBook Pro with TouchBar arrives in the office, it doesn't take long for tech expert Dave Taylor -- of http://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ -- to identify what's really innovative, what's fun, what's interesting and, yes, what's really lame and stupid about the new laptop. TouchBar? Winner. Slimmer design? Winner. USB-C? Winner, surprisingly. Things change. But charging system and loss of MagSafe system? Lose. Fortunately, third party companies are already stepping in, as Dave also highlights with a few additional products that will improve your experience with the new MacBook Pro 2016. Mentioned: VMWare Fusion, Ubuntu Linux, Griffin Breakaway USB-C Cable, Moshi USB-C Charge Cable.
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brand new Apple MacBook Pro with touch
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bar I'm going to tell you the Good the
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Bad and the
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[Music]
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Ugly hey Dave Taylor here again and this
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time I'm looking at the brand new Apple
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MacBook Pro with touch bar yes brand new
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literally I've had it 24 hours and I've
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had a lot of time to work on getting
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everything from my old MacBook Pro onto
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this device and had some time to try out
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the keyboard display the different USBC
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plugs and of course the touch bar so I
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thought I'd give you a quick rundown
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with just a little bit of experience on
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this laptop and first I want to say it's
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fast it's light it's a really beautiful
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piece of engineering I mean Apple really
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knows how to make really nice devices
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and the touch bar and I'll give you some
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close-ups the touch bars it's
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interesting I feel like it's waiting for
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some really compelling apps but one
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thing I did find and I'll show you here
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in this cutaway is that when I'm
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listening to music which I do a lot and
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by the by um the speakers are really
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amazingly good it's a significant Step
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Up on speaker sound quality but when I'm
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listening to music through iTunes I go
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into the scrubber as you can see here on
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the touch bar and that gives me all the
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controls I want and it makes it super
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easy to move back and forth on a song or
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if it's a song I really like say I think
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I'd like to hear this song again so I
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like that a lot now what else can I tell
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you the screen's beautiful it's bright
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vivid I mean you know it's the Apple
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Retina screen so we already know that's
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really good the keyboard's a little
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different it's a little Clickety so
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here you know it's a little loud but I'm
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finding that with just a tiny bit of
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adjustment it's pretty easy for me to
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get used to um let's see what else um
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having the ports the
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USBC okay it's a little bit of a drag I
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missed some of my old ports but you know
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what I bought a bunch of new cables I
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bought new wires I have a USBC to
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lightning which works fine with my phone
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you know it has an audio outjack rather
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amazingly so I can do that but
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everything frankly I use Bluetooth and I
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did need to buy a thunderbolt 2 adapter
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because I used a hard drive an external
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hard drive to both do a full and
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complete backup of my old MacBook Pro
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and to use that as the source to copy
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across everything onto the new one now I
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do want to say that every single time
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when I get a new computer I never do
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like a disc clone I actually go through
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the steps and reinstall all of the apps
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and it might be just Superstition on my
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part but what I think is that when you
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have new hardware you don't want to use
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preferences and settings from previous
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Hardware configurations
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so it's taken me probably 3 4 hours to
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get everything just so get logged into
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iCloud and all the Google apps and you
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know all this other stuff so it's a
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little bit of work but price well paid
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now I want to show you so I thought I
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could do one fun thing is actually show
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you how fast it is so here I am one of
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the things people have complained about
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is they've said oh you know there's not
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enough RAM so you're not going to be
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able to do things like run virtual
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machines so you can watch and time it
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I'm going to launch VMware fusion and
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then I'm going to launch ub2 Linux I
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have a full Linux install that I
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experiment with so you ready
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go okay it's launching full screen you
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can see on the bar it's progress and
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boom it's totally ready to go so
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honestly that's not too bad and if
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you're suspicious that that's not true I
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will click on something and you'll see
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within Firefox it actually does change
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and give me a different screen so
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performance is rocking um really it's a
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pleasure after having years of using my
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2012 generation MacBook Pro to go to
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this brand new one with a better
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processor is it the best processor in
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the industry honestly it's such a moving
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Target that no company can come out with
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state-of-the-art gear there's always a
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newer chip that was released just 20
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minutes after you finalize design I
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don't actually really track that stuff
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performance great screen great keyboard
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it's taken me a little getting used to I
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know in 48 hours or maybe in a week I
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won't even be aware of it the massive
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touchpad so far I haven't found any
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compelling reason why it's bigger but I
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do have a suspicion that somewhere along
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the way I'll be able to use a stylus and
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that'll become interesting we'll see if
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that comes to realization touch bar you
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know again it's something where it's
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interesting and it definitely takes a
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little bit of getting used to because
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like if I want to change volume I tap on
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the volume button and then it actually
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shows me a slider but I don't need to
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actually put my finger over the slider
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to change the volume so that's a little
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funky the one thing that I think is most
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annoying though is the way they've
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changed the whole charging system so I
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actually have the cords from previous
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generation Chargers these are going to
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be valuable Commodities you'll want to
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pick up one because when you buy the
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charger basically this is what you get
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you get well I mean and it comes with
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the little tiny piece that lets you plug
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this directly into the wall but that's
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it it's just a little connector on it
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right it's a little USBC connector and
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that's it that's all you buy if you buy
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a charger when you get the computer it
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comes with this and it comes with the
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USBC cable and this is nice cuz this is
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a 10t long cable so it gives you lots of
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flexibility which is good cuz this plugs
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right into the wall but here's the thing
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Apple sort of messed up on two count
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them two different things here the first
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one is that and this might be super
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first world problemy there's no light
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there's no indication that a it's
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charging and the wire's hot or B that
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it's charged and you can now unplug it
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and I've lived for years and years and
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years and years with tons of different
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computers and they all have some way for
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you to see how charged they are without
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actually the computer except for this I
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have no idea what Apple was thinking but
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there's a company called Moshi and they
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actually have a USBC to USBC cable with
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a little tiny indicator light in it that
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will change color when your computer's
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fully charged so that's nice and I'll be
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getting one of those to test but that
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still doesn't address the second issue
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and the second issue is the whole mag
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safe thing and for that I'm glad to say
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my friends at Griffin have come up with
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a really cool thing called uh what do
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they call it the brake safe Breakaway
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power cable and this is going to be
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something that everyone's just going to
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go buy because it's such a simple smart
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thing this is exactly what you should
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have included Apple so USBC to USBC but
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Tada it's a magnetic brake so I can now
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plug it in and if someone trips on the
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wire it just comes off instead of
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breaking in the port I mean seriously
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Apple I don't know what you guys guys
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were thinking but this is just bad
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design and um let's go ahead and plug it
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in and double check that it all works uh
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we go go here we go
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here maybe there we go and the only
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thing that Griffin didn't do is they
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didn't have the indicator light so you
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know really nice design and you can see
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it's a very simple Sleek little wire and
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it has the mag safe and it's a pretty
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strong magnet so that's really cool and
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this is definitely going to be in my
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travel kit because I don't want to have
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something broken off but man Griffin put
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a little indicator light in there or
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Moshi make a breakaway or better yet
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Apple computer make this cable that you
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include thank you very much for
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including a cable so I can charge my
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laptop make this have a breakaway or mag
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safe whatever you want to call it and B
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some sort of indicator light or failing
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that have a design on the laptop itself
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so maybe there's a little tiny light
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somewhere that I can look at and say oh
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it's orange I still need to charge or
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it's green I'm good so that's the ugly
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part of this and that part is just I
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don't know what the deal is maybe like
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the best Engineers weren't allowed to
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work on the power system but all in all
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I actually like the new computer there's
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a lot to really like about it it's light
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it's beautifully designed it's clearly
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faster than my my previous generation
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MacBook Pro um keyboard I'll have to get
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used to a little bit touch bar looking
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forward to seeing what app developers
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are going to do with it I think there's
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going to be some really neat stuff
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coming out and I already like the Emoji
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I don't care label me is silly whatever
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I like this toolbar full of emoji just
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makes it fun and otherwise expensive
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3,000 bucks
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3,000 bucks see how well that mag safe
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worked I'm sorry Breakaway whatever um
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but that's a lot of money and you know
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what this is also my primary tool for
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using for all of my Computing work so
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it's an investment wellmade so this is
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Dave Taylor this is the 2016 MacBook Pro
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with touch bar and four CM 4 USB ports
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and I hope you've subscribed to my
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channel just so you can get more updates
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not just on this of course but all the
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other Technologies I look at and
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hopefully that Moshi cable once I get
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one and I will catch you in my next
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video
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[Music]
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