Unboxing Apple's "New" MacBook Pro 13

So today we've got the new MacBook Pro 13-inch for 2020

While new, it's kind of new. It's a bit of a refresh. They have addressed the most important thing

on this particular model, which is the keyboard. I don't know if you guys have been following the saga

here on the channel, I presume so, but Apple has had some difficulty

with their low-profile keyboards on laptops for a while now. Something called the Butterfly Key Switch

which was innovative at the time. It gave you this sort of impossibly low-profile, clicky keyboard

It came alongside some pretty significant issues and a number of failures

You can find it in forums. You can find it on Reddit. You can find it actually here in the studio with all the various MacBook Pros that we've had

And we've had plenty because we do choose to edit on Final Cut Pro, which is a Mac-specific video editing app

So Jack had a MacBook Pro. Kirk had a MacBook Pro. Will, myself. It was time for Apple to move on

They did move on with the 16-inch MacBook Pro, then they moved on with the MacBook Air

and then this was the last one to join the party, going back to a more traditional scissor-style key switch

So I'm interested to check it out, see how it feels comparatively, and I've even got an old butterfly key switch MacBook Air over there to compare to this one

Now, the reason I'm saying the new old is because pretty much everything else, a lot of other things on here are kind of the same

In fact, in some situations with this model, this is the base model

It's basically exactly the same as the previous version with the exception of the keyboard

This one even has the same generation of CPU in it. It does have a little bit more storage

They've kind of separated the 13 inch into two separate models The two thunderbolt port and the four thunderbolt port so you can spec this thing more aggressively

From a performance standpoint, but you're gonna pay a lot more and then it gets weird because you're thinking

Well, if you're into video editing and you're really going to take advantage of the performance

I don't need this knife. Then why don't you just go for the 16 inch, where you're going to get dedicated graphics that don't exist in here

That was actually quieter than I expected it to be. 13.3 inch 2560 by 1600

This is the 1.4 gigahertz quad core Intel Core i5. So because this is the baseline model, it actually matches up kind of really closely

to the baseline model MacBook Air, and it costs a little bit more money

It does have some other things. It has the touch bar on it. It has a little bit more performance

considering it is a quad core, but there's a lot of overlap there

and it's hard to figure out which one to suggest if somebody is in the Mac camp

and has to be on an Apple laptop. That said, if you're willing to step over to the PC side

you can get something in this exact price range with a newer CPU and a better screen to body ratio

So obviously the options expand substantially if you're willing to do that

256 gigs of storage, so that doubled up. 8 gigs of 2133 megahertz DDR3 memory

That's another area where if you step up, that can change. And two Thunderbolt 3 ports instead of four

FaceTime HD camera. Kind of unfortunate that Apple is still using these super low-res, low-quality webcams

And it's especially apparent right now because everyone's doing so much conferencing on their laptops

Zoom and all the rest of it. Okay, so the benefit with the 13-inch here

is obviously portability over the 16 MacBook Pro And if you want to get the performance closer to the 16 you can spec this thing up to well a lot of money to definitely 16 inch territory you can get a lot more cpu performance out of it

in a configuration like that you get the extra thunderbolt ports but you're still stuck with

integrated graphics which i don't know if that's going to make a lot of sense for creative

professionals people who work in video editing and and so on but you can spec it like that if

You absolutely need the portability over the 16-inch. Now, I do want to do a quick comparison

So, I have the lineup here. This is the new 13. Here is the Air

I mean, you can see those are... It's not much difference. It's not much difference in weight

Obviously, the remaining dimensions are almost identical because they're both 13-inch laptops

There's a lot of overlap here. What can I say? I don't know

This one gives you a little bit more performance if you want it. But like I said, if you want to go crazy performance

if you want to get up closer to two grand, then probably the 16-inch is going to make more sense

When you go to the 16-inch, though, you definitely have a bigger footprint

If you travel, that's going to take up a lot more space. It's substantially heavier

It weighs more when it's sitting on your lap. The dream would be a 13-inch where they could slam some dedicated graphics in there

that would be really nice because then it would i think be a valid alternative to the 16 even at a

similar price point also inside the package we have our type c cable paperwork stickers and whatnot

from apple and you have their charge brick which for this model is a 61 watt usb type c charge brick

so we open this up of course you have the display protected we peel that baby and it's the nice

The MacBook boots up right away as you lift the lid. You got to appreciate that

So there's the new keyboard straight away. Essentially, this new keyboard, the old scissor mechanism

it's like Apple going back to their old laptop keyboards. And what that means is more key travel

I was speaking to Willie Do. He apparently loves the butterfly key switch

even though any type of crumb is going to render the laptop completely useless

as we've seen in the past. But when it's working, he likes it. I was never a huge fan of it. I like a little bit of key travel. I've told you that before

So any amount of key travel to me is an improvement. And honestly, it was getting pretty bad because with all the issues with the old keyboard

it was hard for me to continue to recommend Apple laptops, given the fact that so many people had hit me up in my email inbox with issues themselves

I was telling people, you better wait for them to revise this situation

They now have the entire lineup is now sitting on these scissor key switches in my case

I never really got a ton of use out of this touch bar on the top

But I do actually like and use the touch ID Fingerprint scanner to unlock these devices and that's up in the top right corner another thing that changed on this device

The escape key used to be inside the touch bar now there is a physical it's a dedicated escape key

The 16-inch had that a lot of people. I know a lot of developers were asking for that

So that's back in the 13. That's going to make some people happy. A lot of people had been hoping for a different type of display setup

There were rumors of a 14-inch MacBook Pro where you could have a screen-to-body ratio that looks more modern

without the bezels on the top sides bottom But it is a bit odd that you have the exact same form factor in the 13 department but on the 15 MacBook Pro they went and changed the screen size and improved it a little bit

Granted, even that one doesn't have the craziest, slimmest bezels on the market

when compared to other products that are out there. This side has a dedicated headphone jack

and on the other side you have two Thunderbolt 3 ports. If you spec up the model to a more expensive unit

more powerful unit, then you're gonna get four Thunderbolt ports, just like on the 16-inch MacBook Pro

so you'd have two more on the other side. I'm gonna pull the old 13-inch MacBook Air

This is the one made famous by the video that I made

where the E key was busted, still hanging around the studio. The E key still works on and off

You can just see how comparable these are from a form factor perspective, Basically identical

The MacBook Air, you don't have the touch bar. That could be a plus minus depending on the individual, to be honest

Some people like the touch bar, see it as an improvement. Some people wish they just had those extra keys there

You'll also see a difference where the directional keys are. On this unit, in the old keyboard, you had bigger side buttons to go left and right

And on the new keyboard, they go back to a half size as you can see there

Also, the Touch ID button has grown a little bit, and it has a matte finish instead of a glossy one

The air does dive down a little bit in the front, so you get a lower deck where your wrists rest

making it, I don't know, maybe a slightly better typing experience with a bit of an angle to it

but it's very marginal. The Quick Brown. These keys seem ever so slightly larger

Am I crazy? They might be. the quick brown so they have a kind of thud this was the last generation of butterfly key switches

as apple was hanging on to that technology tightly it was supposed to be innovative the future of

keyboards obviously not the case all kinds of problems with it and they probably should have

given up on it sooner but i kind of understand what they were going for jumped over the lazy

dog you try you're trying to make something super low profile but still have a kind of a click to it

so you have have some degree of confidence but it turns out in reality there's no substitute

from a reliability standpoint and also from a typing standpoint there's no substitute to a

little bit of key travel it's something i've been experiencing in a big way on lenovo laptops with

the x series lineup where i'm having tremendous key travel and i'm flying and all the rest of it

This one gets you closer. Certainly this new keyboard is an improvement. The quick round

And it's not a ton of key travel. Jump over the lazy dog

It's not a ton, but it's enough that you notice an improvement, at least in my circumstance

And another thing I should note, one of the few benefits of the touch bar

in my personal experience using it, is getting quick access to emojis

You can see it saw that I typed dog, and I have a couple of different

I'm gonna, I put some dog emojis in there. Keyboard is an improvement

Other aspects, maybe less so, including the webcam. It's gonna be painful to test it out

but I'm gonna do it anyways. And I believe the webcam on all MacBooks

is the definition of potato camera in 2020. And you don't hear that term very much anymore

because smartphones are so good that those potato cameras don't exist. I am well lit here and I look terrible Okay here we go This is a test on the webcam on the new 13 inch MacBook Pro for 2020

Yeah. I mean, it'll work. I can jump on a zoom. I can talk, I can live, but I don't know what it is

You have a huge bezel. You have a giant forehead at the top too. Is that the camera we're working with

I guess so. It's not a priority to Apple. I've seen many people rant and rave about this, but this is what we're working with

So yeah, even with giant lights facing me, it will not save me

If you're a regular human in a regular environment, it's going to be even worse for you

because it's going to be dimly lit, and then the gain goes up, and the noise goes up on the camera, so it's unfortunate

Let's do a little speaker test to make sure that those are the same. It's an area that I really commend Apple, the speaker department on their laptops

The 16-inch MacBook Pro, tremendous speakers. some of the best speakers I've ever heard on a laptop

and even the Air for something so thin and light. They pay attention to the speakers where other manufacturers don't

Volume, low end is there. Hammerhead true wireless earbuds, but then this one is the one that caught my attention

because it's got a Pokeball on it and has the same Hammerhead wireless earbuds but in yellow

So I did a little bit of research. Yeah, I don't know

I might have to say, honestly, I might have to say Apple is doing the best job in the game on laptop speakers and no one else

People aren't paying attention enough. Obviously, I haven't tried every laptop on planet Earth

But for a 13-inch laptop to sound like that, you can hear the bass. So when it's all said and done, who is the 13-inch MacBook Pro for

Who is the buyer for this thing? After all, you've got this guy as an option

The Air is an option, even though that's the old model. Don't buy the old model. You want the new keyboard

And of course the big boy 16 inch now. I think for creative professionals

This one is going to be the catch-all just because it has the dedicated graphics and by the time you spec this one properly

To a new chip with some RAM in it and some decent storage

You're in this territory anyways then on the flip side if you're just a student you need the base level stuff

You can hop into this MacBook Air for like a thousand bucks and call it a day

And it's gonna do most of what you need. Maybe it's a person who wants to dabble a little bit in the creative goods

But is mostly a student Slash web browser and needs to move the thing around a lot. This is these are your choices live with it or move somewhere else

Where you feel like you have greater options? I think the unfortunate part is it it would be really nice to see what Apple can do in the more aggressive

Screen-to-body ratio laptop competition that's out there in the PC side the portability thing

increases around the board. The butterfly keyboard is dead. It took Apple a while, but at least we're

living in that reality now. My experience with the 16-inch is that this new one is a lot more

reliable. This one hasn't failed. No one sent me an email of this one failing so far. And now the

13-inch joins the old school scissor key switch party. Scissor key switches, a little bit of travel

we need to figure out those webcams though. Come on Apple, let's figure it out

1080p, 4K, 4K webcams. I might want to actually zoom somebody if that

maybe it's better they don't see me full resolution. I don't know