Apple Upgrades MacBook Pro With Improved Keyboard, True Tone Display, More
- Mehedi Hassan
- Jul 12, 2018
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It’s finally here. If you are like me and have been long waiting for a new MacBook Pro, you will no longer have to wait much further — Apple has just taken the wraps off its new, refreshed MacBook Pros. The company is making a couple of significant-ish changes to the MacBook Pro, while the existing design intact. Here’s what it’s all about.
First off, Apple’s new MacBook Pros come with True Tone displays that can adapt the screen based on your room temperature. Apple is also including a T2 chip on the device that’s capable of enabling the “Hey Siri” command for the first time ever on a Mac, so you no longer have to use the keyboard to access the personal assistant on your Mac.
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But more importantly, the new MacBook Pros come with an improved keyboard. Don’t get too excited yet, though. Apple says the new MacBook Pros come with a third-generation keyboard that’s quieter than before, but it continues to have the same butterfly switch mechanism and key travel that made the previous gen of MacBook Pros so controversial. So yes — the keyboard is technically improved, but we aren’t quite certain whether it will fix any of the issues that users had with the previous gen MacBook Pros.
And then there are the usual spec bumps. The new MacBook Pros are seriously powerful, with Intel 8th gen Core processors on both the 15-inch (6-core, 2.6GHz, Turbo Boost to 4.3GHz) and 13-inch (quad-core, 2.3GHz, Turbo Boost to 3.8GHz) variants. The 15-inch model is now 70% faster, while the smaller 13-inch model is “twice as fast.” Professional users can take things to the next-level with upgrade options to 32GB memory on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and up to 2TB SSD on the 13-inch and up to 4TB SSD on the 15-inch. That’s full-spec, of course, and it will cost you a lot.
Along with the new MacBook Pros, Cupertino is launching new, official leather sleeves for the devices. The new devices are available for purchase right now, starting at $1,799 for the 13-inch model and $2,399 for the 15-inch model. But here is the thing: the entry-level 13-inch models haven’t been upgraded, so you still get the crappy keyboard and old processors in those.