Welcome to my first impressions of my new MacBook Pro 13 inch with the Touch Bar. Below are my first impressions of the new MacBook Pro from Apple.

It is late at night when I typed this post on my new MacBook Pro but I wanted to try and share how things have been plodding along. Plodding is the wrong word as you will read shortly. Whilst typing this post, I tested the bluetooth audio with my Sony MDR-1000x and Beats Wireless Solo 3 headphones. Both sounded excellent and there were no drop outs with the bluetooth.

I wasn’t meant to receive my MacBook Pro order until mid December but fortune happened to be in my favour yesterday. I had to pass by my local Apple Store in Plymouth to try and sort out my wife’s iPhone 6S battery problem and whilst I was waiting to resolve the issue (which was resolved brilliantly by the Apple staff in Plymouth, see update to yesterday’s post) I asked if they had a demo of the new MacBook with Touch Bar available. The answer was no, but stock had just arrived in the store and did I want to buy one now. Well, I said yes, surprise surprise.

I am upgrading my MacBook Pro from 2010 which had 4gb ram, a 512 hard drive and some anaemic processor compared to what’s available in 2016. I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar which is the perfect size for me. It also has 16gb ram, 512 SSD and a 3.3GHz Core i7 processor.

So unboxing the MacBook Pro is a joy. The hardware is stunning in space grey. The MacBook Pro looks stunning. My wife totally agrees with me on this front too. It feels a lot lighter than my old machine and is a smaller profile. Adapters are not an issue for me as I have a few Choetech USB Type C to USB adapters and other Type C cables already. A pair of the Choetech adapters cost £5.99 – Click HERE for More Info. so the issue of adapters is a non starter. The benefit of the more powerful Thunderbolt 3 ports is a bonus in the long run.

The next massive difference is the SPEED. OMFG. This machine flies like a rocket. Lifting the lid, and it starts automatically from a cold boot. A few logins later and less than 5 mins, its setup with my Apple ID, iCloud Photos, Siri, Touch ID, Apple Pay and iTunes Match. Next its time to install Adobe Creative Cloud and Lightroom and Photoshop. To give you some idea in the difference of the speed between my old MacBook Pro and new MacBook Pro, Adobe Lightroom would take the same amount of time to open on my old machine as it took to boil the kettle and make a cup of tea. The new MacBook Pro took just over 6 seconds.

So what else have I noticed? Well the keyboard is totally different to my old keyboard and I was thumping the keys too heavily at first. I now am using less pressure and I am typing really really fast. Took me about one hour to adjust to the new keyboard. The screen makes my photos shine. The new colour gamut which matches the iPhone 7 Plus screen is noticeably better than my old MacBook Pro.

So what about the Touch Bar? Is it gimmick or useful. At first I completed ignored it but as I have gone to do more and more things with the MacBook Pro I have started to use it and it is a smart tool to have. As I type circa 80 words a minute, the word suggestions on the Touch Bar aren’t really useful unless I am trying to type a long word that I am not 100% sure on its spelling. But for other actions it is a quick way to adjust settings, scroll and more. However, it is a feature that I will need to adjust too as time progressed.

For the first time, I have the latest iPhone with the latest MacBook hardware and can fully utilise all the tight integration between the devices. This makes me very happy.

Anyway, these are first impressions. More soon. Any questions, ask away in the comments or find me on all the usual social media channels.

Finally, my thanks to Will and all the lovely staff at Apple Plymouth for their assistance. They are really a friendly bunch and when I unboxed the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, this was the first time any of the staff had seen one first hand. Some it was a wow moment for everyone 🙂