The 2018 Apple MacBook Pro is now starting to reach consumers. The folks at Laptop Mag got their hands on one of Apple’s new laptops and conducted a few tests on it. They claim it is the “fastest system in its class.”
Better than others
Laptop Mag used the $2,499 13-inch MacBook Pro for its tests. The 2018 Apple MacBook Pro comes with a Touch bar, 2.7 GHz quad-core 8th generation Core i7 processor, a 512 GB SSD, and 16GB of RAM to help the Intel Iris Plus 655 do its job. Laptop Mag ran tests on the internal SSD and found astonishing write speeds of up to 2,682 MB/s.
“I had to do a double take when I saw how quickly the new 13-inch MacBook Pro duplicated 4.9GB worth of data. It took 2 seconds, which comes out to a rate of 2,519 megabytes per second. That’s insane,” the tech website said.
The 2018 Apple MacBook Pro topped the Geekbench 4 test, which measures overall performance. The MacBook Pro scored 18,055 on the multi-core test, outperforming premium laptops with an average performance of 9,930. Others in the race include the HP Spectre 13 and Huawei MateBook X Pro, with scores of 13,090 and 12,913, respectively.
Thereafter, the team ran the BlackMagic Disk Speed test for macOS, and the average write speed obtained was 2,682 MBps. Apple’s new APFS file system has been designed to increase the file copying speed using a technology Apple calls Instant Cloning.
Laptop Mag also conducted the handbrake test by transcoding a 4K video clip to 1080p using a handbrake app compatible with both Macs and PCs. The 2018 Apple MacBook Pro took just 16 minutes and 57 seconds, which is 4 minutes faster than the average premium laptop and about 2.5 minutes faster than the 13-inch 2017 MacBook Pro.
A few letdowns as well
When measured on productivity, the new Mac came in third at 1 minute and 16 seconds. For the productivity test, the team ran the Excel VLOOKUP macro, which matches 65,000 names to their corresponding addresses. Last year’s 13-inch MacBook Pro took over two minutes. The Dell XPS 13 with a Core i7 chip was the fastest at 1:08, while the ZenBook 13 came in second at 1.10.
The 2018 Apple MacBook Pro also failed to get the top spot in GPU performance. The MacBook Pro, which runs on Intel’s Iris Plus Graphics 655 with 128 MB of embedded DRAM, could not excel in a Dirt 3 graphics test, achieving only 38.8 frames per second. Windows-based machines offered much better performance. The MateBook X Pro and the Asus ZenBook 13 (both powered by NVIDIA MX150 graphics) clocked in at 117 fps and 114 fps, respectively.
Despite these letdowns, the 2018 MacBook Pro is impressive on CPU performance, while its SSD is unmatched. Users looking to upgrade from the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pros will experience significant performance improvements.
“Overall, though, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is living up to its name so far,” the tech website said.
Apple made similar claims previously.
“The latest generation MacBook Pro is the fastest and most powerful notebook we’ve ever made,” said Phil Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing at Apple.
According to Schiller, this is the “best notebook for pro users,” as it comes with an 8th generation 6-core processor and system memory capacity of 32 GB, up to 4TB of super-fast SSD storage, new True Tone technology in its Retina display and Touch Bar, the Apple T2 chip for better security, a third-generation keyboard encased in a thin, lightweight aluminum design, and a 24-hour battery backup.
What’s new with the 2018 Apple MacBook Pro?
As far as other new features, the latest MacBook Pro come with True Tone technology. The display and Touch Bar can now set the “tone” for displays by adjusting color and brightness according to the viewing environment. The same feature is available on recent iPhones and iPad Pros as well.
Apple also added “Hey Siri,” allowing users to simply speak to the MacBook rather than holding the button to speak. Support for “Hey Siri” comes from the Apple T2 chip, first introduced in the iMac Pro. Apple’s T2 chip also offers a few system security enhancements to keep malware in check, such as support for secure boot and on-the-fly encrypted storage.
The 2018 MacBook Pro models can be purchased from Apple’s online store. The prices of the 13-inch models start at $1,799, while the 15-inch machines start at $2,399.
