Apple on Wednesday announced a new 16-inch version of its MacBook Pro, with a keyboard that has been redesigned for the first time in four years.
The laptop, intended for power users, professionals or anyone who needs a lot of screen space, replaced its 15-inch MacBook Pro with a large retina display.
It starts at $2,399, but can go all the way up to $6,099 when you tack on additional storage and processing power. The 13-inch entry-level MacBook Pro, which came out earlier this year, starts at $1,299.
Redesigned Keyboard
The new MacBook Pro has a new Intel Core processor, an updated cooling system and advanced speakers. But the most significant change is the keyboard.
Apple has long faced complaints over broken and sticky keys in its butterfly keyboards — a design with a mechanism under the keys that expands like wings, opening itself up to dust and other debris.
The concept allowed Apple to create a slimmer keyboard design, but some tech reviewers have called it Apple's worst invention of all time.
With the launch of the new MacBook Pro, Apple has reverted back to a traditional scissor-style mechanism that most laptops use. The company says the keyboard will have a stable feel and be responsive.
Other Features
Just like the 15-inch MacBook Pro, the new laptop sports the signature Space Gray and Silver colored sturdy aluminum finish that has made Apple’s MacBooks so famous.
You’ll also find the Touch Bar and 4 USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports on both models. The Touch Bar is, however, a bit shortened on both ends.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro features what Apple calls a “completely redesigned six-speaker, high-fidelity sound system.”
It has force-canceling woofers and dual opposed speaker drivers to cancel out the vibrations that distort the sound. This should make audio sound clearer than the stereo-up-facing speakers on the older MacBook Pro 15-inch.
On the 16-inch MacBook Pro, you get a resolution of 3,072 x 1,920, with 226 pixels per inch. The 15-inch MacBook Pro is under that at 2,880 x 1,800, or around 200 pixels per inch. Both panels sport 500 nits of brightness, Apple’s True Tone
technology, as well as the P3 wide color gamut.
Options for processors haven’t changed — it’s still either the 2.6GHz 6-core Intel Core i7 processor or a 2.3GHz 8-core Intel Core i9 processor. You can configure the MacBook Pro with up to 64GB of RAM and up to 8TB of SSD storage.
