Apple MacBook Pro 16 2019 Laptop Review: A convincing Core i9-9880H and Radeon Pro 5500M powered multimedia laptop

[Andy Miller]

I received my new top spec MacBookPro 2019 16" 14:00 yesterday and by 17:00 I had transferred everything from my 2018/15" to it and all seems well -- except -- it was loaded with Catalina AND that means NO MORE iTunes. For me had apple provided Catalina with the same functionality as iTunes in its Books, TV, Music and Podcast app - then there would be no worries, but it did not -- FAR FROM IT.
I am currently in the UAE on contract and am very hard on my gear -- I bought the MacBook locally as an urgent replacement to my previous MacBook (bought only 18 months ago)  and it cost me the equivalent of $6,954 -- my "old" MacBook was still running Mojave (I refused to update) -- all my apps work and it has iTunes -- so I am good, except it needs a deep repair to Wifi and a bunch of other things.
ON long assignments like this I carry multiple 4&8 TB HDDs with "my work" and approximately 25,000 music tracks, 1100 audiobooks, 200 movies and over 500 TV episodes -- adding more every weekend when I return to places with internet.
While the transfer of my "stuff" from the old to the new machine was very quick and painless -- iTunes library to Books/TV/etc would not import my titles "because they are on an external hard drive" (a latest gen Thunderbolt 3 SSD) -- WHICH IS NUTS
I have lost the ability to see, arrange and use Smart playlists to filter all bar music onto my iPad and iPhone -- all of which was automatic with iTunes. Gone are list views and column browsers Gone is filter by unplayed etc..

So my within 24 hours experience of this new MacBook is I am pissed with apple for AGAIN causing me more work.

Do I download a boot installer and go back to Mojave or Sierra AND repeat the data transfer again? Will these run on the 2019 16"?

OR do I wait for APPLE to get a clue and respond with the functionality that seemingly millions of pissed off users have demanded -- give us back iTunes you W'nkers.

[Klaus Hinum]

We just updated the review with a Wi-Fi battery test in Windows 10, as thought, the runtimes are not good with 4h 46 min.

[kony]

Yeah, PWM, throttling, few ports, crappy keyboard (I know it's better than the temporary butterfly one, still 1.2mm press is little), truly a perfection.

[Mario Negrello]

This review sets the bar high when it comes to laptop reviews. Kudos for being informative and thorough!

[Jakobmusswasloswerden]

Why did you not find out about all the issues coming from the dgpu? Is this review payed by apple? Or are you just not doing a very good job at testing?

[Alvaro72]

Thanks for the great review.

[Klaus Hinum]

Why did you not find out about all the issues coming from the dgpu? Is this review payed by apple? Or are you just not doing a very good job at testing?

We don't even get review samples from Apple and have to buy them ourselves. Otherwise, the unit is in use by me as a daily driver and I got no issues with the GPU. Not in macOS or in Windows when gaming. Otherwise, we would of course have noted and updated the review.

[rls]

I am returning an almost fully maxed out rMBP 16" because when used with an external monitor it forces the use of the dGPU which switches to a higher power profile that averages at about 20W while the system is idling. It is unacceptable for a £5k laptop to lose 1/3 of its cooling, power and performance potential just because you have plugged in an external monitor. The fans are getting noisy during that time too.

[Marko]

I really think that this review should be edited. This machine is frustrating to use with external monitor. Noisy fans always on and reduced performance. This is not a pro machine. Just google: MacBook Pro 16'' heat issues with external monitor.

[john little]

This articles conclusions do not seem to match the measured performance.
E.g. The SSD is 30% slower than XPS, and second slowest on test.  Thats a very significant. These are written of as " The differences are marginal though and will be hardly noticeable in daily use, if at all."  This is subjective nonsense - have the MBPro 2018, and a thinkpad equipped with the Evo 970, and I notice the evo is faster every time I open an application or boot up.  30% is a slow m.2 SSD, and, at best I would expect pay significantly less for such inferior tech.
Same for CPU. By their own benchmarks, the CPU is 9% below the industry average for that CPU in CPU multi 64 test for example.   9% is a huge performance hit, especially as this is only compared with the average, with the best with that cpu (MSI) its 25% below.  So below average cooling, or above average throttling.   This poor performance is ignored.
Is notebook check now paid by Apple to bias their reviews? It would seem so. A sad day for consumers.

[kony]

Is notebook check now paid by Apple to bias their reviews? It would seem so. A sad day for consumers.

NBC always did hops and jumps to write extremely positive reviews on Apple products, and to give them inflated score. It's nothing new. No matter how bad a laptop was, it *had to* score better than any competition, or at least be comparable.

Really, if a Macbook slapped its user in the face and shat on his desk, it would still get 90% score.

[Klaus Hinum]

We have to buy Apple devices to review them - but are bought by Apple. Yeah, sure :D

The SSD is not slower over all but it trades blows with e.g. the 970 Pro, but in some cases (e.g. 4k write with a queue depth of 1) it is significantly slower. Hard to say if that will be noticeable in loads, what I recall usual workloads are with a slightly higher queue depth.

Regarding "heat problems", we also looked into it, and its true that the Radeon GPU needs more power when driving two displays (internal + external) than one. But that fact is also known from dedicated desktop GPUs. We are looking into it and will do a separate article on our measurements.