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welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben and I'm Dan Ackerman so Dan you're here to talk to us about some of the newest laptops that have hit the market in 2018 let's start with her the big kahuna because it's Apple so Apple bit of a surprise came out with a new version of the MacBook Pro with the touch bar earlier this month tell us a little bit about it yeah it's always interesting when Apple says hey we got something new we want to tell everybody about oh what could it be it turned out it was a set of updates to the MacBook Pro the super expensive laptop 13 inch 15 inch the touch bar models this is the 13 you can give it at the touch bar but they didn't touch that one on the outside exactly the same as it's been since late 2016 actually have it right here let's show it off oh you could look at any man 2 years and frankly it'll it'll look exactly the same but almost everything inside has been subtly updated so if you've been holding off on getting one of these new designs cuz you're waiting for newer parts well here you go here's some stuff if you have one that looks like this from late 2016 on I don't know if it's really worth you know upgrading the biggest change is you can get a core I 9 processor from Intel now so that's new that's what I wanted to ask you so with the with the faster processor you've obviously used the previous versions and this one is their notable differences well if I'm a regular you sure well these are not aimed at regular users there they're really trying to appeal to that creative professional Video Editor the photo person the designer stuff like that they had a bunch of people who like to use these in real life standing around for you know people to talk to on on behalf of Apple and somebody was a music video director and somebody was a scientist who did like 3d modeling of like cells and stuff so is this really sort of intense intense stuff in our initial test this core I 9 version right here was much faster than the core i7 version from last year but some people are also reporting issues with very heavy video workloads on the kora 9 version causing the chip to become too hot therefore the clock speed on the CPU throttles down which slows your performance this is something that just started popping up last week we're looking into it we're gonna do some more intense testing and and we're gonna see what's up with that let's talk about the keyboard I'm mostly the same they said oh it's a little quieter I'm like so you didn't do anything to change the fact that people get dust and debris in this super tight keyboard and and and the keys get stopped no we didn't do anything to change that turns out it's it seems like they probably did and I just didn't want to talk about it to acknowledge the fact that there's an issue under this keyboard there's a little rubber membrane now over the butterfly mechanism that goes like when you press the key that's supposed to keep stuff out I offered to do a a cookie crumble test over the keyboard but that was uh probably not that's probably not the best idea mmm number one I don't need any more cookies in my life and well we'll keep looking working with this and we'll see what happens I've had stuck keys on these new style Mac books a couple of times over the last few years I've never had one that became unusable because of it usually I was able to fix it using our CNET how-to methodology for how to unstick a macbook keyboard which involves turning it upside down on a certain angle you think your fingernail to get in there on the key there's a couple of you can just google like how to unstick a macbook key from seeing so much for this so i also with the short time we have i also wanted to get to another laptop that you brought with you oh yeah Acer swift 7 this is one of the thinnest if they claimed to disallow this laptop so I always like you from that 8.0 there's probably some that are eight point nine nine millimeters and some that are nine but you know that it's right into your refractions of a millimeter difference but very thin eight point nine eight millimeters fourteen inch screen usually in the super thin ones you have a 12 or 13 inch screen so I like that it's so big screen wise and we're testing this right now so far I'm liking it a lot nice it's it's not cheap $16.99 less than a MacBook Pro though well unfortunately we're out of time so if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben and I'm Dan Ackerman thank you very much for listening before you get before you get to the show notes yeah we got to thank you for joining this is a show note for thee cuz I want to hear the streamer audience weigh in on this okay go ahead go ahead so we got four minutes and in those four minutes we have a grand total of four name announcement you say your name I say my name the end you say your name I say my name in four minutes I feel like we could we could reclaim a couple seconds of conversation that's it listen you say that because you were the one that suggested we get rid of the like the tag in the beginning it used to be that when we first started the podcast we said well what was what was the little like fun jingle that we said no I don't know other than the 3:59 we were talking about the top tech news of the day and all the other crap you want to write and you down to 340 right exactly I got a lot of tables and it was doing a lot of sales we got three names this this criticism coming from the guy who decided to stage his name introduction today like Jimmy Stewart yeah I'm always caught unaware as the guest I I always I always have expect Ben or whoever to introduce drew it's true and then when he throws out to me I'm like oh I'm supposed to say it myself and Mike okay okay this is so we're done with the show notes for now it's getting a little too meta one of the questions that I wanted to get to that we didn't have time for in the podcast wise what is the point of such a thin laptop like are you gaining something as a user for that and in addition to that question connected to it are you losing something from having such a thin laptop is it is it flimsier I said is it more likely to break the main benefit is if you are in the laptop business or the laptop PR business you're able to write a press release that says the very top world thinnest laptop that seems to be the main the main point there that you can say you've got it okay so in that regard do you think that this thing could I don't know get crushed more easily or something yeah it seems pretty sturdy I'm just worried about it I will say I kind of even though I'm making fun of it I kind of like it but our our friend Laurie Gruden who works with me on the PC has wisely pointed out that in the battle between thin and light you should really opt for light so this is not the lightest laptop it is the thinnest you'd almost rather walk around with the lightest that's interesting that you say that because I just assumed that when you have a thinner laptop it's lighter but you're right this thing is mostly metal mm-hmm so it's pretty heft and we've seen some very light ones made out of different alloys combinations of different materials a lot of carbon fiber a lot of yeah yeah that get down to like two pounds and change this is I think two point six maybe maybe 2.5 2.6 you can definitely shave a quarter pound you know we're more off that the lightest I think we've ever seen is like 1.9 pounds but it wasn't a great machine okay one other question and then we'll we'll open it up to the Q&A do you anticipate any other MacBook line announcements for later this year I mean probably they usually go through once a year and give everything a little spec bump they did it last year so they may do it later this year we still got the let's see what isn't up and changed in a while you've got the MacBook Air which is somehow still alive it got the tiniest tiniest tiniest change from one old CPU to a slightly better of still old CPU last year and that's edge everyone everyone says oh they're gonna have a whole new MacBook Air or something to replace that it's gonna be great I think that's yours I think yeah I've heard that for years - I think that's a lot of pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking but it certainly could happen and if it does it'll be very exciting and every one Rako I got to get bad obviously the 12-inch MacBook hasn't gotten an update this year the Mac Mini has not been updated in many years people still like that though it's the cheapest way to get Mac OS 500 bucks for a Mac Mini a lot of people like those iMac they just had the iMac Pro in December of last year so maybe an iMac update and I think that's the whole line yeah good all right let's jump into questions okay I think first and foremost we were talking about the build quality of this laptop the Acer we should go back to the conversation we had last week about what appropriate tech you could use to plug in an intruder ooh what like what scenario do you think that the Acer Swift 7 could be useful for I'm thinking like maybe gaming a shallow grave digging the shallow grave of the intruder that you may that would that would definitely hurt yeah I thought maybe it would snap right into but no actually it's actually it's pretty cell you know why could it Scott even though it's very thin it has a very large battery inside and the batteries tend to be very dense and heavy but because you want to have good battery life even in the new MacBooks even though the body shape is the same this is really the best murdering laptop out there first of all I mean we quote you on that so a bigger battery in here they squeezed a little bit more physical battery into this same sized compartment to make up for the fact that the new processors draw more power right and the quieter keyboard makes it easier to get away with legend your victim and get away with it they'll never hear you typing those are the important details here coming from CNET in a related note and Sanjay says if you sit in lava the MacBook problems might start to mitigate I thought that would be kind of relevant to the discussion about lava if you sit in lava well then your then you probably have more heat problems not less I saw somebody on a YouTube video put there a new MacBook in a freezer that's right and they got better performance out of it cooling is always issue you hit a thermal that is what I think Craig federighi said a couple of years ago about the Mac Pro which was the trashcan cylinder a computer where it was not upgradable enough it wasn't powerful enough and you couldn't like do anything to fix it because it was packed into such a compact space that I think it was ready to read he said Apple had backed themselves into a thermal corner which is why in the PC lab you guys always have those giant gaming towers that have internal cooling systems and they learn really cool well that's also why we have our own separate climate system in that lab we have a giant separate air conditioning system runs a little thick because we're running all this big hardware and there all the time we want to keep the temperature down to a reasonable degree but I used to review many years ago laptop cooling pads everyone made these little lap desks like fans built in and stuff oh yeah yeah I haven't seen one in a long time but for people were making those and we reviewed them and we got a temperature gun which I still have and we take like five points of temperature along the back and some of these got very hot we reviewed an ace are a different Acer eh a gaming laptop I think last year and it had a glass panel on the front above the keyboard that also doubled as the touchpad it moved the touchpad above the keyboard and me to the glass panel off all all that aside the glass panel got very I think it got up like 117 degrees and you're supposed to put your finger on it and and move then move the cursor around with it so you if you ever want to go into hiding you can use that to burn your fingerprints off also for those looking for a budget solution with these high-end cooling systems just dip your laptop in ice water it'll take care of the problem and you won't have to worry about your laptop problems will be solved that's right alright we got a ton of questions filing in Michael Brown is just bogarted the chat as we should have expected today good to see you sir question number one who do you think these MacBook Pros are priced and performed for would it make sense for an average user to buy these new MacBook Pros their price for people with expense accounts or big companies who are willing to buy you anything you want so you keep cranking out videos zing ya know there's I mean that's why they call them the pros cuz they're not for everybody if you're a regular user get up I mean I guess getting there people still like those used to like your air this is for work actually I have a MacBook Pro at home okay it's damn near ten years old and it's still me and rich - just for the record we were just talking about this before we got started like mine's from 2012 or something and I think rich citizen from 2011 yeah I mean the good thing and and it's worth thinking about from from a budget perspective that on at least for me my MacBook Pro lasted a long time so is it worthwhile to buy something that is above and beyond what you actually need and there's everyone always says that you should definitely future proof you know future proof your purchase a little bit mm-hmm so in I I would say maybe thinking about that from your perspective Michael but there's also a lot that you can see is like a best I mean the 13-inch Pro without the touch bars like $12.99 that's a pretty good deal of what yet look and I would nice and Sheen but I love the 12-inch MacBook even though some people don't it's so small it's so light I carry it around everywhere it's definitely my favorite laptop of the last couple years a controversial choice I know but I stand by it a man of conviction Dan Ackerman here on the 359 plot never convicted just I like this observation from Matthew - or the pendulum swings we haven't needed a laptop cooler in years and now we suddenly need them again do we think this is gonna open up kind of a new market for cooling systems portable cooling systems or devices or whatever the hell really falls out of it awful I mean they just got to get these thermals under control nothing dies anymore nothing nothing goes away forever so it is entirely possible that these are gonna come back I mean they put too much processor into a laptop body that was you know too small without adequate venting you have liquid cooling though you're gonna active heat pipes there's a lot of things you could do and a lot of these gaming laptops are very thin now and managed to stay cool like the Asus zephyrus when you open the lid up the whole back of the laptop lifts up and opens like a big fan vent in the back so like that's really clever the other thing to consider though is is that if you could figure out a way to make the laptop keyboard double as something that you could cook an egg on then you solve you solve the problem you know some of them have vents to actually send up heat through the keys mm-hmm there's a lot of I mean cooling is definitely the thermals behind laptops it's one of the most complicated bits of engineering it's something people spend years working on for a particular system it's so hard to do right if you get it wrong people's systems are gonna seize up they're gonna die they're gonna run slow that thermal management is incredibly incredibly important but it responds to I imagine sure yeah definitely for I mean you see what happens your phone gets hot I was I had a 12-inch MacBook I was in a coffee shop this past weekend and the Sun was coming through the window right where I was and the Machine heated up so much just from that that I got an on screen Mac OS note saying my performance had been reduced until the laptop cools down just from the Sun coming in and hitting the aluminum body laptop got almost as hot as it is here in New York City today hey by the way Dan are you that jerk who just camps out at the coffee doesn't buy coffee III make sure to make adequate purchase there we go - to fund my portable office spaces as I call them good man good man this seems like a relevant comment to what we were just talking about even though there are way more from a few minutes ago flooding in that we still need to get to so let's let's let's pick up the pace deandre says would you prefer a thicker laptop and fan cooling or thinner laptop poorer performance due to throttling I think there's other options besides that we're gonna make this a speed round here we're moving towards I mean people generally don't need as much processing power as they think they do and there are a lot of cool designs now that are actually totally fanless and work really well it's just good engineering good thermal management I think eventually fans will go away because laptops are moving more and more towards having no moving parts as in no hard drives that platters that spin and basically nothing of the fewer moving parts you have the more reliable your laptop is gonna be long term so that's where you got to go all right from let's take one from Josh moita on the acer laptop is the battery life terrible we are saying right now so far it seems pretty good that's just anecdotal I'm gonna be able to get back to you in a couple days with some with some real battery scores I think it helps that it's a larger screen so there's a larger footprint therefore a larger superflat battery inside so just more batteries always the answer make sure to check see Netcom for the full details and coming days from Caesar - toril oh I'm sorry if I'm butchering your name I'm Caesar Dan how about the Costco pre-sales surface go with four gigabyte in 128 gigabyte hard drive and the freetype cover for $549 thoughts on that pricing that's interesting yeah well a debts that doesn't sound like a free type cover to me if it's 550 bucks cuz they're gonna sell this thing for 399 and the type covers like 129 to 159 depending on which one you get we haven't tested the go yet I'm concerned that the processor in it is too slow people want something a little bit better than I think it's a seller on maybe a Pentium we can check but it's not a core iSeries processor I'm tiny guy it does you can you I guess so you can do write other guys do it so I'm a little concerned and that's certainly for 500 50 bucks you can get some very nice small laptops I'm gonna say the surface go is a wait-and-see for now especially with that type cover issue solid answer here's another one from Michael Brown does it seem like Apple has a laptop that's recently released for average laptop users they would call that two 12-inch MacBook they think that's the that's the mainstream casual laptop I'd like I said it's an acquired taste some people hate it I love it now that people are used to having USB seaports and used to those flat Apple keyboards I think it's a more accessible choice for more people now and a slightly cheaper option is obviously the MacBook Air but it's so out of date it's so completely not been upgraded in a very long time this bezel is rather well my biggest problem with it is the screen resolution which is like 1440 by 900 right it has retina insane I haven't gotten it it's not even full HD IIb I would say weight on a MacBook Air for now man I'd say let's see what happens in the fall it's a tough one you know I always refused to make a lot of Apple but I feel like people who are in the Apple prognostication business or generally just it's more wishful thinking than than smart thinking so I generally refuse to get in on that or if think Apple is gonna have next week I generally refuse to answer those questions cuz unless there's a lot of leash you don't really know fair enough from Raheel now I don't know where this is being sighted from so apologies in advance for for lack of context but you says any comment on this quote owners of those new MacBook Pros are finding that their computers are having a difficult time reaching the advertised 2.9 gigahertz and speeds again I don't know where he's citing this from Dan yeah that's you the stuff people were talking about with certain workloads causing it to get really hot causing the CPU to throttled down which is something that happens automatically to keep the heat within an acceptable envelope that's a brand new issue we are looking into it many other people are looking into it also we will hopefully have something more to say about that soon but certainly if you bought the top end core i9 version of this and it's not performing the way it's supposed to that's not cool that said the basic core i7 version should be fine that's almost the same as last year's which was a super great performer the core 9 is a very expensive add-on so even those people buying this new MacBook Pro we're not getting that ok we're almost out of time let's crank through just a couple more before we wrap it up for the day from Jacob Lombardo this one's just throwing a little shade but always fun to do that so Apple continues today to show their innovation is form over function Microsoft seems to be much more adventurous with their surface line is Microsoft the new leader in innovation for the foreseeable future I'll be honest my paranoid nature thought this was going to be some shade about me fact that it's not I'm all cool I think Microsoft is doing very interesting things but they're not in the hardware business full-time it's a hobby for them they make the surface laptop which got which has the fuzzy keyboard dag they make the surface studio which is the big own one that tilts down and obviously the surfaces will see all the surface go does I think the pricing and component mix is not where I would want it to be but I haven't tested it yet so I'm not gonna pass judgment that said they're very creative but a lot of other companies do very creative stuff too and and as you pointed it out they to a certain extent can afford to be more creative or adventurous because it's not really the way it's not the core business that said if you have a MacBook Pro you're generally putting aside whatever happened in the last week to power users they're pretty darn reliable and everybody loves them and like I said that 12-inch MacBook is one of my favorite laptops in the last couple years from DC 1 4 7 does Dan have any insights on how the new pros perform for software development that's a super specific question it really depends on what you're doing we did in the very brief period of time we've had this we did some basic multitasking tests using a geek bench using Cinebench and there this i9 version now performed a similar i7 from last year that's about as far as we've gotten on the benchmarking front yet we we continue but I did talk to some software developers who who seemed bullish on it that's nothing new though we've seen that now voting that's not that's not a super you know that's not the kind of thing you need a cry 9 for one more from my Brown question number three besides the display what changes are there for the touch bar and does it seem like the touch bar is a good enough note issue some in touch bar if you didn't use it before you're not gonna use it now I happen to think there's like two or three things it's good at you don't need them but as long as it's there I use the touch bar for volume and muting and brightness and that's 99% of what are you so the things that were the buttons before yeah Wow don't kidding oh you know what the fingerprint logging is actually pretty good okay pretty log and that works really well in the new ones also I think you can get up to a 4 terabyte solid-state hard drive in the 15 up from a 2 terabyte maximum still a very expensive anton and then they also doubled it on the 13th yes from one terabyte to two right you know and a few other little tweaks here and there but but still largely the same system alrighty new CPUs and new storage limits and that that's the big news open up the gates final question what laptop this is coming from hunter what laptop would you recommend to the average consumer like a college student or a teacher or even an accountant mmm-hmm there are a bunch of good choices if you need now a lot of people who are in school especially want a Mac so I would say for those guys don't get the air it's gonna feel really old if you're certain college or something look at the 12-inch MacBook or the 13-inch non-touch bar probe of those are $12.99 still expensive but a good investment for for more budget II stuff I really like some of the lenovo less expensive laptops like the flex line which is like their yoga line and that the screen goes all the way back but it's less expensive you can actually get a dental XPS 13 fairly inexpensively if you cut some of the extra features like $8.99 something like that those are some of the ones I've liked recently we can look up some more like from from a perspective of Chromebooks are you a fan of those at all yeah I think if you can get away with a Chromebook it's perfectly fine I like that I like the slightly fancier ones because they give you a little more fit and finish and and they won't get quite as buy-down the Samsung Chromebook plus and Chromebook play Chromebook + and pro our flip sides of the same thing they just have a different they just have some different processor options they're about 500 bucks and then they're pretty good last question from me on that regard the MacBook 12 inch what's the processor on that now because I remember it used to be it was important no core em wasn't mobile it was like kind of in the middle was Intel's attempt to make a chip that was super power efficient for fancy high-end machines now it's a core I maybe i3 and i-5 but it's basically a renamed version of the next gen core M so it's the same type of chip renamed in a new generation but actually performs better and I do not have the same qualms with the second and third generation 12-inch MacBook as I did but the first one which was a little performance let me did these new ones are actually fine for fret for everyday use that was a packed show fantastic Q&A everybody thank you so much for very much thanks everybody for the questions and I wish we had never listened to anybody's laptop questions just tweet at me at the in Ackerman there you go I'm always here for you yeah and that does it for us we are out of time we'll be back tomorrow same bat-time same bat-channel Ben you want to go ahead and shut it out here for sure the 3:59 podcast is available on itunes TuneIn stitcher feedburner google play music google podcast the amazon echo and of course cnet.com dan thanks again for joining us and we'll see you again tomorrow bye everybody you you