Gadgetory

this episode of unboxed era P is brought to you by Netflix what's up guys Lew here and welcome to what is normally the in review show but I'm going to use it as an opportunity to do a full on opinionated casual style review on the latest generation MacBook Pro this of course was recently unboxed on the channel there you can see it's razor blade thin incredibly thin and light and if you haven't seen the unboxing yet you might want to check it out if you're into beautiful visuals on brand new technology I'll put a link in the description as well as up in the annotations of this video so you can go and check that out but this video here is going to serve as a review video and an opinion driven review there are a lot of reviews on YouTube and elsewhere that are going to list the specs show you benchmarks do comparisons from a technical mathematical standpoint and I didn't want to replicate those because those are already very well done instead I want to use this review as an opportunity to offer up my opinion because I get a lot of questions people say should I get the MacBook Air should I get the MacBook Pro what's the difference between the new one and the old one so on and so forth so I want to break it down in regular language for you guys for those of you that don't know I've been a MacBook Pro user here's the old one looks chubby now I've been a MacBook Pro user for a long long time this is the 2011 model that I've been attached to recently this does all my work it's powerful I did some some special things to it like swap out the optical drive for an SSD while maintaining the storage associated with the regular standard hard drive so I customized it in a sense I put 16 gigs of ram in there so I did some things to it aftermarket and that brings me to my first criticism of the new system while it is thinner lighter more powerful better with a better screen all that beautiful stuff it is not user serviceable in any manner yes there are screws on the bottom you could open it up if you really wanted to but you're going to void your warranty right away and on top of that there's not much you can do once you're in there you can't go ahead and put in an aftermarket SSD at least not easily there will eventually probably be aftermarket stuff that is compatible but it's going to cost you a fortune you're not going to be able to put a standard two and a half inch form factor SSD upgrade in there the RAM is soldered on now so you're stuck with what you order and that means generally speaking a bigger investment up front because you're going to want to spec it out to make sure that you're not going to want to do or need to do upgrades in the future now a positive thing here is that they all ship with SSDs that's what allows them to be so thin and light so you're going to get performance out of the gate and you're not going to be sitting there saying oh I have to go and put a aftermarket SSD in there like I did on my stock model 2011 MacBook Pro so that's a good thing but you know by the time you put like say a larger size SSD in here and you max out the RAM you're talking at a major major investment and that is probably my single biggest criticism of this particular machine so go with me here for a second I know it probably seems strange because I paid just as much for the old generation I think a lot is happening in computers especially since you have so many users nowaday transitioning to mobile devices for a number of their different computing tasks so a twenty two hundred dollar computer a year ago or two years ago or three years ago might have been more justifiable than it is today I think Apple has a responsibility along with the improvements that they make to their systems to also drop the prices to make them more accessible to more people twenty two hundred dollars today for me it just it just feels strange to pay for a laptop it feels like too much and it's such a popular topic of discussion in the comments section of so many videos of these particular laptops yes they are beautiful arguably the nicest best constructed laptops on the market for you know people who do what I do but for $2,200 it just I don't know why it seems like so much like I said before I've paid that for the older generation but as we move along and we continue to advance in the way that we interact with computers and smartphones cetera I'm really believing like these things need to become more accessible yes you've got a MacBook Air at a more affordable price point you know starting around eleven twelve hundred dollars so that's an accessible way to sort of jump into a Mac and I think it's a really good value and if you watched my macbook air review on the latest generation it got better and it got a lower price point so that's sort of what I was looking for in this model they should have dropped the old form factor completely and just made this model here cheaper now everybody knows Apple's margins are significant they rarely run lost leaders in terms of hardware they bake in a fairly significant margin now I understand that the retina technology which is damn beautiful by the way and I'm sure you guys watched my unboxing video and probably really appreciated it it's a damn beautiful screen an almost impossible form factor this is really a beautiful piece of engineering but I maintain my opinion on this particular system obviously there going to be people out there that spend their whole day on their computers and for them it might be easy to justify that kind of investment but for the rest of us who sort of compute on a number of different devices doing something over here a little something over there so on and so forth it's pretty hard to recommend a twenty two hundred dollar investment in a single piece of kit by today's standards like I said people are computing in a different manner than they ever have before and that needs to be considered now obviously these are flying off the shelves people don't care people are addicted to Apple products and there are so many of us that make a living using these products that it's tough to not be compelled to go out and drop another twenty two hundred dollars on something that earns you your living that's how we all justify but I think we as creative professionals need to start demanding more and by that I mean nothing freely like you know like a Retina display and and an inch thinner and things like that that's all fine and dandy like I'm happy about it and it is beautiful and all the rest of it but we need real stuff like a lower price point that to me is far more significant and would make a far bigger statement than some of these part improvements and I know Apple doesn't want to do it because they want to keep you prepared to spend that to jeez every time a new model comes out because as I said before they bake in that significant margin they want to keep you prepared for it they don't want us you know Pro users so to speak to get used to getting a new model for fifteen hundred dollars or a thousand dollars for that matter but if the PC market has had any bearing on how things are it's a you know it did you don't stay at the top forever by you know not iterating by keeping the same form factor the same price points the same methodology and things are going to get more competitive in fact they already are so many people are getting by computing on mobile devices and trust me I know I look at the YouTube statistics for example and almost half the views now are coming from mobile devices so people are spending time on very cheap devices that do basic things and don't do half the stuff that this one does and as a result this should be cheaper and more competitive if people are going to keep buying these things that's my opinion take it or leave it I know I went on and on and I rant it a little bit I love the Machine don't get me wrong it's the quickest thing I've had on my desk in a long long time it exports videos in four freaking minutes all the rest of it you name it it's a beauty I don't think it's worth twenty two hundred dollars that's my take anyway guys I'm going to let you roll out on a message from the sponsors right here if you're a lover of this particular machine please don't go drop and hate down in the comment section as I said before with the preamble it's my opinion and I still love it but is it it's not right for everyone so anyways roll out with the sponsors catch guys on the next video thanks as always for watching later to those of you that haven't tried out Netflix yet I want to give you a quick breakdown of the service Netflix allows you to stream TV shows and movies straight into your home which saves you time money and of course hassle as a Netflix unlimited member you can instantly watch TV episodes and movies streaming directly to your PC Mac or right to your TV with your Xbox 360 ps3 or Nintendo Wii console watch as many movies as you want anytime you want plus you can cancel anytime for time only get a free 30-day trial membership just go to netflix.com slash therapy and sign up now please do not forget the slash therapy portion of the URL to let them know we sent you and also to help support the show I'll drop a link down in the description if that is easier for you and I'll catch you guys on the next episode thanks for watching later