6 years ago from Sandeep Sharma, Full-TIme User-Interface Designer
Hey Designers,
In short future I am going to upgrade from windows to mac and at this point I am confused between New 13" Macbook w/ Touchbar and Old 15" Macbook Retina. Mainly, I do use Photoshop (will use sketch & principle in mac) and will do Front-end Development as well.
New 15" Macbook is way out of my budget.
Old 15 is the best laptop ever made.
15 retina? I agree.
Looks like I know what I'm upgrading to in a month
Best that APPLE had ever made. I wouldn't say the same if you put all other manufacturers in the factor, especially when you look at the price -- macbook is 2x-3x more expensive than high quality ASUS laptop (which already looks similar to macbook looks) with same specifications.
Yeah... but it runs windows :p
I bought a 15" with the touch bar to replace my 2011 MBP. In my opinion the touch bar is a significant blunder on Apple's part.
In practice, I almost never look down at my keyboard, so I never look at the touch bar. Since there is no physical feel to the buttons, it's very hard to find the right button to press, and most of the time I end up hunting with my finger hovered over the touch bar, because the slightest touch will activate some other button by mistake.
The most frustrating use cases include how easy it is to accidentally tap brightness down when trying to find the escape key, and accidentally holding down the escape key while resting my hand near the edge of the computer when it's on my lap.
Yeah... I had/have the sense that I would never get use out of the touch bar. The only time I've seen the new macbook in person was when a guy brought one in to show his work for an interview and... it's pretty comically small.
I find the touchbar crazy useful and way more helpful than the function keys were but I definitely don't think it should be considered a reason to pick up the laptop.
If it had force touch like the iPhone, I'd find it significantly more useful.
I'm using an iMac now, and use a lot the F3 and CMD+F3. Can you do that with the touch bar? or any other alternative to do it?
I imagine so. The function keys haven't gone anywhere, you simply press the fn key to display them.
I don't understand why the touch bar isn't blank and just simply a sensor. In my mind you'd hover your finger over the bar and a UI would pop up on the screen...that way you wouldn't have to look down.
I was in the same dilemma (although switching from a 2011 MBP) and decided to go with the older 15" Macbook Retina. I would never go for a touchbar over physical keys, and definitely don't see any reason to pay a hefty 400-500$ extra for the base model just because Apple decided to increase prices. I'm extremely satisfied with this decision, would suggest the same. The 15" MBPr is a beast.
From a practical perspective, the bigger screen on the 15 will be much better. I use both 13 and 15 regularly and the 15" just feels much nicer to use if you don't have an external available.
I use the new 13" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar for design and front-end development, and I love it.
It replaced my 2014 11" MacBook Air. It’s so much faster, and the Retina screen is just amazing. I have to really force myself to plug in the external monitor to see how things look on non-Retina screen.
It’s really fast. I use Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator, Slack, and a bunch of other memory-hogs all at once and so far I’m impressed.
I know it’s a controversial opinion, but I also love the Touch Bar. A lot of Apple app make really smart contextual use of it, for example Mail lets me easily Archive / Trash etc when I read emails, but when I compose mail the Touch Bar show me different menus depending on where my cursor is. Especially the last used addressee emails is really neat. I do a lot of programming and my text editor of choice is Vim, and so far haven’t missed the esc key feedback.
Right now not many apps really make the most of this new interaction paradigm, but it’s clear that some really great things are possible, and I’m curious to see what other developers do with it.
"Old" 15'' MacBook Pro.
Here's what I use and it's unbelievably quick with Photoshop open and front-end development (e.g. compiling going on at the same time):
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) Model Name: MacBook Pro Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,3 Processor Name: Intel Core i7 Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz Number of Processors: 1 Total Number of Cores: 4 Memory: 16 GB
I'd recommend highly. Maybe get one off eBay or something?
...Oh and I plug it into 2 external monitors as well.
The touchbar is awesome, but not exactly useful when designing. Screen real estate is what I'd think about more unless you plan to plug it into an external monitor. Some small details about the updated macbook in general I've noticed the past few weeks is that the form factor is noticeably more compact than before. Thinner, lighter, etc. The keyboard feels really nice now and the larger trackpad is great. Dongle game sucks but it's nice having a simpler charging cord that can be plugged in on both sides.
I have the new 13" Macbook w TouchBar (2.9ghz i5 with 15gb RAM) and it works like a charm with both Sketch and Photoshop. I now have it hooked up to the LG 5k but previously I've been using it with a Thunderbolt Display, both work very well.
If you're moving around much like me, I prefer the portability of the 13" over the added screen size.
is the TouchBar useful for Sketch or Photoshop?
No, not really to be honest. I use the Touchbar for unlocking with TouchID (and accessing 1Password)... Oh and autofill in Safari form fields.
So it's fairly useful, the touch bar? It seems gimmicky and a waste of real estate.
Useful is a stretch in my experience but it has potential. I would wait a year before I would call it a failure.
TBH all the function keys were a waste of real estate. I used them almost never, and when I did it was for all the extra gubbins they’ve added to them, like brightness controls etc.
See I disagree. I use the brightness, volume, and media keys all the time so I don't think it was wasted real estate.
If you write any code the touchbar is an actual hinderance since you lose the escape button and fkeys.
Ah see this is going to crush it for me. I'm actually looking for a 15" retina macbook now.
Thanks for your reply! I would also like to know about 13" display. Apple says it is 67% brighter display compare to previous one. What's your thought?
Hey there, I got the 15" w/ TB and came from a 2012 13" non-Retina. The screen is really impressive in its color and also brightness yes. I don't use an external display anymore, as a main screen it's enough for me. Also the 15" is only marginally larger than the old 13" that I had before (and weighs less).
I came from a 15" Retina and I would definetly say this is brighter. The previous one I always had cranked up to 100% in brightness whereas the 13" is good at around 70-80%. (Same goes for LG 5k Display, I have it at 80% whereas the Thunderbolt was always at 100%).
Touchbar Mac is cool for like a week when you first get it (like any new toy), but in all honesty, it's not even a competition..old 2013 -2015 15" retina is the MVP
Once you get used to the touch bar it becomes like keyboard shortcut, its amazing! The screen is wonderful. Its fast, quiet etc etc... As you probably know the USB is gone but I rather go with a slimmer computer since I use USB like once every second month and probably less. The cloud is the shit. Don't be a fool and buy the old macbook if its isn't a matter about money. Haters gonna hate and there sure is allot of them .
Old 15". The bigger screen is more valuable than the touchbar to a designer. I currently have the new MBP 15" with touch bar, it's nice but the old 15" just has this classic vibe about it, I kinda miss in a way.
I bought a used 2015 15" MBP for $1500 and it is perfect for my design and development needs.
You're going to pay roughly double for the touchbar MBP. Plus you'll need to buy a handful of dongles. You can't get any more ram than previous versions (16gm) and the processors are the same.
The new MBPs are beautiful & powerful laptops, but they're simply not worth the price tag.
@Sandeep I'd go for last generations MacBook Pro. It's a great machine, and it's not a 1st generation device with all the inherit gremlins, and problems that come with new tech.
If you like the Touchbar concept you can hook up an iPad via Duet and with a bluetooth keyboard + mouse you'll have the functionality integrated on the iPad screen. I've been using it, and it's a fun way to experiment with the new UI. I've mostly just used Safari's tab navigation as it is useful. I haven't found any other Touchbar features that have benefits that stand out. It's faster to change volume and brightness with hardware keys (less taps), and a lot of functionality just takes longer to get to with the Touchbar.
Actually the Razer Blade has a better screen than the Macbook. And is a lot more powerful and cooler.
but it's not a Mac so irrelevant...you could have gotten away with a Surface though.lol
The 15" sans touchbar.
The new 13" MacBook sans TouchBar is the best option for designers.
Retina 15" 2015 all the way. Is faster and has all the ports.
Old 15" Retina is the best. I don't think having a touch bar will affect or increase your productivity in any way.
I'm using a work administered 13" and it's painful without a second display. Given the amount of times us designers use ESC, the touch bar is not ideal for design.
old 15
Either go for the new Macbook 13' or the old Macbook 15'. Don't bother with anything that has a touch bar imo.
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