Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Late 2016, 2 GHz i5, without Touch Bar) Laptop Review

Thinner, lighter, and also available in "Space Gray" – this is how the new MacBook Pro case can be characterized. You still get the excellent impression of the unibody aluminum case, which is familiar from the previous models and the rest of Apple's lineup. Stability, tactile feel and design are on the highest level. The new and particularly thin hinge is subjectively not all that different from the old one. The speakers are now located next to the keyboard and the new touchpad is much bigger. Apple also reworked the keyboard and it is very similar to the small 12-inch MacBook. The illuminated Apple logo on the lid was removed to enable a thinner case and is now just as glossy as on the 12-inch model. The bottom panel is still secured with proprietary Pentalobe screws.

Compared to the other models from Apple's lineup, the new Apple MacBook Pro 2016 has much more compact dimensions, both compared to the direct predecessor as well as the MacBook Air 13. At up to 17 millimeters at its thickest spot, the latter is even 2 millimeters thicker than the new Pro. The weight of the Air 13 and the new MacBook Pro is roughly on par, and the previous MacBook Pro 13 is about 200 grams heavier. The new 15-inch model will tip the scale at about 1800 grams and therefore 400 grams more than its 13-inch counterpart, but it will be just one millimeter thicker.

Two Thunderbolt 3 ports with a USB Type-C connector and one stereo jack for headphones – that's it. The two Thunderbolt ports are, however, very versatile, at least when you have the corresponding (expensive) adapter. Besides the power supply, you can also attach displays and transfer up to 40 GB/s of data via the port. The more expensive models have 4 ports (the two ports on the right side of the 13-inch model are only half-speed).
Here are some examples for adapters from Apple: USB-C to USB-A adapter: $19.00, Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 (mDP): $49.00, USB-C to Gigabit Ethernet: $34.95.

Apple grants a 1-year warranty for its notebooks, which can be extended to 3 years for a comparatively high price (including phone support though – also for software).

Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies & Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Keyboard

The new 2016 MacBooks use the second generation of the chiclet keyboard, which was introduced with the 12-inch MacBook. The shallow travel will once again be a shock when you use it for the first time. The very even stroke does leave a positive impression though. This second generation of Apple's own Butterfly mechanism was noticeably improved compared to the 12-inch MacBook, but you still have to get used to the typing experience. After this has happened, the switch back to the old MacBook pro is actually pretty difficult, because we now found it to be rather spongy in comparison. We did not notice any differences in typing speed compared to the previous MacBook Pro models, and quick inputs without typos were no problem even in the first session. The typing noise will depend heavily on your usage scenario. It is slightly louder compared to the old model with ten fingers, but we do not consider it to be disturbing even in quiet environments. If you type forcefully with just two fingers though, the noise will be much louder. You can see a comparison in the video below this section.

Because of the shallow travel, the 16-level keyboard illumination of the individual keys is well implemented into the case and it will not dazzle.

Touchpad

The glass trackpad of the new MacBook Pro models is much bigger compared to the previous models, but the technology is otherwise identical. It is still the reference for a touchpad, even though Windows devices like the Surface 4 Pro start to close the gap. Thanks to the taptic engine, tactile clicks are identical all over the surface and it is also possible to trigger a firmer "Force Press". Both systems work so well that you do not want to go back to a conventional touchpad with rocker switches. The software support of the trackpad (in macOS) is also still unrivaled. Gestures, Drag & Drop (via second finger in the corner) and the response times were excellent in our tests. The palm rejection worked well, but it is also necessary due to the larger surface, because you will often put a finger or two on the touchpad. Accidental cursor movements were very rare when we used the keyboard.

Our model of the new MacBook Pro 13-inch without Touch Bar is equipped with the default "2.0 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5" processor. With the specifications and the help of various tools, we can clearly identify the Intel Core i5-6360U. This chip is still a model from the Skylake CPU generation with two cores, 4 MB L3-cache, and manufactured in a 14-nm process. The CPU is clocked between 2.0-3.1 GHz at a TDP of 15 Watts. The specialty of the i5-6360U is a "tweaked" integrated GPU, the Intel Iris Graphics 540 with 64 MB eDRAM. Intel's Kaby Lake did not fit into Apple's schedule, because the new processors are only available for a couple of weeks now. If you do not want to waive the Kaby Lake advantages, you will have to wait for new Apple devices in about a year.

Let's have a look at the CPU performance, and there does not seem to be a big difference compared to the predecessor with the i5-5257U processor. A bit faster is the i7-6560U we tested in the Dell XPS 13 9350. This chip has a slightly higher clock between 2.2-3.2 GHz. About 10 percent faster (here Aspire V3-372 with comparable CPU) should be the Touch Bar model with the "2.9 GHz Dual-Core i5", both in the single-core as well as multi-core tests. According to Dell, the CPU should be the i5-6267U, which is also equipped with the more powerful Iris Graphics 550. The i5-6267U should be on par with the recently announced top model U-series CPU from the Kaby Lake generation, the i7-7500U (in the new Razer Blade Stealth, for example).

We use the PCMark benchmarks running on Bootcamp Windows to evaluate the system performance. A score of 3280 points in the Home v2 test for the new Apple MacBook Pro 13 is on par with the Razer Blade Stealth and the previous MBP 13 from 2015. Dell's XPS 13 with i7-6560U is a bit faster, just like the MacBook Air from 2015. Both the Dell (FHD) and the Air (1440 x 900) benefit from the lower resolutions.

The graphics adapter of the small MacBook Pro 13 is the integrated Intel Iris Graphics 540 (see for more details and benchmarks). It has 48 EUs running at up to 900 MHz. The GPU can also use the fast, but small 64 MB eDRAM, while the rest of the memory is shared with the LPDDR3 (933 MHz) system memory.

We check the graphics performance of the integrated chip with Windows 10 (via Bootcamp), because we have more comparison devices. The Iris 540 actually performs pretty well in 3DMark 11 and is just behind the Iris 540 inside the Surface Pro 4 with Core i7-6650U (+2 %). The old Dell XPS 13 only manages 80 % of the performance. For comparison: Intel's new integrated graphics unit of the recently announced Kaby Lake processors (HD Graphics 620) is more than 30 % slower. The current 3DMark Cloud Gate test confirms the 3DMark 11 results.

Compared to dedicated graphics cards, the Intel 540 is sitting between the GeForce 930M and 940M in the synthetic benchmarks.

The challenging title Witcher 3 is not really playable even with low details, but the new Apple MacBook Pro 13 can beat numerous comparable or even better equipped notebooks. The Aspire V3-372 with the Intel HD Graphics 550, for example, is just beaten, and the HD 540 in the Lenovo 710S is about 13 % behind.

The Iris 540 is generally no gaming GPU. Many modern titles cannot be played and there are also some graphics errors right now. The GPU does at least support beta drivers and Intel is obviously trying to launch new updates faster than before. The performance once again falls behind the 940M and even the slow 920M is sometimes faster. 

Using macOS, the gaming performance is always worse compared to Windows due to OpenGL. A comparison with DOTA 2, for example, shows that you have to reduce both the resolution and the details in macOS. Only World of Warcraft is an example with support for the newer Metal API, but we do not expect extensive support.

Our initial impression with the test model is pretty typical for devices from Apple: You cannot hear the fan (Touch Bar model: two fans) with office workloads. You will only hear a quiet increase of the fan speed unter sustained workloads. But then it happens: The fan of our test model starts to rattle and is very sensitive to position changes of the notebook. We have to assume a defect of our test model. But the fan is subjectively a bit more unpleasant than the old model as well, even without the rattling. While you could only hear a murmur so far, you can now also hear a slightly high-pitched sound.

We analyzed the fan noise under macOS with the GPU benchmark Unigine Valley. The single fan steadily increases its speed over the one-hour test period according to the istat tool. The latter also hows that the fan is deactivated while idling, while the old MacBook models had slowly running fans that were always active. Our test therefore starts with the ambient noise of 30.5 dB(A). The MacBook is basically silent for the first couple of minutes and reached up to 3300 rpm and 31.2 dB(A). After that, we noticed a linear increase to 40.4 dB(A) at 5870 rpm. We also selected the maximum fan speed at 7200 rpm manually via istat and measured up to 45.4 dB(A). However, we never reached the maximum fan speed with any of our reviewed Macs. The noise characteristics differs a lot from the previous model. The 2015 MacBook Pro 13 had the peaks of up to 47 dB(A) at 1500 and 3500 Hz. The new and flatter fan has three peaks at 500 Hz, 2500 Hz and pretty high-pitched 5000 Hz. The previously mentioned and recorded rattling was not audible anymore in this test, maybe it was stopped by the movements in the video.

Sustained workloads will result in a perceptible and measurable warming of the MacBook Pro 13, especially in the rear area where the logic board as well as the core components are located. At up to 42 °C at the top and 41 °C at the bottom, the maximum temperatures are still pretty comfortable within the comparison. The previous MBP shows a very similar temperature development, but gets a bit warmer at the top. We can see slightly higher temperatures for the components of the new MacBook Pro though (35/39/36 vs. 33/40/31 °C), and the front and center part of the keyboard get a bit warmer as well. Apple was able to distribute the heat more across the chassis compared to the predecessor.

After Apple's ultra-compact MacBook 12 surprised us with a new reference for notebook sound, we had pretty high expectations for the new Apple MacBook Pro 13. After our measurements, we can say that Apple delivers the expected quality. The speaker characteristics are very similar to the MacBook 12, the small differences in terms of volume should be a result of the different positions of the speakers in relation to the fixed position of our measuring microphone. The curve is even more linear when we move the microphone from our default position towards the position of the user's head.
All in all, the new Apple MacBook Pro 13 delivers sufficient sound pressure in the low tone area and an almost perfectly linear characteristic all the way up to the super-high tones. A maximum volume of 83.2 dB(A) is more than sufficient for a room and the sound quality is very good for a laptop.

Frequency Comparison (Checkboxes select/deselectable!)

We perform our standardized WLAN test with a luminance of 164 nits (level 12) and dimmed keyboard illumination. Apple has no problems to reach the advertised runtime of 10 hours and just misses the 11.5 hours mark (almost 11 hours in the first run, but the adaptive brightness might have affected the result). This means it lasts a bit longer than the old MacBook Air 13 and beat the 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 13 quite clearly. The smaller battery can therefore really be compensated with more efficient components.

The MacBook Pro ran for 1 hour and 51 minutes in our gaming test (Witcher 3, Windows 10, 151 nits) in Windows 10 before we had to recharge it.