Apple MacBook Pro 15 2018 (2.2 GHz, 555X)

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Reviews for the Apple MacBook Pro 15 2018 (2.2 GHz, 555X)

85% Apple 15-inch MacBook Pro (2018): Impressive performance at a premium price
Source: Zdnet.com Archive.org version
The 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro provides impressive performance -- especially if you add the Core i9 upgrade tested here. The fact that the MacBook Pro can accommodate a powerful CPU and GPU without increasing its size or weight -- or affecting battery life -- is no mean feat either. There are few laptops that combine heavyweight performance and lightweight design so effectively, and owners of older MacBook models will certainly view the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro as a tempting upgrade. If they can afford it, that is.
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 08/23/2018
Rating: Total score: 85%

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The Apple MacBook Pro 15 2018 is a powerful professional notebook with the brilliant design of its predecessor, aimed for business and professional power users. On the outside, the largest MacBook remains utterly unchanged. However, it is still 17 percent lighter and 14 percent thinner than its 2015 predecessor and feels as premium as ever. The laptop is also thinner than most “pro” Windows laptops with powerful processors. Thinness has become a point of contention, because it makes the laptop more complicated to cool. The unibody aluminum design mates beautifully with the glass display, touchpad, and Touch Bar with Touch-ID sensor. All 15-inch models of the MacBook Pro 2018 also feature the Touch Bar. This is a thin glass touchscreen that runs along the top of the keyboard and displays context-sensitive buttons on its 2,170 x 60 resolution screen. These buttons change depending on the application or task that users are performing, and they are designed to give quick shortcuts to help speed up the workflow. Finishing off with the screen, while it keeps the 2,880 x 1,800 resolution and 220 ppi (pixels per inch) pixel density of previous 15-inch MacBook Pros, it now also features Apple’s True Tone display technology, which debuted on the iPad Pro and also features on the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. This technology senses the ambient light of the environment users are working in and adjusts the display so that you get a bright and vibrant image, no matter where you are working.

Just as on the 2018 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, the speakers have been updated. This is an impressive feat, since the MacBook Pro already has the best sounding speakers. As for connectivity, Thunderbolt 3 is a game-changer. Every port has sufficient bandwidth to drive a dock that supports every possible port users could want as well as a high-resolution monitor in addition to power. USB-C is here to stay on the MacBook Pro. More and more laptops are adopting the Thunderbolt/USB-C setup, because it can be used for all kinds of peripherals, from external GPUs to keyboards and mice. Apple chose to include a six-core processor in every model of the 15-inch MacBook, starting with the i7 in the base model, which already has great potential for performance, up to the latest and most powerful i9 model. Moving onto other components, the RAM has been updated from 16 GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 to 64 GB of 2400MHz DDR4 soldered onto the motherboard. On the graphics side, both the base-model Radeon Pro 555X and top-spec Radeon Pro 560X include 4 GB of video memory. The solid state drive can be configured to a massive 4 TB, thus bringing up the price to around USD10K. The 2018 MacBook Pro reached close to 10 hours before it shut down, which is not a bad figure compared to its rivals. Nevertheless, when working on something more intensive, such as video rendering, one should expect less battery life.

Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam

AMD Radeon Pro 555X: Graphics card for the Apple MacBook Pro 15 2018 based on Polaris 21. The specifications are identical to the previous Radeon Pro 455 / 555 with slightly higher clock speeds and 4 instead of 2 GB GDDR5 graphics memory.

Modern games should be playable with these graphics cards at low settings and resolutions. Casual gamers may be happy with these cards.

» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.

i7-8750H: On Coffee Lake architecture based processor for big and heavy laptops. Integrates six processor cores clocked at 2.2 - 4.1 GHz (4 GHz with 4 cores, 3.9 GHz with 6 cores) that support HyperThreading. Manufactured in an improved 14nm process (14nm++). » Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

15.60":

15-inch display variants are the standard and are used for more than half of all laptops.

The reason for the popularity of mid-sized displays is that this size is reasonably easy on the eyes, often allows high resolutions and thus offers rich details on the screen, yet does not consume too much power and the devices can still be reasonably compact - simply the standard compromise.

Apple: Apple is a US company founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, the company is known for its innovative products such as the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, and manufactures computers and consumer electronics as well as operating systems and application software. Apple is also a leading provider of software and services such as the App Store, iTunes and iCloud.

Apple has earned a reputation as a company that focuses on design and ease of use. As for their notebooks, they are mostly in the high-priced segment, have their own operating system, but also run Windows on the newer Macbooks.

Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world and has a loyal following of customers and fans. The company also has a strong presence in the entertainment industry, with services like Apple Music and Apple TV+. In 2023, Apple had an approximate 8% market share of global PC sales, ranking it 4th after Lenovo, HP, and Dell.

85%: This rating is slightly above average, there are somewhat more devices with worse ratings. However, clear purchase recommendations look different.

» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.

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