After a long wait, Apple has finally unveiled the new MacBook Pro 2016. Along with it, the Cupertino giant has also marked the end of the popular MacBook Air lineup. The new notebooks come with the much-rumored OLED Retina Touch Bar sitting at the place of hardware Function keys. While the newly launched laptops are already up for pre-order in countries like the USA, let’s talk about their price and availability in India.
This year, Apple has launched three different models of the new MacBook Pro. The cheapest one does not have the retina touch bar and sports a bit trimmed down specifications but a larger battery. In India, it starts at a price of Rs. 129,900. The cost of the normal 13-inch and 15-inch models of the new MacBook Pro 2016 begins from Rs. 155,900 and Rs. 205,900 respectively in the country. These are a whopping 30 percent more than the USA pricing of the notebooks.
Speaking of availability, Apple had initially announced that the MacBook Pro 2016 would arrive in India at a similar date to that in the US. Unfortunately, the company has now revoked the initial press release, leaving us clueless about the launch time in India. While this may be primarily due to supply deficiencies of the new MacBooks, it is also quite possible that the Cupertino giant may rethink the pricing structure in the country.
The new MacBook Pros are impressive looking devices with powerful internals. They are slimmer and lighter than their predecessors and boast excellent portability. The innovative Touch Bar is a thin strip of multi-touch supported display which sits above the keyboard by replacing the traditional function keys. It provides several advanced functionalities like volume and brightness control, notification display, smart typing suggestions and much more. Even third party applications can use the Touch Bar to offer added features. At the extreme right of Touch Bar sits a second gen Touch ID fingerprint scanner with out of the box Apple Pay support.
Internally, the new MacBooks are powered by 6th Gen Intel Skylake processors. For additional graphics requirement, Apple will offer you the latest AMD Polaris GPUs with up to 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. The MacBook Pro 2016 comes with 8 GB or 16 GB LPDDR3 RAM running at 2133 MHz. However, the cheapest 13-inch model has an 1866 MHz RAM module. For storage, the new laptops sport high-speed SSDs with up to 3.1 Gb/s transfer speeds. You can choose between 256 GB, 512 GB, 1024 GB (1 TB), or 2048 GB (2 TB) storing capacities.
Talking about the display, the MacBook Pro 2016 series comes with sharp high quality LED backlit LCD panels. The new screens boast 67 percent better brightness and contrast ratio. The laptops sport a new super responsive backlit keyboard along with a powerful stereo speaker set-up. The trackpad houses two times larger surface are than the previous version and supports force touch technology.
Connectivity-wise, the new MacBook Pros only has four Type-C (USB) ports. Each of these can simultaneously function as the USB 3.1 (10 Gb/s), Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gb/s), DisplayPort and even as the charging port. One notable thing is that there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack in every model of the MacBook Pro 2016.
Coming to software, the new Macs run the latest macOS Sierra. Apple’s personal assistant Siri is built right into the operating system with even a dedicated hardware button. The new laptops sport up to 10 hours’ battery life and 30 days’ standby duration. See below for the detailed specs list of three different models of the MacBook Pro 2016.
Specifications of 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (without Touch Bar)
- 13.3-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD with 2560 x 1600 resolution, 500 nits’ brightness
- Dual core 6th Gen Intel processors – Core i5 (2.0 GHz / Turbo 3.1 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache) or Core i7 (2.4 GHz / Turbo 3.4 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache)
- 256 GB or 512 GB or 1024 GB (1 TB) high-speed PCIe SSD hard drive
- 8 GB or 16 GB LPDDR3 1866 MHz RAM
- Intel Iris Graphics 540 GPU
- macOS Sierra
- Two (not four) USB-C Ports for Charging, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 and DisplayPort
- No Touch Bar or Touch ID – 12 hardware Function keys are present
- 3.5 mm headphone jack
- Force Touch trackpad
- 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz), Bluetooth v4.2
- FaceTime HD Webcam (720p)
- Stereo Speakers and Dual microphone
- 54.5-watt-hour non-removable Lithium Polymer battery
- Silver or Space Black colour options
- Rs. 129,900 starting price in India
Specifications of 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (with Touch Bar)
- 13.3-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD with 2560 x 1600 resolution, 500 nits’ brightness
- Dual core 6th Gen Intel processors – Core i5 (2.9 GHz / Turbo 3.3 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache) or Core i5 (3.1 GHz / Turbo 3.5 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache) or Core i7 (3.3 GHz / Turbo 3.6 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache)
- 256 GB or 512 GB or 1024 GB (1 TB) high-speed PCIe SSD hard drive
- 8 GB or 16 GB LPDDR3 2133 MHz RAM
- Intel Iris Graphics 550 GPU
- macOS Sierra
- Four USB-C Ports for Charging, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 and DisplayPort
- OLED Retina Touch Bar and Touch ID present
- 3.5 mm headphone jack
- Force Touch trackpad
- 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz), Bluetooth v4.2
- FaceTime HD Webcam (720p)
- Stereo Speakers and Dual microphone
- 49.2-watt-hour non-removable Lithium Polymer battery
- Silver or Space Black colour options
- Rs. 155,900 starting price in India
Specifications of 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro 2016
- 15.4-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD with 2880 x 1800 resolution, 500 nits’ brightness
- Quad core 6th Gen Intel processors – Core i7 (2.6 GHz / Turbo 3.5 GHz, 6 MB L3 cache) or Core i7 (2.7 GHz / Turbo 3.6 GHz, 8 MB L3 cache) or Core i7 (2.9 GHz / Turbo 3.8 GHz, 8 MB L3 cache)
- 256 GB or 512 GB or 1024 GB (1 TB) or 2048 GB (2 TB) high speed PCIe SSD hard drive
- 16 GB LPDDR3 2133 MHz RAM
- Intel HD Graphics 530 GPU
- AMD Radeon Pro 450 or 455 with 2 GB GDDR5 or Radeon Pro 460 with 4 GB GDDR5 GPU
- macOS Sierra
- Four USB-C Ports for Charging, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 and DisplayPort
- OLED Retina Touch Bar and Touch ID present
- 3.5 mm headphone jack
- Force Touch trackpad
- 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz), Bluetooth v4.2
- FaceTime HD Webcam (720p)
- Stereo Speakers and Dual microphone
- 76-watt-hour non-removable Lithium Polymer battery
- Silver or Space Black colour options
- Rs. 205,900 starting price in India