**The 2020 MacBook Pro: A Solid but Limited Upgrade**
The 2020 MacBook Pro is a solid machine, but it's also a reminder that Apple has been holding back on its base model, leaving enthusiasts like myself feeling underwhelmed. The new laptop scores 170 for graphics performance, which is not surprising given its 8th gen chips integrated graphics. This is in line with the seven-year-old MacBook Pro with a GT 650 M graphics card, making it clear that Apple has intentionally held back on the base model.
However, the higher-tier configurations of the 2020 MacBook Pro are actually pretty solid. The $1,800.00 model with 16 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage is definitely a good overall package, considering you would have had to pay extra to upgrade to those specifications on the same tier in previous models, putting it at well over $2000. This highlights that Apple's configuration choices are driven more by price targets than genuine performance improvements.
Keeping the internals the same as the 2019 model is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's also not surprising, given that much of Apple's configuration decisions seem to be influenced by their desire to fill specific price points rather than focusing on actual upgrades. In fact, I was spot on in my earlier guess that Apple might do exactly this - keeping the same processors, display footprint, and internal specs, but adding a new feature or two.
The addition of the Magic Keyboard and doubling the storage options are significant changes, making this MacBook Pro a good buy for those who need these features. However, for enthusiasts like myself who crave performance gains, better graphics, and newer architectures, the 2020 MacBook Pro falls short. The keyboard and storage were the only two major drawbacks that I saw to the 2019 base model Macbook Pro, and even then, it was still a great machine.
For those considering buying the 2020 MacBook Pro, especially if you're looking at the base model, there are some significant limitations. The processor and RAM might not be as powerful as expected, and while the graphics have improved slightly, they're still nowhere near what's available on newer models. If you can wait for an update, it's possible that we'll see a 14-inch MacBook Pro with slimmer bezels and mini LED displays, potentially featuring six-core processors.
**A Complicated Situation**
The current situation with the MacBook Pro lineup is complicated, to say the least. With Apple releasing new models every year, it's difficult to know when exactly an update will happen. The 2020 MacBook Pro might seem like too little, too late for some users, especially those who are used to seeing more significant upgrades.
However, as we've seen with previous years, there's always another iteration on the horizon. In fact, there have been rumors of a 14-inch MacBook Pro with many LED displays and potentially six-core processors, which could be a major game-changer for Apple. While it's unlikely that we'll see this model anytime soon, it highlights that Apple is still committed to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in their products.
For now, if you're in the market to buy a MacBook Pro right now, the 2020 model might be a good option if you need many LED displays or significant upgrades. However, for those who crave performance gains and better graphics, it's essential to wait and see what Apple has in store for us at WWDC or later in the year.
**Comparison Time**
As I mentioned earlier, I'll be comparing the 2020 MacBook Pro base model to the 2019 base model in a separate video. If you're shopping between these two models, I recommend checking out that video to see how they compare. Additionally, I'll have another video comparing the 2020 base model to the latest MacBook Air model.
For those who are curious about the differences between these three laptops, I'll be breaking down their specs and performance in detail. Whether you're a seasoned tech enthusiast or just looking for some insight into the latest Apple products, these videos will provide valuable information to help you make an informed decision when it comes to choosing the right MacBook Pro for your needs.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwell here it is the final nail in the coffin of the butterfly keyboard this is the 20 2013 inch MacBook Pro in its cheapest configuration and today what we're gonna try to figure out is if this is substantial enough of an upgrade or if Apple really missed the mark with this now the base model MacBook Pro is very important for Apple because it is probably their second most popular laptop behind the base model MacBook Air and that's because a lot of people buy these because they have a little bit of extra horsepower compared to a MacBook Air and they're willing to pay a little bit extra for that now don't get me wrong the 20/20 MacBook Air is an excellent laptop and it even comes with quad core processors now however the 13-inch is definitely the better Buy if you're looking for a little bit of extra performance because the MacBook Air really doesn't have the cooling system to be able to handle that the MacBook Pro does however this update is a little bit controversial I personally was a little bit disappointed with Apple's offering this year especially with their base model so if you're not familiar with the 13-inch MacBook Pro there are two different models there's the two Thunderbolt port version and the four Thunderbolt port version this has been around since the 2016 MacBook Pro and initially it was a way to differentiate the models that had the touch bar so the four thunderbolt port model had better cooling better processors and the touch bar and then the base model ones had function keys less cooling and had one fan instead of two and slightly lesser processors this got a little bit funky though in 2019 because the 13-inch with four thunderbolt ports had updated quad core processors and then Apple introduced quad core processors and brought the touch bar down to the base model so that made the difference between the two and four port versions very very subtle this wasn't a bad thing by any means it just meant that the base model was a very good value and it scaled upwards however what happened is I guess Apple realized that they made the base model too good and so what they've done for 2020 is sort of artificially create a marketing difference between the 2 and 4 port versions that seems to be for absolutely no reason other than to try to get people to buy the more expensive models let's take a look on Apple's website and we'll talk about what I mean all right so here's what it looks like so there are four main options for the 13-inch MacBook Pro four different tears it's a lot but basically what it boils down to is these base model ones the 1.4 gigahertz quad-core processor have two Thunderbolt ports and the ones with the two gigahertz processor have four the differences between these two are completely unnecessary and arbitrary but substantial basically internally the two Thunderbolt port version is identical to the outgoing one and has the same eight gigabytes of RAM the same processor the same graphics we do have twice the storage which is very nice to see and of course the magic keyboard but performance wise this is essentially the same computer as before the real internal upgrade doesn't come until you spend one thousand eight hundred dollars on the four thunderbolt port model at which point you are going to get a quad-core 10th gen AI five sixteen gigabytes of ram which is very nice and a half terabyte SSD now this particular model is actually pretty well rounded it's been well never that we've had 16 gigabytes as standard on a 13-inch MacBook Pro you've always had to pay more for that now at the very least we do get sixteen gigabytes it's coming with 512 gigabytes of storage whereas before it was 256 so it is an upgrade in that sense however it is kind of stupid that Apple only puts the 10th gen processors on the expensive computers there is no reason apart from marketing that they've done that that's literally all there is to it so while that's definitely disappointing that's not to say that this is necessarily a bad value computer it's maybe an underwhelming update but I still think that this is a pretty promising MacBook for a lot of people now crucially the the main things that have changed here is the doubling of standard storage which we've seen on the MacBook Air as well as on the 16 inch MacBook Pro late last year and of course the magic keyboard and that's personally the most important things for me 128 gigabytes of SSD was not enough on the old model so I'm glad that they fixed that you may also notice that I went for the silver version not gonna lie guys I've kind of been kind of done with Space Gray lately not that I don't like it it's just that everyone has Space Gray and I kind of wanted to spice things up a little bit I have to say this design looks good in silver it smells like baby carrots I can't I don't know how to describe you might have to buy a MacBook specifically to get what I'm talking about but if you buy one of these new this is starting on the 16 inch they smell I'm not making this up they smell like baby carrots I might be crazy I don't know anyway we don't get a lot of documentation here we get some Silver Apple stickers that's it our 61 watt power adapter as well as the cord for that so that's nice that's pretty much all you get in the box no accessories no anything now here's the old 2019 version and here's the 2020 version I can definitely feel a little bit of a difference now the footprint is pretty much the same the dimensions are pretty much the same the only difference is the new one is point zero two of an inch thicker it's point six one inches compared to point five nine now that is very insubstantial and it kind of makes you wonder why we had to suffer through four years of the worst keyboard known to man if it was only gonna cost us point zero two of an inch four years of pain nice now as far as minor updates go this is very very minor because apart from the new keyboard apart from these storage and of course we get better speakers that we saw in the 2020 MacBook Air and the sixteen inch MacBook Pro there's pretty much nothing that's new it's the same display shut up with the same thick bezels it's a little bit disappointing I was really hoping for a 14 inch now depending on who you believe there might actually be another MacBook Pro update coming either at WWDC or later in like October or November and that could be very interesting because that could explain why this is a very very minor update so we'll break down some of those rumors a little bit later in the video so the big question with this guy is is this enough is it enough to put a better keyboard and slap some extra SSD modules and call it a day at least on the base model the thing is you can get these 2019 versions with the exact same processor and RAM for hundreds of dollars less you can get these things on clearance refurbish open box and at that point you got a wonder is it worth giving up the magic keyboard and sticking with a butterfly keyboard to save a couple hundred bucks so we're gonna set this thing up and we're gonna give it the full run-through to see if it's actually a decent MacBook performance on this base model is familiar but very solid overall in Geekbench 5 I got 3400 putting it exactly on par with a 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro it also does quite well in Cinebench we get a score of 1521 though as the test goes on this computer does tend to get quite loud because we only have one cooling fan compared to two on the higher-end models because of this single fan design it has to spin quite fast 7200 rpm and therefore the fan note is a little bit shrill Unigine heaven as you might imagine is not a strong suit for this guy 8th gen chips integrated graphics yeah it's not very surprising that it only scores 170 for putting it on par with a seven-year-old MacBook Pro with a GT 650 M graphics card this is definitely an area where you'd be better off with the newer 10th gen processors and they're much more powerful graphics the thing is while I'm peeved that Apple seems to have intentionally held back on the base models the higher tier configurations are actually pretty solid that $1,800.00 model with 16 gigabytes of RAM roughly 16% more CPU power and much better graphics as well as 512 gigabytes of storage is definitely a good overall package sure it's definitely a little bit pricey but keep in mind that previously on that exact same tier you would have had to pay extra to upgrade to 16 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage putting it at well over $2000 but anyway back to the base model keeping the internals the same as the 2019 is not necessarily a bad thing but it's really not that surprising that Apple did this especially when so much of their configuration is driven by wanting to fill the price targets that they put out there and in fact I was actually kind of spot on a little over a month ago when I guessed that Apple might do exactly this even if all else was the same the same processors display footprint everything but you added in the magic keyboard and doubled the storage options this would be a good buy and I still maintain that the keyboard and the storage were the only two major drawbacks that I saw to the 2019 13 inch base model macbook pro in july 2019 this macbook would have crushed it it would have been absolutely the king of MacBooks the problem is that was nearly 10 months ago to the average user the keyboard and the storage are probably the only things that they're really going to notice most people aren't taxing their processor or even really noticing how much RAM they're using but they are going to notice that their keyboard sucks and they're running out of storage space but for people like me and you that's not enough we want to see performance gains we want to see newer architectures better graphics better performance we're still spending $1300 some people might not care about the performance at that price point but I certainly do and you probably do too the consolation here is that Apple might not actually be done yet for 2020 because there are a decent amount of rumors going around that there's going to be more MacBook Pro updates this year and that's not exactly out of the question here it's not completely unusual let's not forget that in 2019 Apple updated the different MacBook Pros in May July and November that's three different time periods so we could still see more MacBook updates and in fact most people think that a 14 inch MacBook Pro is still a possibility and in fact that might coincide with Apple putting many LED displays on their Mac books now I don't know about you guys but a 14 inch MacBook Pro with slimmer bezels and mini LED displays and who knows maybe even six core processors that is compelling so it's it's a very tricky spot that we're in here because obviously there's a brand new MacBook out and so it's unlikely that we're going to get an update any time SuperDuper soon I think it's possible that we'll see some sort of tech preview at WWDC maybe showing off a 16 inch or an iMac with many LED technology but it seems pretty unlikely that we're gonna get that 14 inch MacBook Pro until late 2020 maybe even earlier in 2021 so if you are in the market to buy a MacBook right now right this very instant I think the 2020 is a solid if not exciting option if you need many LED if you need a major update I would definitely wait if you can although you know we say that and there's updates every year so there's always an update around the corner so is the 2020 MacBook Pro too little too late well kind of I think it is especially on the base model a little bit pedestrian but it's not bad now stay tuned because I'm gonna be comparing this in much more detail to the 2020 MacBook Air if your cross hopping between those I'm also gonna have a video comparing the 2020 base model and the 2019 base model so if you're shopping between those two I'll have a video to help you guys out so make sure you're subscribed to catch both of those and as usual don't forget to Like comment and subscribe follow me on Twitter at lucca me on e and don't forget to join my subreddit which is linked in the description below and with that I'll see you all in the next videowell here it is the final nail in the coffin of the butterfly keyboard this is the 20 2013 inch MacBook Pro in its cheapest configuration and today what we're gonna try to figure out is if this is substantial enough of an upgrade or if Apple really missed the mark with this now the base model MacBook Pro is very important for Apple because it is probably their second most popular laptop behind the base model MacBook Air and that's because a lot of people buy these because they have a little bit of extra horsepower compared to a MacBook Air and they're willing to pay a little bit extra for that now don't get me wrong the 20/20 MacBook Air is an excellent laptop and it even comes with quad core processors now however the 13-inch is definitely the better Buy if you're looking for a little bit of extra performance because the MacBook Air really doesn't have the cooling system to be able to handle that the MacBook Pro does however this update is a little bit controversial I personally was a little bit disappointed with Apple's offering this year especially with their base model so if you're not familiar with the 13-inch MacBook Pro there are two different models there's the two Thunderbolt port version and the four Thunderbolt port version this has been around since the 2016 MacBook Pro and initially it was a way to differentiate the models that had the touch bar so the four thunderbolt port model had better cooling better processors and the touch bar and then the base model ones had function keys less cooling and had one fan instead of two and slightly lesser processors this got a little bit funky though in 2019 because the 13-inch with four thunderbolt ports had updated quad core processors and then Apple introduced quad core processors and brought the touch bar down to the base model so that made the difference between the two and four port versions very very subtle this wasn't a bad thing by any means it just meant that the base model was a very good value and it scaled upwards however what happened is I guess Apple realized that they made the base model too good and so what they've done for 2020 is sort of artificially create a marketing difference between the 2 and 4 port versions that seems to be for absolutely no reason other than to try to get people to buy the more expensive models let's take a look on Apple's website and we'll talk about what I mean all right so here's what it looks like so there are four main options for the 13-inch MacBook Pro four different tears it's a lot but basically what it boils down to is these base model ones the 1.4 gigahertz quad-core processor have two Thunderbolt ports and the ones with the two gigahertz processor have four the differences between these two are completely unnecessary and arbitrary but substantial basically internally the two Thunderbolt port version is identical to the outgoing one and has the same eight gigabytes of RAM the same processor the same graphics we do have twice the storage which is very nice to see and of course the magic keyboard but performance wise this is essentially the same computer as before the real internal upgrade doesn't come until you spend one thousand eight hundred dollars on the four thunderbolt port model at which point you are going to get a quad-core 10th gen AI five sixteen gigabytes of ram which is very nice and a half terabyte SSD now this particular model is actually pretty well rounded it's been well never that we've had 16 gigabytes as standard on a 13-inch MacBook Pro you've always had to pay more for that now at the very least we do get sixteen gigabytes it's coming with 512 gigabytes of storage whereas before it was 256 so it is an upgrade in that sense however it is kind of stupid that Apple only puts the 10th gen processors on the expensive computers there is no reason apart from marketing that they've done that that's literally all there is to it so while that's definitely disappointing that's not to say that this is necessarily a bad value computer it's maybe an underwhelming update but I still think that this is a pretty promising MacBook for a lot of people now crucially the the main things that have changed here is the doubling of standard storage which we've seen on the MacBook Air as well as on the 16 inch MacBook Pro late last year and of course the magic keyboard and that's personally the most important things for me 128 gigabytes of SSD was not enough on the old model so I'm glad that they fixed that you may also notice that I went for the silver version not gonna lie guys I've kind of been kind of done with Space Gray lately not that I don't like it it's just that everyone has Space Gray and I kind of wanted to spice things up a little bit I have to say this design looks good in silver it smells like baby carrots I can't I don't know how to describe you might have to buy a MacBook specifically to get what I'm talking about but if you buy one of these new this is starting on the 16 inch they smell I'm not making this up they smell like baby carrots I might be crazy I don't know anyway we don't get a lot of documentation here we get some Silver Apple stickers that's it our 61 watt power adapter as well as the cord for that so that's nice that's pretty much all you get in the box no accessories no anything now here's the old 2019 version and here's the 2020 version I can definitely feel a little bit of a difference now the footprint is pretty much the same the dimensions are pretty much the same the only difference is the new one is point zero two of an inch thicker it's point six one inches compared to point five nine now that is very insubstantial and it kind of makes you wonder why we had to suffer through four years of the worst keyboard known to man if it was only gonna cost us point zero two of an inch four years of pain nice now as far as minor updates go this is very very minor because apart from the new keyboard apart from these storage and of course we get better speakers that we saw in the 2020 MacBook Air and the sixteen inch MacBook Pro there's pretty much nothing that's new it's the same display shut up with the same thick bezels it's a little bit disappointing I was really hoping for a 14 inch now depending on who you believe there might actually be another MacBook Pro update coming either at WWDC or later in like October or November and that could be very interesting because that could explain why this is a very very minor update so we'll break down some of those rumors a little bit later in the video so the big question with this guy is is this enough is it enough to put a better keyboard and slap some extra SSD modules and call it a day at least on the base model the thing is you can get these 2019 versions with the exact same processor and RAM for hundreds of dollars less you can get these things on clearance refurbish open box and at that point you got a wonder is it worth giving up the magic keyboard and sticking with a butterfly keyboard to save a couple hundred bucks so we're gonna set this thing up and we're gonna give it the full run-through to see if it's actually a decent MacBook performance on this base model is familiar but very solid overall in Geekbench 5 I got 3400 putting it exactly on par with a 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro it also does quite well in Cinebench we get a score of 1521 though as the test goes on this computer does tend to get quite loud because we only have one cooling fan compared to two on the higher-end models because of this single fan design it has to spin quite fast 7200 rpm and therefore the fan note is a little bit shrill Unigine heaven as you might imagine is not a strong suit for this guy 8th gen chips integrated graphics yeah it's not very surprising that it only scores 170 for putting it on par with a seven-year-old MacBook Pro with a GT 650 M graphics card this is definitely an area where you'd be better off with the newer 10th gen processors and they're much more powerful graphics the thing is while I'm peeved that Apple seems to have intentionally held back on the base models the higher tier configurations are actually pretty solid that $1,800.00 model with 16 gigabytes of RAM roughly 16% more CPU power and much better graphics as well as 512 gigabytes of storage is definitely a good overall package sure it's definitely a little bit pricey but keep in mind that previously on that exact same tier you would have had to pay extra to upgrade to 16 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage putting it at well over $2000 but anyway back to the base model keeping the internals the same as the 2019 is not necessarily a bad thing but it's really not that surprising that Apple did this especially when so much of their configuration is driven by wanting to fill the price targets that they put out there and in fact I was actually kind of spot on a little over a month ago when I guessed that Apple might do exactly this even if all else was the same the same processors display footprint everything but you added in the magic keyboard and doubled the storage options this would be a good buy and I still maintain that the keyboard and the storage were the only two major drawbacks that I saw to the 2019 13 inch base model macbook pro in july 2019 this macbook would have crushed it it would have been absolutely the king of MacBooks the problem is that was nearly 10 months ago to the average user the keyboard and the storage are probably the only things that they're really going to notice most people aren't taxing their processor or even really noticing how much RAM they're using but they are going to notice that their keyboard sucks and they're running out of storage space but for people like me and you that's not enough we want to see performance gains we want to see newer architectures better graphics better performance we're still spending $1300 some people might not care about the performance at that price point but I certainly do and you probably do too the consolation here is that Apple might not actually be done yet for 2020 because there are a decent amount of rumors going around that there's going to be more MacBook Pro updates this year and that's not exactly out of the question here it's not completely unusual let's not forget that in 2019 Apple updated the different MacBook Pros in May July and November that's three different time periods so we could still see more MacBook updates and in fact most people think that a 14 inch MacBook Pro is still a possibility and in fact that might coincide with Apple putting many LED displays on their Mac books now I don't know about you guys but a 14 inch MacBook Pro with slimmer bezels and mini LED displays and who knows maybe even six core processors that is compelling so it's it's a very tricky spot that we're in here because obviously there's a brand new MacBook out and so it's unlikely that we're going to get an update any time SuperDuper soon I think it's possible that we'll see some sort of tech preview at WWDC maybe showing off a 16 inch or an iMac with many LED technology but it seems pretty unlikely that we're gonna get that 14 inch MacBook Pro until late 2020 maybe even earlier in 2021 so if you are in the market to buy a MacBook right now right this very instant I think the 2020 is a solid if not exciting option if you need many LED if you need a major update I would definitely wait if you can although you know we say that and there's updates every year so there's always an update around the corner so is the 2020 MacBook Pro too little too late well kind of I think it is especially on the base model a little bit pedestrian but it's not bad now stay tuned because I'm gonna be comparing this in much more detail to the 2020 MacBook Air if your cross hopping between those I'm also gonna have a video comparing the 2020 base model and the 2019 base model so if you're shopping between those two I'll have a video to help you guys out so make sure you're subscribed to catch both of those and as usual don't forget to Like comment and subscribe follow me on Twitter at lucca me on e and don't forget to join my subreddit which is linked in the description below and with that I'll see you all in the next video\n"