The 2018 MacBook Pro 13-inch is super fast and the keyboard is improved, but the battery life could be better. The 2018 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is not a laptop for the masses, by dint of its price but also its power. But if you’re a creative pro or power user who demands a laptop that’s fairly portable, this system should mostly satisfy. The speed alone is great, and having Hey Siri on board proved more convenient than I thought it would. The quieter keyboard is also a welcome improvement. However, the battery life on this ultra-premium system isn’t as long as some competing ultraportables.
The 2018, 13-inch MacBook Pro is a mixed bag. There are obvious gains on the CPU side. though we arranged having a custom build with a Core i7 we are unable to report how the standard Core i5 compares. The starting price of $1,799 (£1,749) will put off many people.
That said, remember that the SSD here is very fast and has benefits whether you’re doing high-end creative work or merely want a laptop that’s very responsive, provided macOS has the apps you need.
True Tone is a welcome addition for anyone who works with words and numbers more than images. Overall, though, the 2018 13-inch MacBook Pro is the kind of iteration we’d expect after a year, with a few small kinks worked out, rather than representing a big leap ahead.
Windows laptops like the XPS 13 have surpassed Apple with their sleeker and lighter designs, and you can get more powerful graphics for hundreds of pounds less in systems like the Huawei MateBook X Pro. Both of those laptops also last longer on a charge, as does the Surface Laptop 2, though Microsoft’s system felt faster than Apple’s. For this amount of dough, I also think Apple should offer a discrete GPU without requiring you to jump up to the 15-inch MacBook Pro.
Overall, if you’re a macOS person, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is a smarter and faster powerhouse.
Good
Incredibly quick SSD
True Tone for non-visual creativity
Reasonable CPU and GPU boosts
Quad-core processors with Hyper-Threading
Bad
Battery life
Price is close to two grand
Spec
Here is the 13-inch MacBook Pro configuration that we tested:
CPU: 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-8559U (quad-core, 8 threads, 8MB cache, up to 4.5GHz)
Graphics: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655
RAM: 16GB (2,133MHz LPDDR3)
Screen: 13.3-inch, 2,560 x 1,600 Retina display (backlit LED, IPS, 500 nits brightness, wide color P3 gamut)
Storage: 2TB SSD
Ports: 4x Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C), 3.5mm headphone jack
Connectivity: 802.11ac Wi-F, Bluetooth 5.0
Camera: 720p FaceTime HD webcam
Weight: 3.02 pounds (1.37kg)
Size: 11.97 x 8.36 x 0.59 inches (30.41 x 21.24 x 1.49cm; W x D x H)
