CHUWI HiGame 2018 Mini PC - Indiegogo Crowdfunding Project Preview: Kaby Lake-G at its finest?

The Kaby Lake G integrates both a Quad Core Hyper Threaded CPU as well as a mid-range VEGA graphics to provide a medium level of gaming experience all in the same socket. It’s like having an APU in but only in this case Intel’s solution uses dedicated Vega Graphics operating on the 2nd Generation of High Bandwidth Memory. As a result, systems can shrink down for both use in Desktop and Laptop Computing at the same time. In terms of Desktops, there has only been one well-known example, the Intel NUC that uses this architecture in a miniPC…. until now.

Chuwi in their wisdom decided to follow suit, but opting for a slightly larger but still compact chassis to do its thing. And the big difference in terms of appearance is how clean the front is compared to the NUC. No added lights, no fancy patterns, just sleek, clean and simple which is what I prefer on my computers compared to others.

Source: Indiegogo, Chuwi

Source: Indiegogo, Chuwi

Spec Wise it has the following:

SPECS:

i5 Spec:
Intel Core i5 8305G (4C8T running at 2.8 to 3.8GHz)

8GB DDR4 RAM @ 2400MHz,
128GB M2. SSD
RX Vega M GL Graphics with 4GB HBM2 VRAM and 1280 Stream processing units.

Windows 10

i7 Spec:

Intel Core i7 8705G (4C8T running at 3.1 to 4.1Ghz)
8GB DDR4 RAM @ @2400MHz
256GB M2. SSD

RX Vega M GH Graphics with 4GB HBM2 VRAM and 1536 Stream Processing units.

Windows 10

OTHER TECH SPECS:

Source: Indiegogo

COMPARISONS WITH OTHER SFF GAMING GRADE PCs:

Source: Indiegogo.

The dimensions of the Chuwi Hi Game mini PC makes it thicker but is a good 2 inches shorter. Although the volume is significantly more once you add up, the weight of the system is actually just about the same as the NUC. That said, it remains to be seen as to whether the volume will play apart in the system's thermals and acoustics and overclocking capabilities if any.

The great thing about CHUWI’s crowdfunding project, is that all the dirty work of finding an OS, finding new parts to get it going is all done for you which will make a more pleasant out-of-the-box experience. Compared to the NUC which mostly comes in a barebones unit. You should be able to upgrade in the future but this'll enough to get you started and 8GB of DDR4 on a single stick is plenty for general computing and you can always double that later on.

Also what this mini PC has compared to the NUC, by only making it slightly thicker, allows space for a 2.5” Bay. Supposedly you'll have that flexibility of installing any kind of 2.5” SATA or nVMe SSD or Hard Drive should you wish, since they are more easily available and cheaper than M.2 stuff.

As for the mini PC’s use, the relatively powerful i5 8305G or the i7 8705G should have enough power to handle some medium to heavy video gaming while also can handle some heavy editing. And take the 8305G for instance, apart the Vega GPU and a higher 65W TDP, the i5 8305G is otherwise identical to the i7 7700HQ while the 8705G resembles the 7920HQ. So if you've used the regular Kaby Lake version of these chips you should be instantly familiar with their performance.

As for upgrades are concerned, there are quite bit of options. However to upgrade the GPU needs the CPU to be upgraded that has that chip and if there are I feel it’ll be difficult to source and difficult to upgrade. However the Thunderbolt 3 port that supports eGPU alleviates this problem a bit. Although more expensive to do so than miniPCI eGPU, it’s still a lot better than the latter function in terms of performance and memory bandwidth. So having a Thunderbolt 3 is always nice to have.

Now with that said, I’m not writing to say which one is better just yet, because the NUC and the Chuwi HiGame have their own strengths. The NUC is a slimmer unit with more I/O ports and lower weight and higher portability but less flexibility in terms of internal storage and a messier appearance. But as far as CPU architecture is concerned, it has proven as CPUs mature, systems get smaller, faster and more efficient for their volume.

First Impressions Bottomline:

PROS: Lightweight, Versatile I/O, Cleaner front than the NUC, dirty work for setup done. Competitive Pricing.
CONS: Not as compact as the NUC, less I/O, less M.2 Slots.

Currently it is in its Prototype Stage and more adjustments might be made at the time of this writing. Any case, I'll bring the review out once it arrives for testing. It's currently available for Backing for 899 for the i5 Version, and 1099 for the i7 Version. The secret Perk allows for a further 100 dollars off for both systems.

BACK IT HERE:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/higame-pc-mini-workstation-for-gamers-creators/x/18860519

Actual Review preview:

I will be using the i5 8305G version once that arrives So look out for the review! It'll pit against the following systems as it's what I have. This is gonna be interesting because it's more to find out how far we've come in terms of CPU efficiency over the years.

Gigabyte P27Gv2 - To compare CPU generation performance Since the Core i7 4810MQ has identical clocks and Core speeds and GPU performance difference.
My DIY Dell Precision T3500 - To Compare CPU Performance and the GTX 1060 3GB.

And the following system in terms of dimensions:
Alienware Alpha with a Core i3 4170T.

What I'll test is how easy it is to upgrade in General too, especially the 2.5" Drive because I pilfered a 500GB Hard drive out of my Alienware Alpha after swapping it out for a spare 128GB SSD as the HDD is so slow as a boot drive. The 500GB is the only one I have in spare, but I will get a faster storage drive in the future like a 256 or 480GB SSD or a 1TB 7200rpm HDD or SSHD. 

Project: Maintenance and conversion of a Clevo W110ER Laptop to a fixed gaming / main Computer

I intend to have some use for the Laptop, I needed to do some maintenance first:

For a while there has been a few problems with it. And for a long time, the laptop has some screws and joint problems in there. But I'm not concerned over the aesthetics of it because I'm more concerned of the performance of the laptop was not up to par.

Overwatch and Fortnite simply crashed. Diablo 3 ran slow and even games like CS:GO was a slideshow fest at a few SECONDS per FRAME, not Frames per second. My guess was that the Aftershock X11 / Clevo's thermal paste had probably dried and the GPU simply was probably on its last legs. It had IC Diamond in it and I'm having a heck of time removing it. But it has to be done as it's completely hardened and dried.

Maintenance of my Clevo W110ER

Grease mostly removed

So my solution for this one is this, Thermal Grizzly's Kryonaut. That solved most of my heat issues I'd may have with this Netbook.

And while I was at it, a thought came up saying.... why don't I convert the mini PCI-E slot that is being occupied Wireless WIFI Adapter to an External GPU? That way I can draw a lot of the heat away from the internal GT 650M it had and just leave that to the CPU which even 5 years later still kicks serious ass today. And I've a few components that I can use and further make it into a desktop conversion.

Components added to Conversion

USB Wireless Adapter
GDC Beast 8.0 (The Highlight of this project)
Corsair RM1000
External Peripherals
Assortment of GPUs to test (Primary Gaming will be a GTX 970)
1440p Monitor (advisable to have an external one)

The Build

The reason I prefer to go with nVidia Cards because of their driver support and it'll be less of a conflict and AMD Crimson drivers are normally like a few months late to even worse a year late to the party. In general, nVidia Drivers and cards are just better in almost every way in terms of power and noise and efficiency.

A GTX 970 will be the primary driver after the tests.

But let's get to the build, shall we?

The connections are pretty straightforward with plugging the cables to a Power Supply and linking with the provided ones to the GPU. Having a modular PSU would be great because it'll be a lot less messy and unsightly. But generally any ATX PSU will be fine.

Disabling the on-board VGA was a little finicky because there was no function on the BIOS to disable the GT 650M. But upon reading a tutorial to disable internal PCI-E lanes that power your dedicated GPU, that did switch off the GT 650M and the eGPU is ready to be installed which of course includes the usual install of the drivers too.

But that said, I did test that with an R9 290 as shown in the following photos and it works fine too after installing its Crimson Driver. This I finally got around to testing 2 years after I received it free as a gift from an NUS lecturer. It was his R9 290 before his PC died and I ran a FF XV Benchmark merely to test that his old baby checks out. At the same time I reapplied Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on it... I had to, cause' I mean seriously, when I opened Dr Matt's Card, there was hardly ANY grease in it no wonder it was always throttling.

Repasting (Above) and testing Dr Matthew's R9 290 on the GDC Beast eGPU Dock (below).
Works with no problem.

Also I know the Corsair RM1000 was many times overkill to no end, but the whole rig remained cool and quiet and the PSU was hardly emitting any heat even when the GTX 970 is fully loaded as well as less unsightly cables to handle. So that turned out working pretty well.


First Impressions
The difference after going full desktop GPU was night and day. It's good to go for some really nice gaming even if it's operating on a 1x PCI-e Gen 2.0 which reduces some performance. I don't mind the drawbacks of operating in such narrow PCI-E buses so long it does what it needs to do. Click on the Link or the YouTube Boxes to watch the videos for the various gameplay tests.

1. Final Fantasy XV Benchmark: 1080p Lite Settings.

2. Forged Battalion

1440p with the GTX 970 eGPU works nicely with some of the lighter titles like Forged battalion. Then again it's a super light title, so let's toss it to the deeper end of benchmarks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zjbGTLlMhQ

3. Battlefield 1

Battlefield 1 was playable, though not super smooth. Partly because I hadn't fully downloaded the game and just dived straight in. The difference between 1080p Ultra and 1440p Ultra in terms of fps isn't particularly huge, definitely a PCI-e Bus limitation somewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zqCwls_6W4


4. 3DMark Firestrike

8900 Score on 3DMark. I had a 10,500 on a single GTX 970 and an i7 2600K overclocked. But still, nice boost

5. Doom 2016

This title, actually, surprised me a lot, not only working at all but performing very well across 1440p at Maximum settings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrREGRQzaF8

6. Crysis 3

Testing.... TBA.



Conclusion

This was a fun project and it has been working beautifully for the week I've been using it. Sure, the mini PCI-E 1x limits performance and bandwidth but I love it so far and that has opened a new path for GPU upgrades in the future. What will be interesting to find out later is how much more of a Graphics horsepower we can squeeze in there can give us good benefits till the 1x Bus becomes a bottleneck and will not benefit us any further. But for now, stay tuned as this article will constantly be updated.

You can purchase the GDC Beast v8.0 eGPU Dock here:

Banggood
https://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.html?cur_warehouse=CN

Gearbest:
https://www.gearbest.com/laptop-accessories/pp_229101.html

Aliexpress:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/EXP-GDC-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-with-PCI-E-Interface-Black/32456172794.html

Lazada Singapore
https://www.lazada.sg/products/v80-exp-gdc-laptop-external-independent-video-card-dock-mini-pci-e-for-beast-intl-i102419952.html?spm=a2o42.order_details.details_title.1.56b646929D99F3

Forged Battalion - Brings back good ol' C & C Generals Nostalgia (Early Access)

Overview

Forged Battalion is an upcoming 2018 RTS title being developed by Petroglyph Games and published by TEAM 17. Petroglyph games is a private developer actually formed from the ashes and employees from what used to be Westwood, who developed the Red Alert series which has been my favorite RTS series to date. The dissolution of Westwood into EA saw a huge layoff of employees and it led to some founding Petroglyph Games which also includes the composer of Forged Battalion's Music Klepacki. TEAM 17 is the publisher that published the very successful Worms franchise of games. Much more doesn't need to be said about TEAM 17, c'mon, they did Worms.

Design your own faction, create your own units from the ground up, build a base, and wipe the enemy, pretty much the norm for RTS these days. By winning battles both in the Campaign as well as Ranked and Unranked matches, you will earn research points to unlock weapons and parts from the Tech Tree for your faction.

Unit Builder:

The commander has the option to create his own infantry and vehicles using parts and weapons researched from the tech tree. Each weapon or component modifying the base chassis will alter the cost of the unit. And great that they tell you the general effectiveness of each weapon type against various unit types (Infantry, Light, Armored, Aircraft, turrets, Buildings respectively) A Maximum of 4 units can be chosen to be built by one type of factory. Essentially you can customise and build up your own faction or army type depending on your needs.

Tech Tree:

As you win various battles in the game, whether campaign, offline skirmish or PvP ranked / unranked, you'll earn research points based on difficulty for your faction. So basically you can skirmish everytime to earn all the points you need. Currently 3 tiers are available and as to the 4th one, I guess it'll be unlocked in the full release of the game.

The Game:

 The game is very similar to C and C generals in terms of its look and feel as well as many of the Command and Conquer series and the Dawn Of War Series of RTS games. So you'll feel at home. Of course, since the people who are developing Forged Battalion, developed Red Alert 2 and Generals. So your role, most of the time is to take out your enemy using the units you made via the Faction Creator. You can capture outposts with Infantry as soon as your Comm center is built, around a similar manner as Company of Heroes and Dawn of War, which is to move infantry next to the outpost and hold till it's captured. 

Performance:

Performance of this game is fairly light to run. And because it looks like it, I went straight to Maximum Settings as shown in the test videos below within my devices' native resolutions. 1440p for the GTX 1060 Rig, and 1080p for the GTX 860M Rig.

Test Device 1: Desktop Test Bench
Xeon X5670 6C12T
16GB DDR3 RAM
250GB Samsung EVO 850
3GB GTX 1060 EVGA ACX Gaming 'Mini' - Overclocked

Test Device 2: GTX 860M / GTX 750 Ti Bench
Core i7 4810MQ
16GB DDR3 SODIM RAM
120GB mSATA SSD
2GB GTX 860M, Slight overclocked

1080p Maximum Settings

Low End GPU Test: 
Aftershock X11 / Clevo W110ER
Core i7 3630QM
8GB RAM
GT 650M
Windows 7 Home Premium.


Although this game is relatively light on GPU power, more CPU power is definitely needed as your army grows larger as you'll very likely expect. But for most of the time, playable framerates, a GTX 860M that I had will be fine and a GTX 1060 3GB will hardly break a sweat at maximum settings at 1440p 60fps. However, old GPUs like the GT 650M can only settle at 768p at low details. Probably due to newer drivers don't really support Kepler based GPUs anymore.

More devices will be added later, as soon as I have the time to bench them.


Conclusion

Forged Battalion really brings back some of the old concepts and keep the spirit of Command And Conquer Generals alive. And being fairly light to run, it will be easy on the hardware. Since it's just went early access, the game is currently under promotional price of just over 10 USD which is pretty sweet. And considering this early stages of the game development, it is quite well optimised. And considering the price at 17 USD, and minus 15% from a promo deal, it may be worth taking a look, especially if you like real-time strategies like Dawn of War and Red Alert.

Intel Kaby Lake Refresh: The up gunned CPU Refresh... More cores = more performance?

Intel has leaked even more specs and details for the new line of CPUs that are set to appear at this final quarter of 2017 as well as a couple of confirmed Laptop ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) CPUs to the market.

Desktop

Starting with the Desktop CPUs. We'll definitely expect a HyperThreaded CPU in this line as its consumer flagship. As far as leaks go, it'll be a 6 Core CPU, with 12 threads. This will place it pretty much along the lines of examples like the X99 LGA 2011 based CPUs like the i7 5820K, and its successors the i7 6800K and 6850K SKUs. With the K suffix, we should expect nice gains from overclocks. Personally as far as the flagship X Series CPUs go, I judge the 6800 series as running real hot and requires some High End coolers to handle this TDP. But because of the efficiency of Kaby Lake which we should expect abit more for this one, I really hope this will become less of an issue.

But down the mainstream and cheaper line, things start to get plenty interesting. The i5s should get a Hex Core non-Hyperthreaded which is a really heavy boost compared to a Quad Core. It'll probably give performance that is almost as comparable as the old i7s. For i3s details are even juicier. The 8350K is specced as a Quad Core. As far as rumours about HyperThreading go, it might have it, it might not. Regardless of the case, I actually really am intrigued and interested on finding out its performance and heck, I wouldn't even mind if it doesn't have hyper threading. If 4 cores on an i3 remains true, that would be really nice and can bash the Ryzen 3 and 5s. All eyes on the i3s at least because this is gonna be interesting if even a non-Hyperthreaded Quad Core delivers the goods expected of it.

PROS: Big Competition on the budget side. True 4 core and 6 Core CPUs
CONS: Suspect high price.

Laptop

We have confirmed specs of their new ULV Laptop SKUs which just recently launched.

Core i7 8650U (4C8T, 6MB Cache)
Core i7 8550U (4C8T, 6MB Cache)
Core i5 8350U (4C8T, 4MB Cache)
Core i5 8250U (4C8T, 4MB Cache)

Compared to all the other Ultra Low Voltage Laptop chips prior to this, these two chips remains as true Quad Cores with Hyper Threading as we usually regard i7s as. The last generation was stuck with 2 Cores on the i7 7600U and 7500U so should be a big upgrade. Sure, base clock speeds will be lower in turn, but I reckon their Multi Threaded performance will definitely thrash some of the Quad Core i5 that popped up since Skylake. The 8650 and 8550 are specced at 15 Watts but can boost to 25 Watts TDP if required. The 8650U has a 1.9 GHz base to 4.2 GHz Turbo for a single core, which should give more than adequate Single threaded performance and the 8550U at 1.8 to 4.0. Also the other big difference with this Kaby Refresh, is doubling the Cache from 4MB to 8MB.

That should effectively increase the performance of ULV i7s by as much as 40-50% over their predecessors, especially their Multi-Threaded performance. Sure it won't be the regular 35W TDP cousins, but compare that with say the Quad Core i5 6300HQ, 6440HQ, 7300HQ and 7440HQ, for less TDP and with more Cores, should match the i5s at a respective level. It remains to be seen about the true performance of these Quad Cores, especially the i5 8350U and 8250U when it comes out.

The improvements don't stop there, the i5 Refresh do carry this Quad Core WITH hyperthreading trend. And it runs pretty well. Notebookcheck (German Region) did a review of the Acer Swift 3 that comes with an i5 8250U, and it matches up well with the i5 7300HQ, edging out the latter in both the Single and the Multi-Threaded scores on Cinebench.

Link:
https://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Acer-Swift-3-SF315-8250U-MX150-FHD-Laptop.250948.0.html

SMRT and the MRT Breakdowns: Get your act together, this is 2017.

I refer to the following article in light of the recent MRT incidents and stuff that I really should write in this blog of Paul's Tech Insights.

http://www.jeraldinephneah.com/singapore-mrt-breakdown/

It's not Computer Related, but in a way still Tech because of the systems involved in this government operated transport system. This is such a well written article questioning the reliability of the SMRT transport system. What the writer wrote got it absolutely spot-on.

 For myself, the plus side is I like taking the train, I like the system itself; I think it's pretty damn awesome but never like the breakdowns and the recent frequencies that it does.

After a few years of constant breakdowns and disruptions, it is time for SMRT to have a huge reality check. After all the price hikes and us commuters have to fork, we expect any bugs to be mostly ironed out, reliability back to where it should be. There's no excuse to leave themselves in denial of all this.

 For many, especially for #2 point Jeraldine highlighted, the MRT just can't afford to break down on people that doesn't have any other transport option whether the bus stop is so ulu, or change here change there on the bus....The public is just so dependant and needs to rely on it to run safely and fuss free as much as possible.

C'mon, it's 2017 now, and the system is well over 35 years old. And so many incidents of breakdowns and by now surely sensible protocols should have been thought up by now to avoid breakdown issues or accident issues.

This morning's breakdown was significant because it was taking place on an Exam day. The thing is MOE took SO LONG to post their reassurances that no penalties will be taken against them. And SMRT took SO LONG to deploy measures and stuff. Clearly, never learning from their past breakdowns and there's no more excuses anymore that just leave a bad taste in everybody's mouths. And from all the photos whenever a train breaks, SMRT's Crowd Control SUCKS, tell ya plain.

You know whenever you play for a concert or gig and it acts like a rehearsal to make the next one better. Every breakdown is a rehearsal for the following but not only it didn't improve, it just got worse.

But what about those without Facebook I wonder?

And what about the students too man? Entering the state of increasing Kanchiong-ness if you will when, the train breaks on a pivotal date. Who would want to take the exam in a mental state like this?
And what about logistics for both invigilators and students alike? 

Think about that. Any responsibilities from their affected results lies completely with SMRT because MOE within their capacity to be fair, cannot do anything about transport issues, cause' they ain't the root cause of the disruption chain.

No student should ever have to go through such an ordeal.

Speaking of accidents, look at the recent LRT incident where a man, I know drunk but then still..., got ran over not once, but twice. Whatever safety measures there is pretty much non-existent and no plans down the pipeline to make this line safer for commuters. Ridiculous! Furthermore, Not long ago, two workers got slammed by the MRT earlier. I don't see why in 2017, things like this still happen.

SMRT, you better get your act together. I wanna emphasise again, this is 2017, we should look towards much higher reliability in terms of way less or even no more breakdowns especially in the thick of moments. And less accidents, please. We also don't want any waste of life caused by safety lapses, do we?

Some help for trading (Singapore Only!) towards the ITX build that I held off for so long.

Heya all, I need some help with trading stuff or buy these parts from me. For a long time I've been holding off my ITX build for so long because I just don't have the budget. Now that I do, but also need to do a complete cleanup of so many parts here and there that now I need to do some consolidating here.

The ITX build although it was working under Ben, the Power Supply wasn't really doing much good till it died. Changing the Power Supply would do wonders there. So here is the parts that are certainly working.

MSI Z87I Board
Coolermaster Elite 120
Drives
RAM

And here is all this crap that I'm trying to sell or trade.
Look at all this stuff.

Quite a whole butt load of parts that I'm trying to sell for updated parts, if you guys can help me that'll be great!

Here's what I have there:

Graphics Cards
GTX 970: MSI Armor Edition
GTX 970: Palit Vanilla Edition.
Quadro 600
Radeon R9 290
Radeon 6950 (For parts, may not be working)
Radeon 5850 (Still works quite well there!)

CPUs:
Intel Core i7 2600K - LGA1155 4C8T
Intel Xeon W3565 - LGA1366 4C8T
Intel Core i3 4330 - LGA 1150 2C4T
Intel Core i3 2100 - LGA 1155 2C4T
Pentium G3258 - LGA1150 2C2T

Sounds quite a lot right?

What I am looking for are the following:
Core i7 4790K with a decent Low Profile Cooler
16GB in 2x8 if possible
GTX 1070.
650W PSU

So yup, some help to get my ITX build up and running would be great!

Apple's MacBook Pro 13 and 15 2016: Has Apple moved backwards?

Now just a few days ago Apple has announced their new 2016 Skylake line of MacBook Pros. The announcement they boast as supposedly 'Groundbreaking', may not sit well for some.

But why they think it is? Let's run through the specs and features they released earlier. As to where I usually get my information from, I usually keep updated via Notebookcheck. I'm also basing some of my observations from my experience with my MacBook Pro 13 with an i5 4278U, the one predecessor the new MBP 13s are designed to replace.

TOUCHBAR:

Their main feature is the Touchbar, which is available in the more expensive models of the MacBook 13 as well as the MacBook 15. Now new as they think it is, It's not as new a concept. In fact Razer, integrated touch pads with various functions in their Blade Lineup of Laptops. But this feature alone only jacked up the expensive laptop to be even more expensive. And even the base MBP 13 isn't exactly cheap either.

It's a very gimmicky addition. Although it adds shortcut features to many applications and programs, it's not something that would replace my Touchpad, Keyboard and Mouse. If you're a long time user like myself that have been accustomed to MacBooks since my days in Singapore Polytechnic from 2007, you can always rely on Hotkeys, that practically made stuff like this kinda irrelevant.


Underpowered Graphics:

Now granted the Skylake Iris Graphics for the MBP 13 are a big improvement over the Haswell line. But when it comes to gaming, it's not really super good for Triple A Titles. You can check the Iris 540 and Iris 550 pages with regards to their performance and their metrics speak for themselves.

Polaris Graphics have been kinda underwhelming too. At least for the RX460. Paying so much for a MBP 15 and all you get on a base model 15 that can only output just shy of 1 Teraflop / Second. And it's not exactly miles ahead of Iris Pro Graphics.

With the Base Radeon Pro 450, it has the power similar to an R7 250X / R9 M375X on paper which isn't exactly good for the price you pay for. And knowing AMD at this stage, they may just very well base these Radeons around rebadged Bonaire GPUs for all I know. Recently nVidia has just released the GTX 1050 Ti. The power draw may be high at 75W but it wouldn't have been a problem for them to shrink its TDP down like what they already did on their other GTX 10 series graphics.

Now ever since they released the first MacBook with a Type C USB Port, I've since never liked the design philosophy behind it. With only one port in that, there's one big thing that I hate....

Adapters, Adapters and MORE Adapters!!! UGH!!!!!

Because, this is the only ports they have!

Nothing but USB Type Cs!

Sure, the High Bandwidth from Thunderbolt 3 is nice but not everyone has room for adapters all the freaking time! I can only tolerate as far as needing an adapter for my displays from my Thunderbolt 2 port of my MacBook Haswell 13. But at 35 SGD, even one adapter is expensive! Thankfully, the MBP 2016 line didn't do an IPhone 7 which is ditching the 3.5mm Audio / Headphone jack. That was an extremely weird and bad implementation on the said phone.

But here is a big reason why:
Sure, they advertise these new MacBooks as potentially the most portable laptop in the world. There's a big But to it, thanks to the MBP's heavy reliance on those freaking adapters for the only type of ports they have!

If you need to connect other devices or friends want to back some data out, you need to have so many adapters with you. Now this is not a joke, if you have too many adapters to bring with you, it becomes so unsightly to see so much cable clutter on your desk! Worse still if you've only a small area on your desk to work with. It's just that tedious!

Therefore, you'll lose the whole point of what true portability is, which is supposed to be the name of the game in your MacBook Pro!

I had been so thankful for my Haswell MacBook 13 as my daily driver because it has all the ports that I require including an all important SD Card Slot which has become my main form of Secondary Storage. This all in one combination of I/O means I really don't need to bring anything else with me to school!

COST!

Still having said that, the cost (I wanna emphasize:) even for my Refurb unit is quite hard to swallow at 1.5K SGD when mum bought it. Now the cost is a lot worse.

I really thought, BY NOW, costs of even the most expensive 13-Inch Macs should be WELL below the 2,000 SGD mark, and the most expensive 15-Inch, well below 3,000. I know Apple has been known not to sell at budget prices but for a student who is a powerhouse content creator like myself who needs power on a budget, we just don't have that kind of money to spill, do we?

And if you think about it, for the specs you see? How much less can you find a laptop with similar specs, it's like 30-45% less man! You can easily find laptops like this way cheaper or laptops way more powerful than this for the price of this MBP 13.

And harking back to the cost of the adapters, just to get enough adapters required would very well be like a quarter the cost of the laptop which is incredibly ludicrous! Despite the recent temporary price drops, it's still on the high side.


What they did right though:

It's kinda hard to pin point the areas and specs that Apple had done right for this iteration of the MacBook Pro. And if there were any, it wasn't much at all except retaining a few things as most of the new features implemented I feel are kinda gimmicky, good to have but really not needed. Few things they retained are the awesome Retina 16:10 screen with great brightness and color accuracy. 2560 x 1600 for a 13" and 2880 x 1800 for a 15". And even right now, the resolution can't get much better for a 13". Also retained is the trackpad. My Haswell Trackpad has been good to begin with and has been serving me well, was made better with the larger size. Last thing they did retain is the build quality which you bloody well expect it from Apple given to how expensive and somehow underpowered this laptop is.

BOTTOMLINE:

So has Apple potentially moved backwards? Knowing the company has been a money whore for a while, I would really say so as a matter of factly. Or actually the literal definition would be: Apple is leaving its customers and consumers behind. The new changes implemented made it more unreasonably expensive for their performance per dollar but also for all the thunderbolt adapters and crap.

That's the reason why I never intend to switch from my current MacBook Pro 13, which in itself despite its tiny 128GB SSD, has served me so incredibly well during my time here in LASALLE.

So Apple, please get your shit together ya because if you think about it, sometimes, simplicity is still best.