Apple will be launching a new 16-inch MacBook Pro with the new scissor-mechanism based keyboard and thin bezels. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg has confirmed via his sources that the new portable Mac will be launching this Wednesday for $2,399. The redesigned MacBook Pro will be the first major update for the line-up since 2015, when Apple moved to a thinner design and Butterfly keyboard mechanism.
16-inch MacBook Pro
Apple gave private briefings and demos this week in New York, to select members of the press, which means that we may see some hands-on previews as soon as Apple announces the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. Here are all the new features we expect to see in the new Pro machine:
Display
The new Pro will keep the same dimensions as the 15-inch models, and increase the display size by shrinking the bezels. With major product design upgrades, Apple always improves the display tech too. Apple does not feature HDR on any of their portable Macs, so it would be great if they do so with the new MacBook Pro. iPad Pro already has support for Dolby Vision and 'Mobile HDR'.
Keyboard
The controversial MacBook keyboard is also going through a change. The butterfly switch mechanism will be replaced by a scissor switch mechanism, which was also used in older MacBooks. Apple switched to the butterfly switches because it allowed them to make the MacBooks thinner.
Leaks have already confirmed that a physical Escape key will be included in the new model, alongside the Touch Bar and Touch ID. We were hoping that Apple would finally include Face ID on a Mac but Apple does not move that fast on introducing new features on their desktop and portable Macs.
Performance
Other than that, we expect the new 16-inch MacBook Pro to feature Intel's Coffee Lake H refresh processors and even faster SSDs. There will be different variants of the Pro with discrete AMD graphics options.
Price
The 16-inch MacBook Pro will sell for the same price as the existing 15-inch MacBook Pro model, i.e., $2,399. For customers who were hoping for a price reduction, this is not good news. However, it is expected that Apple will either match the price of the current-generation MacBook Pro or charge more, since they are launching a new design. If Apple has fixed the keyboard for good, and resolved thermal issues, they should be able to sell a lot of units this Christmas season.
Apple will also be launching the new Mac Pro by December, which was announced during WWDC 2019. We are not sure if Apple also demoed the Mac Pro to the press earlier this week.
Update: Mark Gurman has shared some more details on the upcoming MacBook Pro. The display will be just 4% larger than the current 15-inch model, but it will have better resolution. Other feature improvements would be better speakers, noise cancelling microphones and the new keyboard.
The screen on the new MacBook Pro is less than 4% larger than the current 15.4 inch. So it’s really going to be about the higher resolution, impressive speakers, noise cancelling microphones and of course the all new keyboard (similar to the iMac external Magic Keyboard).
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) November 13, 2019
