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The 15-inch MacBook won again on the Excel VLookup test, which matches 60,000 names to addresses, finishing in 52 seconds, or 24 seconds longer than the 1:16 time from the 13-inch MacBook Pro.īoth notebooks feature astonishingly fast storage, as the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test clocked the SSDs with write speeds of between 2,600 MBps (15-inch) and 2,682 MBps (13-inch). That's about 3.5 minutes less than the 13-inch MacBook Pro's time of 14:47.
2015 macbook pro 13 vs 2016 macbook pro 13 1080p#
The 15-inch machine won another round when we converted a 4K video to 1080p in the HandBrake app, with the larger machine finishing in 10 minutes and 16 seconds. The most drastic difference is shown on the Geekbench 4.1 general performance test, in which the 15-inch MacBook Pro notched a clobbering 23,138, beating the 17,348 from the 13-inch model.
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To see how the fastest-possible models of these beasts compare, we tested a 15-inch MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i9-8950HK CPU and 32GB of RAM and a 13-inch MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i7-8559U CPU and 16GB of RAM. Meanwhile, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is limited to less-powerful quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 processors and maxes out at 16GB of RAM. That's the 15-inch MacBook Pro, which sports 6-core Intel Core i7 and Core i9 CPUs, with up to 32GB of RAM. Winner: Draw Performance: Fast and fasterīoth MacBook Pros are speedy beasts, but it's much easier to equip one of them to the nines with the fastest parts. The two trackpads are equally sensitive and offer a similar experience.
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The keys require similar amounts of actuation force, with measurements of 63 grams from the 15-inch MacBook Pro and 61 grams from the 13-inch MacBook Pro.īoth MacBook Pros feature large Force Touch trackpads, with the 13-inch version measuring 5.3 x 3.3 inches and the 15-inch version measuring 6.3 x 3.9 inches. While the keys on both laptops are relatively shallow, the 15-inch MacBook Pro's keys have a higher 0.7mm of travel, which is 40 percent more the 0.5mm travel in the 13-inch model. Testing the keyboards on the typing test, I click-clacked my way to rates of between 75 and 82 words per minute, with neither laptop offering speedier writing. Both machines feature Apple's third-generation butterfly switches, which the company claims enable quieter typing, and teardowns suggest that these switches offer greater reliability. When you're typing, the experiences on these MacBook Pros are more similar than different. Winner: 15-inch MacBook Pro Keyboard and Touchpad: Mostly the same The 15-inch machine pumped out louder sound, without a hint of distortion at the loudest settings. Listening to Mitski's "Nobody" on both notebooks, I noticed how clearly the drum cymbals came through and how serene her voice sounded. the 15-inch MacBook Pro's 354 nits.Īll that being said, watching videos is no worse on one screen compared to the other, and both have a reason to win you over.īoth the 13- and 15-inch MacBooks feature solid sound, but one is the better jam box. The 13-inch MacBook also shone brighter, with 398 nits vs. In fact, our colorimeter marked the 13-inch MacBook Pro as more colorful, with a 125.3 sRGB gamut rating (narrowly beating the 15-inch Pro's 119 percent mark). While the 15-inch MacBook Pro's 15.4 inch, 2880 x 1800-pixel display might be larger than the smaller MacBook Pro's 13.3-inch, 2560 x 1600-pixel panel, that's the larger machine's only display win. They look like the stretched-out or shrunk-down versions of each other, as each sports the same design that's been around since 2016 and offers four Thunderbolt 3 ports. When you look at the new, revamped Touch Bar MacBook Pros, they appear nearly identical. Radeon Pro 555X (4GB GDDR5 memory), Radeon Pro 560X (4GB GDDR5 memory), Radeon Pro Vega 16 (4GB of HBM2 memory), Radeon Pro Vega 20 (4GB of HBM2 memory)įour Thunderbolt 3 ports, headphone jack, Touch ID fingerprint reader, Touch Bar
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