about the year 2019.

In June at WWDC, Apple announced iPadOS

which, feature for feature,

addressed a bunch of complaints that we had,

like USB drives and web browsing.

And Apple also announced the new Mac Pro,

which finally replaced the old trash can

and was designed for the way pros actually need

to use their computers - they just made it big again.

And then in September, Apple released the iPhone 11

and 11 Pro, and it fixed the things that people care

the most about - camera quality and battery life.

Apple also just made it a little bit thicker.

Finally, Apple put a smart keyboard connector

on the base of iPad, and then a little bit later,

released the AirPods Pro, which actually stay

in my ears, and they also happen to do noise canceling.

It has been a year of Apple doing obvious things.

Not the flashiest things, not the, "This changes everything"

things, just the things that we wanted Apple to do.

And so now we have this, the new 16" MacBook Pro.

In a parallel universe, we wouldn't review this

on a video at all, because it would just be

a minor spec bump.

Instead, it is a laptop full of Apple fixing the things

that is has done wrong on the MacBook for years.

It's a pretty good way to cap off 2019.

(relaxed synth music)

Let's just start by catching you up on the basics

of what's new with this laptop,

even though by now you're probably already familiar.

So, the screen is half an inch or so bigger than before,

so it's 16 inches now.

The keyboard has been switched to the new scissor switch,

a more traditional kind of switch,

along with a real escape key.

The laptop has also been made just a little bit thicker

and it's a little bit better at dissipating heat

than before.

The speakers are all new and they're amazing,

and the graphics cards are the most interesting part

of all the spec bumps here.

But if you want, you can get a ton of RAM

or storage, if you need to get those.

I asked a bunch of you what you wanted me to test

on this computer on YouTube, and on my email newsletter

and on Twitter, and I got a ton of responses

but they all break down into some

pretty predictable categories.

And at the tippy top of that list is the keyboard,

so let's do this.

(keys tapping)

The keyboard is absolutely good.

In some ways it's leap ahead of other modern keyboards,

it has good key travel, and the backlight doesn't

bleed out all over the place.

In terms of key feel, it's firm and not really that springy,

at least compared to the old 2015 MacBooks,

but I like it.

It has a satisfying and fairly quiet thunk.

(keys striking)

It really is a massive upgrade over those butterfly keys,

and iFixit says that the key caps

are easy to replace too.

And yes, there is now an escape key again,

and the arrow keys are way easier to hit

because they have this inverted T shape.

All the keys are spaced a little bit further apart

because the key caps are just a little bit smaller,

and it's much less likely that you're going to

accidentally tap on the touch bar.

Oh yeah, the touch bar.

I personally don't know anybody who really loves it.

You can use third party tools like BetterTouchTool

or Pock to change it up,

but it's not going anywhere and so you might as well

get used to it.

Got a bunch of questions about battery life,

especially since there's a 100-watt hour battery,

the FA limit, inside this thing,

and it seems good.

I am getting through a full day of work

up to the eight-hour range

just doing my basic web, Twitter, YouTube office stuff

that I do.

I mean it certainly should, it has that giant battery

inside this chonk.

It weighs 4.3lbs and it's just a little bit bigger

than the other 15" MacBooks,

but unless your 15" laptop was already tight in your bag,

this one should probably fit in there just fine.

Oh, by the way, I also had people ask

if the battery drains even when it's plugged in

and you've got it under heavy load,

and so far that hasn't happened to me at all.

Next up, a lot of people asked about performance

and specifically thermal throttling,

so we need to talk about that for a minute.

Basically Apple had a big problem on it's hands last year

with the last MacBook Pro, which was

all kinds of unpredictable when it came to

slowing down the processor because of heat.

Apple released some software updates which helped,

but the bottom line is that that laptop

couldn't run as hot as other laptops.

This year, Apple increased the size of the heatsink,

made the fans blow more air,

and even added a little bit of thickness

to help with airflow, and it worked.

There can be any number of things off with this benchmark

that you're looking at on your screen right now.

Unless you're really carefully testing it

in like lab conditions, all sorts of random variables

are going to change your result.

But what I see here is a processor that can hit it's turbo

and then settles into an entirely predictable,

stable, and respectable speed over time,

and that is not what we saw last year.

So, you know, bravo.

But more important than benchmarks is results,

and a lot of you asked me to run your particular software

and tools and y'all, I just gotta tell you,

I'm not going to be able to test everybody's workflow.

I just can't afford to buy that much software too.

But what I can tell is that for our video team,

the improvements here in Adobe Premiere Pro

over last year's model are pretty modest.

Compared to a fairly comparable machine from a year ago,

this 16" was like 3-5% faster

on a half-hour export.

That's not much, but then again Adobe isn't great

at utilizing the GPU.

Now, Jonathan Morrison runs Final Cut Pro 10

and I'll link to the video where he tested this below,

and he saw much more improvement.

I also saw some GPU improvements myself.

Here is "Rise of the Tomb Raider"

it's running with all the default graphics settings

on a 2018 6-core i9 with a Radeon Pro Vega 20

and then this new 2019 16" with an 8-core i9

and the Radeon Pro 5500M.

The old MacBook got 29.99 frames per second,

and this 16" was around 52.

Here's where I land on performance.

It is better year over year, just like you'd expect,

especially on graphics,

but it's not a huge change unless your software

really uses the GPU.

It's also pretty great that you can get as much storage

or RAM as you want, so long as you're willing to pay for it.

The base model starts at $2,399 but there are

a ton of options,

and so you can get it all the way up to $6,099

if you need to.

Now, I only got a couple of questions

about the new speakers and the new studio microphones

which is kind of a bummer,

because these are actually my favorite parts

of this computer, especially the speakers

which do this really clever thing

where the two woofers on each side

cancel out each other's vibrations

which allows for more bass.

We set up a bunch of laptops and audio gear

back in our New York studio last week,

and we just tried it all out.

All right, so we're here in the studio

and Andrew has set up a bunch of cool audio gear.

We've got binaural audio recording microphones

with ears on them and a Blue microphone,

but what you're listening to right now

is the studio three-mic array from the MacBook Pro itself,

and we're going to compare this microphone

to a few other things,

and I'm going to read the same thing across all of them

because then we'll have an equal test.

So, four-score and seven years ago,

our fathers brought forth onto this continent

a new nation conceived in liberty

and dedicated to the proposition that all men

are created equal.

All right, we're back on the 2019 16" MacBook Pro

and since these are studio-quality microphones

we should probably listen to some actual music on them,

so let's do that.

(cheerful acoustic strumming)

The really impressive thing with this laptop though

is the speakers.

Apple has a six-speaker array, three on each side,

and two of them on each side are these woofers

that are designed to cancel out each other's vibrations.

And you really have to hear it in person to hear it,

but what you're listening to right now

is me talking into the ear-shaped microphones

on this binaural audio set-up,

and so we'll do our best so that you can try and hear

a little bit of it,

but you really need to wear headphones

to catch the differences here, if it works.

(high-intensity synth music)

So the microphone, it's pretty good

but it's maybe not quite studio quality.

The speakers though, they are the best that I've ever heard

on a laptop.

Here is what I think of the 16" MacBook Pro.

The speakers and the microphone are huge upgrades,

the screen is a small upgrade,

and the performance is a decent upgrade

depending on whether or not your software needs a good GPU.

And then there's the keyboard,

which is a massive upgrade

if you compare it to the butterfly keys,

and a medium upgrade if you compare it to

literally any other keyboard.

The 16" MacBook Pro is the first MacBook Pro in years

that doesn't come with any major caveats.

If you've been holding out on buying one,

this is the one that you've been waiting for.

All of which leads me to the other question,

maybe the most-asked question that I got.

What about the 13" MacBook Pro?

What about the MacBook Air?

Are they going to get the new or the old, the keyboard?

Are they going to get the keyboard?

Well, I wish I knew.

But if 2020 is anything like 2019

and Apple just keeps doing the obvious things,

I'm optimistic.

Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching.

Let me know down in the comments,

is this the laptop that you've been waiting for?

Also it's LA Auto week, and there is a ton of stuff.

We saw the Mustang Mach-E SUV electric thing from Ford,

and Elon Musk has tweeted that the Cybertruck

is coming tonight,

so keep it locked to the Verge.